Eye | Global Futures & Nature-Inspired Design | Global Food Supply | US & Climate Change

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In January 2015, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma will most certainly become the chairperson of the US Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee. Senator Inhofe is a climate science denier, explaining his view based on his Christian faith:

Well actually the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that “as long as the earth remains there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.” My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.

GreenTracker

Futuristic Wind Turbines Take the Form of Sleek Minimalist Trees My Modern Met

The ‘Wind Tree’ beings a new perspective to wind power, standing 26 ft tall with plastic pods that resemble leaves. Hanging from steel branches, the plastic pods silently catch the wind at any angle. The ‘Wind Tree’ is specifically designed to tap the energy potential of air currents running through buildings in urban areas. A single tree costs about $36,000 and generates enough electricity to cover its cost in the first year.

Splendor in Singapore

Moshe Safdie’s Singapore ‘Jewel Changi Airport’ Redefines Airport Architecture

Construction has begun on Moshe Safdie’s new greenhouse ‘Jewel Changi Airport’, a nature preserve that seeks to redefine the urban experience of airports away from glass, concrete and treeless vistas to its exact opposite. 

Solar Trees, Too, In Singapore

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Mustafah Abdulaziz Documents Daily Reality Of Global Water Shortage

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Mustafah Abdulaziz Documents Daily Reality Of Global Water Shortage

Photographer Mustafah Abdulaziz currently lives in Berlin and shares these images focused on global water scarcity with Ignant. Abdulaziz was born in New York City in 1986 and worked as the first contract photographer for The Wall Street Journal. In August 2014 MilkMade.com asked Mustafah Abdulaziz 10 questions, with an emphasis on his ‘Water’ project.

Globally, fetching water is primarily women’s work. Water.org writes:

Glass ceilings aside, millions of women are prohibited from accomplishing little more than survival. Not because of a lack of ambition, or ability, but because of a lack of safe water and adequate sanitation. Millions of women and children in the developing world spend untold hours daily, collecting water from distant, often polluted sources, then return to their villages carrying their filled 40 pound jerry cans on their backs.

An estimated 200 million hours are spent each day collecting water.

 

The project ‘Water’ spans water issues in 32 countries, with support from the UN, Water Aid, VSCO and others. These images focus on the scarcity of water in Ethiopia and Pakistan.

Eye: Global Warming | New Tesla Electric Battery | Elephant Slaughter

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GreenTracker

The UN’s latest report on climate change is terrifying Grist

From The New York Times:

The world may already be nearing a temperature at which the loss of the vast ice sheet covering Greenland would become inevitable, the report said. The actual melting would then take centuries, but it would be unstoppable and could result in a sea level rise of 23 feet, with additional increases from other sources like melting Antarctic ice, potentially flooding the world’s major cities.

We Are On The Verge Of An Electric Car Battery Breakthrough Think Progress

Having opened up its electric car technology patents to the rest of the auto industry, Tesla Motors is on the verge of achieving a cost-effective electric car.

Daniel Sparks at Motley Fool is reporting that the company is on the right track towards developing a battery that costs only $100 per kilowatt-hour — a cost widely believed to be the threshold where electric vehicles can finally be cost-competitive.

Tesla has plans to build an enormous $5 billion battery manufacturing plant with 6,500 workers.

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