Biomimicry talk in London

There's a handful of biomimicry talks at EcoBuild in London next week:

1. Principles of biomimicry - Michael Pawlyn, Exploration Architecture
2. Ecosystems as architectural inspiration - Jerry Tate
3. Biomimicry and organisational excellence - AM
4. Biomimcry in product design - Nigel Stansfield, Interface Flor

Travelling responsibly

A piece in today's Guardian caught my eye:

Justin Francis, founder of ResponsibleTravel.com, which organises trips for eco-conscious travellers, said: "Experience for money is becoming just as important as value for money. Egypt offers a depth and range of iconic experiences at prices that countries in the eurozone struggle to match, given the weak pound."

It's hard to imagine how eco-conscious travellers can still manage to balance 'a depth and range of iconic experiences' with the increased size of their carbon footprint. I'm in my sixth year of no-fly holidays, and the trips we've had as a family has been some of the best, including two cycling trips in France that used leg power and public transport, and a couple of weeks' surfng on the west coast of Irleland, with three in the car.

Responsible travel? Eco conscious?

Forget the platitudes. Work out your ecological footprint and carbon impact first. Then, conscious of your impact, decide on your next trip.

Courage or compliance

Seth Godin posted an interesting blog today about the balance between teaching compliance and innovation; it prompted me to think about the fear-driven measurements that society has become so comfortable with using. Measuring what we know we can teach is wonderful for short term safety, yet doesn't teach many of the skills that will give us the innovation we need to find new, human-friendly ways of doing things.

It's good to aim for innovation, for sure, and before we get that, it's important to focus on doing some gardening. Grow some courage, commitment and passion - they're the food for innovation.

Here's the blog post:

"Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat.

Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It's difficult to brag about in a school board meeting. And it's a huge pain in the neck to do reliably.

Schools like teaching compliance. They're pretty good at it.

To top it off, until recently the customers of a school or training program (the companies that hire workers) were buying compliance by the bushel. Initiative was a red flag, not an asset.

Of course, now that's all changed. The economy has rewritten the rules, and smart organizations seek out intelligent problem solvers. Everything is different now. Except the part about how much easier it is to teach compliance."

Oil:Plastic bottles: Plastiki

A couple of years back, I ran a workshop in London to help bring together the thinking, design, communication and vision of the Plastiki expedition, a left-field project conceived by David de Rothschild to sail across the Pacific on a raft made out of plastic bottles.

David's goal was (and is) to underline the damage caused by thinking that we can use our oceans as a refuse dump, and to demonstrate the ecological awareness that can be engendered by treating your local area and home as though you were self-sufficient, and living on a boat.

They're due to set sail any day. http://www.theplastiki.com/

May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face

Happy sailing.

Peak Oil - raising the challenge bar

George Monbiot, writing in today's Guardian, points out the risks and relative importance of peak oil, on one hand, pushing investment towards ever-dirtier sources of oil - shales and coal, for instance, balanced against the soothing sounds of 'it's OK - we've found more oil'.

In terms of finding more, it's the scale that counts, as Monbiot says:

"In terms of total global supply, the trade body's [Oil & Gas UK] projections  don't make much difference...[they] suggest that the possible extra reserves are split roughly equally. This would mean an extra 2.9bn barrels of oil, which equates to around one month of global consumption"

Once again, the question for us to ask is 'so what?' or 'now what'. If you didn't write a letter following my last post, write one now.