Naked Kate Moss Paper Doll Warns Against Overconsumption

What does turning model Kate Moss into a used-up hag have to do with being green? Well, Kate teamed up with Green Thing to create a pair of videos that are basically like a green version of the movie Sliding Doors. In the first one, Kate, played by a paper doll, takes every chance to consume as much as possible, and in the second she reuses and recycles things instead.

Green Thing says:

Take one person and make her the ultimate twister, taking every chance to consume something new. Now take the same person and make them the ultimate sticker, sticking with what they had wherever possible. How different would their lives be? That was question that the talented animators David Altweger, Mira Loew, Guillaume Cornet of Unit 10 Collective (www.unit10collective.com) wanted to explore – with one super-ironic twist. What if that person was the world’s premier consumption temptress, a certain Katherine Ann Moss? The result is a brilliant slice of double stop frame fantasy exclusive to Green Thing.

Check it out:

As the soundtrack repeats “New dress, new bag, new phone, new shoes, new man, new phone, but still not happy,” Kate is seen caught in the cycle of consumerism, slowly falling apart over the years until her death in 2037 (announced with the headline, “Overused Kate disintegrates in club”).

But the alternate reality Kate happily dances away in a garden to the tune of “Keep it – play with it – mend it – love it.”

To say that it’s bizarre is putting it mildly – why is there something coming out of her boob? Who are the scary faceless black cutouts in the club? Why is Bruno still front-page news in 2037? But beneath the weirdness is a good message: reuse good. Overconsumption bad.

Link [Green Thing]

World Energy Outlook ‘Patently Unsustainable’

Grim news from the International Energy Agency this week. The organization’s annual World Energy Outlook reports that the earth simply can’t sustain current trends in energy supply and consumption, and that we’ve got to cut back, stat – but it won’t be easy.

Nobuo Tanaka, the IEA’s Executive Director, says rising imports of oil and gas from the increasingly concentrated production in a small number of countries puts us at even bigger risk of major disruptions. At the same time, our greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise, putting the world on track for a global temperature increase of up to 6 degrees Celsius.

From The Daily Green:

If government policies don’t change, the world will spend $1 trillion on energy — much of it fossil fuels — and demand will grow 45% by 2030, a slightly slower rate of growth than was predicted last year because of the economic crisis. China and India would account for half the growth in world energy demand, and world cities would account for three-quarters of total demand.

Demand for oil would rise nearly 25% and will remain the world’s “main source of energy” for years to come, even under the most “optimistic” alternative scenarios. But it could come at an increasing cost, as supplies dwindle, oil supplies are nationalized, sources shift to non-traditional forms like oil shale, oil sands and deep-sea deposits, and political instability disrupts supply. “The era of cheap oil is over,” Tanaka said.

Renewable energy, even under current government policies, will become the second-biggest source of electricity sometime in the next few years.

Carbon dioxide emissions will increase 45% by 2030, if current trends continue unabated. Three-quarters of the increase will come from China, India and the Middle East. Reducing emissions to prevent a 3-degree (C) rise in temperature would take a $4.1 trillion investment ($17 per person per year) by 2030 primarily in energy efficiency so that vehicles, homes and appliances demand less energy. That investment would deliver fuel-cost savings of $7 trillion or more. But to prevent a 2-degree temperature increase, the cost would rise to $9.3 trillion, as the world invested heavily in non-polluting forms of energy, and the fuel-cost savings drops to just $5.8 trillion.

Scary. I don’t know about you, but things like this make me even more grateful that we’ve at least got President Elect Obama about to take charge, instead of another Republican who’d continue the status quo. This is no time to let oil industry buddies influence how we move forward on such a pressing problem.

Link [The Daily Green]

California Uses More Gasoline than Any Country in the World

California has a reputation for being one of the greenest states in America, environmentally speaking. We hear so much about their progressive laws and programs, and how people there are on the frontlines of the fight against global warming. And yet, somehow, they manage to be huge resource hoggers. California alone uses more gasoline than any country in the world (aside from the US as a whole).  Even China.

From Wired:

That’s according to the California Energy Commission’s State Alternative Fuels Plan, which was posted online last Christmas Eve (pdf). The whole report makes for some fascinating reading because it’s a blueprint for a low-carbon and renewable transportation fuel future. The dominant takeaway: it ain’t going to be easy.

One more choice statistic: gasoline usage in California has increased 50 percent, that’s 10 6.7 billion gallons, since 1988. Has there been anything close to a commensurate increase in quality of life here to accompany that rise in energy use?

Of course, China will quickly catch up and their consumption rate will far exceed California’s – and it won’t be too long before that happens. Still, though – that’s a lot of gas, even for a large populous state.

If you’re a Californian, what’s your take on this? Poor public transportation, too many people on the road, and lots or sprawl?

Link [Wired]
Photo credit: Flickr user respres

Inventor of Virtual Water Honored by Stockholm International Water Institute, Wins 150 Large

Anthony Allan, a professor at King’s College in London, was recently honored by the Stockholm International Water Institute for his contributions to water research (the honor is no joke: they gave him $150,000). He was recognized for inventing the concept of “virtual water” back in 1993. This concept has revolutionized the way people think about water consumption and it’s worth pausing on this occasion to give it some attention.

Basically, virtual water refers to the water required to produce a commodity. A famous example is a cup of coffee; the process of making that single cup actually requires 140 liters of water (about 37 gallons) to grow and ship the beans. A single hamburger requires 2,400 liters, a beer about 75 liters, and wheat takes 1,300 liters to make 2.2 pounds.

Allan explained, “The water is said to be virtual because once the wheat is grown, the real water used to grow it is no longer actually contained in the wheat. The concept of virtual water helps us realize how much water is needed to produce different goods and services. In semi-arid and arid areas, knowing the virtual water value of a good or service can be useful towards determining how best to use the scarce water available.”

The term “virtual water”–just the term–has always sounded wrong to me, like the water in a video game (Rollercoaster Tycoon, maybe). The water that the term refers to is real enough; it’s simply not physically there with the final commodity. It is sometimes, therefore, called “hidden water” or “embedded water.” But that’s just a problem with the term. The concept itself is essential.

Link [The Raw Story]

Photo Credit: Flickr User Laszlo