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The Art of Waste

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 8:35 pm
by harrymcq
http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php

I was reading about this in the NY Times... pretty cool and a bit scary.

Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:33 am
by kate9487
thanks for sharing this --- it blew my mind... in the worst possible way.

Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:42 am
by Big Bob
Yeah, it's kinda disturbing. I think I saw this guy on the Colbert Report.

...ah here's a video

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/colbe ... 1384726975

Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 12:10 pm
by magpie
disturbing indeed.
disturbing enough to provoke change? i wonder...

is anyone paying attention?

the power of visualization

Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 12:54 pm
by Phrazz
This is certainly thought-provoking, but since it's "contrived", it impacts me less than let's say a photo of rubbish on the beach. If we took 6 (or 7) billion people on the planet and just looked at eyeballs, it would be a colossus the size of Manhattan even if the eyes were the size of the period at the end of this sentence. (well, maybe not that huge)

I'm not saying the statistical representation is skewed, but it is definitely dramatic for effect. So it's noble, but we have to realize the solutions are far from easy and everyone at least thinking about change is a step in the right direction.

We generate far too much waste every day, and I've slowly been able to carefully plan what I buy to reduce our household to less than a small garbage bag a week (the rest is recycled, about twice that by volume). I'm going to replace plastic with reusable cloth bags (I have 2 so far, need 3 or 4) and I try not to buy items that aren't recyclable (like OJ containers that mix cardboard and plastic aren't as good as all plastic or all cardboard).

It is of course impractical and unsanitary to reuse glass bottles and buy juice in bulk, and I eat more oranges these days (of course the peel is biodegradable...fruits and vegetables are already packaged for us to a large extent). But just think of any item...clothing...shoes...these things all wear out and end up in the waste stream sometime. It's a great benefit that recent battery technology has been reducing the toxic metals in our soil (NiMH are much more eco-friendly than alkaline, for instance) and even some solar technology is starting to be developed with safer formulations. Some people don't even know mercury is bad...though it's become far more rare these days as people get more educated. It would seem obvious to me that the "green revolution" is both underway and largely accepted by the public, but with so many Hummers parked near the Pentagon, I can see where the main problems originate (lust for power, greed, all that fun stuff that's part of human nature and hard or impossible to eradicate).

Regardless of how good we make our waste stream, we still have problems with the population explosion. "Too little too late" keeps coming to mind and maybe we're doomed no matter what we do. Even still, we should try to improve...but how can we improve the world's overreaching population? There seems to be no answer to what I feel is the most important question of all: how do we get people to stop having so many babies??? If we can solve that one in a meaningful and peaceful way, then we may truly have progress on a giant evolutionary scale.

Otherwise, welcome to The Matrix. That's more of a prediction than a warning (just like 1984). We already have the beginnings of SkyNet. The future looks pretty gloomy overall, but has some silver linings if we look hard enough. Or we can just run and hide.

-Phrazz

Re: the power of visualization

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 11:19 pm
by tonygaboni
I am shocked and valued, yes.