NYT Columnist Thomas Friedman Discusses Energy Technology

New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman appeared on “Meet the Press” earlier this week to discuss the need for ‘energy revolution’.  Friedman is currently on a book tour in support of Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – and How it Can Renew America. Friedman discusses the need for competitive, innovative work in alternative energy across the world to get things back on the right track.

“ET, energy technology, is going to be the next IT.  The next great industrial revolution.  And I’m a big believer that which country dominates that economic revolution, that industry, is going to have the most security, the most respect, the most competitive industry, and the most healthy population.  I want that to be our country.”

Friedman makes a number of excellent points.  Green can lead this country into a golden age of productivity and happiness.  Let’s hope that more people begin to realize how important energy technology really is to the future of America and the world.

Link [Grist]

Architect Incorporates Mystery into Fifth Ave Apartment

This story isn’t really green, it’s just too awesome to pass up. An architect in NYC decided to go the extra mile – or 10 – when working on one family’s $8.5 million Fifth Avenue apartment. The luxurious digs don’t just house the family’s four children, dog and a lot of very expensive furniture; it’s got some amazing surprises hidden inside.

From The New York Times:

But some of that furniture and some of those walls conceal secrets — messages, games and treasures — that make up a Rube Goldberg maze of systems and contraptions conceived by a young architectural designer named Eric Clough, whose ideas about space and domestic living derive more from Buckminster Fuller than Peter Marino.

The apartment even comes with its own book, part of which is a fictional narrative that recalls “The Da Vinci Code” (without the funky religion or buckets of blood) and “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” the children’s classic by E. L. Konigsburg about a brother and a sister who run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discover — and solve — a mystery surrounding a Renaissance sculpture. It has its own soundtrack, too, with contributions by Kate Fenner, a young Canadian singer and songwriter with a lusty, alternative, Joni Mitchell-ish sound, with whom Mr. Clough fell in love during the project.

Mr. Clough (Mr. Clue?) gathered 40 creative professionals together to create the scavenger hunt inside the apartment, which all starts with a hidden message on one of the bedroom’s ceilings. One cipher led to another, and it took the family months to get through them all. Read the full account at The New York Times for all the details; it’s like an incredibly imaginative children’s tale come to life. How awesome would that be – to move into a new home and have a mystery waiting for you?

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Mmm, Roasted Plains Pronghorn Antelope! To Save a Species from Extinction, Serve it for Dinner

When you’re deciding what to cook for dinner, your first thought might not be Tennessee fainting goat, the Makah ozette potato or the Carolina Flying Squirrel. First of all, they’re endangered, which you’d think would mean we should not be eating them. Second, we’ve become accustomed to eating a somewhat narrow range of ‘acceptable’ foods even though choices for nutritious, edible meals abound far beyond what’s typically found in an American refrigerator.

Gary Paul Nabhan is compiling a list of endangered plants and animals that were once commonly eaten in America, but are now threatened or extinct in grocery stores and restaurants. From the New York Times:

Mr. Nabhan’s list, 1,080 items and growing, forms the basis of his new book, an engaging journey through the nooks and crannies of American culinary history titled “Renewing America’s Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent’s Most Endangered Foods” (Chelsea Green Publishing, $35).

The book tells the stories of 93 ingredients both obscure (Ny’pa, a type of salt grass) and beloved (the Black Sphinx date), along with recipes that range from the accessible (Centennial pecan pie) to the challenging (whole pit-roasted Plains pronghorn antelope).

To make the list, an animal or plant — whether American eels, pre-Civil War peanuts or Seneca hominy flint corn — has to be more than simply edible. It must meet a set of criteria that define it as a part of American culture, too. Mr. Nabhan’s book is part of a larger effort to bring foods back from the brink by engaging nursery owners, farmers, breeders and chefs to grow and use them.

The idea behind this is to increase the demand for such exotic foods, causing an increase in farmers’ desire to grow and raise them. He also wants to preserve America’s rich culinary history, which is fading away as we get used to eating the same things over and over again.

Interesting idea, but can you stomach the idea of eating something like squirrel? The only person I’ve ever known to eat squirrel is a woman who grew up very poor in an extremely backwoods part of north central Florida, and that squirrel was usually roadkill made into soup. Is your mouth watering yet?

Links [New York Times] & [Environmental Graffiti]

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons & Wikimedia Commons

Awesome News: America Catching On to the Bike-Sharing Coolness

America lags behind Europe in so many ways, and bicycle use is just one. But now Washington DC is starting a bike-sharing program, allowing people to rent out bicycles whenever they want with the swipe of a membership card.

The New York Times has it:

A new public-private venture called SmartBike DC will make 120 bicycles available at 10 spots in central locations in the city. The automated program, which district officials say is the first of its kind in the nation, will operate in a similar fashion to car-sharing programs like Zipcar.

The district has teamed up with an advertiser, Clear Channel Outdoor, to put the bikes on the streets.

“There’s a lot of stress on our transit systems currently,” said Jim Sebastian, who manages bicycle and pedestrian programs for Washington’s Transportation Department. Offering another option, Mr. Sebastian said, “will help us reduce congestion and pollution,” as well as parking problems.

Rentable bicycles are a great transportation option for college students, getting them to and from important destinations like school, their dorms or apartments and the dive bar down the street that doesn’t check ID’s. While you can still get ticketed for riding a bicycle drunk in some states (a B.U.I.?), it’s definitely a safer route home than getting in the car, even if you do wake up to find asphalt and bike tire tread marks on your face the next day.

Bicycles for rent is already a big trend in cities like Amsterdam, Paris and Florence. When I was in college, I would read longingly about an art student exchange program in the latter city and the romantic descriptions of grabbing a bicycle off a public rack downtown to grab lunch from the corner market and enjoy a picnic on the steps of the Uffizi. Of course, that was before I actually visited Florence and realized people drive like insane sign-ignoring speed demons. At least in America, you’re not as likely to be clipped in the ass by an impossibly tiny car that goes by so fast you can barely catch a glimpse of it.

Link [New York Times]
Photo credit: Flickr user ark

Accidental Planet Killing: So, These New Orleans Wetlands Actually ARE Good for Something…

Eco-Chick.com happened upon a very interesting old news article on the New York Times website. The self-congratulatory article, published in 1910 and titled “NEW ORLEANS’S PLANS FOR GREAT SUBURBS; Over a Million Acres of Marsh-Land Within Its Limits to be So Converted”, tells of plans to ‘reclaim’ this ‘unproductive’ land for use as gardens, homes, hamlets and towns.

The article proclaims the benefits of draining this land, including fewer alligators lurking around and less room for mosquitoes to breed. They even went so far as to promise better views from your car window driving into the city – because, you know, concrete is so much more beautiful than marsh lands.

Eco-Chick notes that the destruction of these wetlands may well have had something to do with the damage New Orleans suffered at the hands of Hurricane Katrina, considering that wetlands help protect the mainland against storm surges. They dug up this quote from the NOAA:

Low lying coastal areas in and around the Gulf Coast have always been susceptible to storm surge from hurricanes, but the situation has worsened over time as protective coastal wetlands have disappeared due to land subsidence and human intervention.

It’s just another example of how ‘progress’ has damaged the earth. We are sold so many bottles of snake oil for ‘the good of mankind’.

Link [Eco-Chick] + [New York Times]

Photo credit: Flickr user Prince Roy