Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 8:47PM Pictures are appearing all over the web, flickr and other sites, capturing the essence of last week's Do Lectures in close up. One particularly good example is this one from George Gilbert. It was a huge bonus to have so many talented professional and hobby photographers capturing the images of the talks that will be posted soon.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 2:52PM Last weekend's Do Lectures were the most amazing weekend of my life; four days spent with some of the brightest, most caring Doers that you could ever hope to meet. Do colleague Leonora Oppenheim is blogging summaries of the talks on Treehugger. Here's a taster:
"Turn off your TV", "Get Rid of your TV", "I haven't owned a TV in years!" This refrain was heard throughout The Do Lectures this year, putting a damper on our nights slobbing out in front of the box. Right out of the starting gate came graphic designer Geoff McFetridge with the statement "Never watch TV it's just not good for you!" "But", came the response, "What about good TV?" And then, almost in unison, everyone said "But what about The Wire?" Nope, it seems that if you are a Doer TV just doesn't cut it, not even The Wire. So folks what shall we do instead?
The Big Do + The Small Do
Each speaker throughout The Do Lectures was asked at the end of their talk for a 'Big Do' and a 'Small Do'. Geoff Mcfetridge's Big Do was really a don't - don't have a TV. His Small Do suggested what we can do instead - draw for half an hour a day. Even if you are not an artist just set a stopwatch for 30 mins and doodle, see how it calms you down and clears your mind.
We'll be posting talks in the coming weeks, and aiming to enable over 1 million people to do a little more in the next 12 months. Email me if you want to get involved as a volunteer, speaker or participant
Do Lectures, action, change, sustainability Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 10:55PM The Guardian posted an article today announcing that Simon Dee, the UK's first chatshow host had died. He used to stay at Whitesands Bay Hotel, where I now live and I have great memories of playing with him and his son when I was in my teens, recovering treasure (as we saw it) from the wreck of the pilot paddle steamer 'Guiding Star' that could be seen at low tide at Whitesands. For my efforts of passing hammers and chisels to Simon and the wrecking crew, I was given an old brass valve, which adorned the fire place at Twr-y-Felin hotel until stolen by some weasel 25 years later.
I have fond memories of a great summer with Simon Dee and his son. Rest in peace.
Simon_Dee Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 1:15PM Franny Armstrong and her amazing team from the Age of Stupid have created a new campaign, 1010, which launches at the Tate Modern in London on Tuesday 1st September. The idea is simple, and impact potentially huge: commit to reducing your carbon footprint by 10% in 2010, by targetting the four biggest areas of carbon and reducing each of those by 10% relative to this year as a benchmark:
One thing strong and noticeable about the measures is that the 1010 team do not recognise any form of carbon offsets or green tariff electricity as counting as part of this reduction. Reductions are for real.
Sign
1010, Climate, action, age_of_stupid, carbon_reduction Friday, August 28, 2009 at 4:05PM A good article has been published by Georgia Tech describing the way that the multi-facted shell shapes of the Jewell Beetle are used to create colours. The researchers who have been studying the design sense an opportunity to create a biomimetic adaptation of the principles to create smaller optics.
We've only started to unpick the edge of the richness that nature has to offer; better stop it unravelling when we can...
Jewell-beetle, biomimicry 