Buckminster Fuller, architect, engineer, geometrician, philosopher, futurist, inventor of the famous geodesic dome, put forth an original form of sustainable living for humanity. He posited that systems thinking helps us understand our connectedness and dependence on our local biome. Watch the 1974 film “The World of R. Buckminster Fuller.”
Recent Posts
Ocean Acidification Threatens Alaskan Crab Fishery
Ocean acidification, the lesser-known twin of climate change, threatens to scramble marine life on a scale almost too big to fathom. Scientists fear changing ocean chemistry will drive the collapse of Alaska’s iconic crab fishery. Watch the video from PBS NewsHour and the Seattle Times.
Indonesia: Peat Swamp Forest Protection Key to Climate
During the dry season in Sumatra, and hundreds of thousands of hectares of Indonesian peatland fires burn for months, releasing its massive storehouse of organic carbon. Those fires are a direct result of decades of forest and peatland destruction, which must be protected writes Loren Bell, saving ecosystems, air quality, and the global climate.
Living With Wolves: Science Must Inform Politics
Reviled by ranchers and hunters, managed through “harvesting” by state wildlife agencies, with ardent conservationists its last hope, the gray wolf has cut a controversial wake in the North American landscape ever since it was reintroduced from Canada in 1995. Watch the film on Earth Focus.
Protecting Greater Yosemite Ecosystem from Salvage Logging
The US Forest Service salvage logging plan ended up damaging the health of the Greater Yosemite Ecosystem far more than 2013’s massive Rim Fire. Chad Hanson from the John Muir Project of the Earth Island Institute explains how wildfires can promote ecological health and survival of many plant and wildlife communities, despite the intense heat and scale of the blazes.
Greening Detroit: Positive Change Moves Slow and Fast
On one hand, Detroit turns the water off for communities challenged by its legacy of disinvestment and neglect. Yet, with urban farming, electric streetcars, neighborhood reinvention, Mayor Mike Duggan’s pledges begin to manifest in the city’s North End, despite considerable financial and cultural impediments. John Eligon elaborates.
Video Art: The Groovy Waves of Planed Wood
Waves of Grain is a two minute strata-cut animation by filmmaker Keith Skretch who planed a block of wood in tiny increments, taking photographs along the way. The final video reveals a repetitive flowing sense of motion as the camera moves effortlessly through the block revealing sinuous curves of wood grain appearing to ripple like water.