Great article from Climate Progress on fixing the economy with green jobs. The score’s been clear for almost 18 months: Obama’s New Deal needs to be employing the out-of-work citizenry of the United States to develop a green infrastructure for the country. With energy independence as the goal, not only would we employ the unemployed and stimulate huge economic growth, we would also have work already provided for the vets coming back from the Middle East instead of a bottle of gin and a place in the soup line. We’d also undermine the need for future energy wars.

The challenges facing President Obama and the U.S. Congress have not gone away. Paul Krugman worries that ?

 
From Austrian Times:

Kung fu master Chen Pengxian wasn’t just winging it when he claimed he could create the smallest carving in the world.

So Chen, 42, carved an entire sentence in Chinese characters on a fly’s wing to prove his ability.

The sentence - which translates as ‘I am at the bottom of her valley of no love’ - was taken from his favourite martial arts novel.

“I have studied king fu for 20 years and I used the breathing techniques I had learned to stop my hands from shaking because one slip would have torn the wing to pieces,” he explained from his studio in Taipei, Taiwan.

Austrian Times: Wing and a hair

The newest part in GOOD magazine’s ongoing “Ideas for Cities” series on how to properly revitalize our urban areas for a sustainable century. I like this one in particular, because it seems like it could very easily manifest without much effort, and solve a lot of issues in one go.

Cities should provide service opportunities and training for all ages to instill confidence, self-reliance, and pride. One of these programs could be an Edible Schoolyard that is cared for by students and led by professional farmers and volunteers. It would provide 100 percent of the school meals to the student body, and excess food would be delivered to the ill and elderly. In addition, schools would produce zero waste by composting all bio matter. The school could also compost neighborhood bio matter to fund its agricultural efforts.

(GOOD: Ideas for Cities: Edible Schoolyard)

 
This man is a fool!
 
(via Arbroath)

 
As a proud Angeleno since 1991, of course I’ve noticed the various small oil rigs along La Cienega Boulevard and elsewhere, but I didn’t realize there was one in… the Beverly Center? Would you believe there are several under the Farmer’s Market too? Am I pulling your leg? Nope! There are oil wells all around the city—particularly in Beverly Hills—disguised as buildings, islands and even palm trees. Before L.A. was firmly established as a movie and TV town it was an oil town. In fact, Los Angeles is part of a region that is third largest oil producer in America with over 20 billion barrels of oil yet to be extracted under our feet! Who knew?

Nate Harrington, a local DJ and publisher of the “Constantly Pregnant” zine filed this video report for Vice Media’s new online series “Uneven Terrain,” peeking behind the scenes to uncover LA’s hidden oil rigs residing within hollow office buildings, the camouflaged rigs standing right next to high schools, and the ones concealed within popular shopping malls. Fascinating!

Cross posting this from Brand X

 
“Strategic Urban Designer” Jakob Tigges hopes to someday see the above 3,300-foot mountain sprouting from the site of Berlin?

GOOD Magazine reports on bioalgae, a fuel source that’s been in beta for the last couple decades but which looks to be moving. Interest picking up? Let’s hope.

The brightest minds within the industry estimate that algae biofuels are five to 10 years away from commercialization. And while some might believe that algae?

William Kotke addresses the need to create a human paradise on Planet Earth instead of waiting for otherworldly salvation. This is pertinent to my interests.

Humans must create paradise or they cannot live on the planet Earth. Paradise here is described as a human community that lives in perpetuity and in peace on one place on the earth, over many generations. In the modern view, generated from the Alternative Culture and Cultural Creatives, we have a permaculture design in a valley that has been ecologically restored and has added additional trees in different ecological niches to create a food forest of fruits and nuts. Under the forest canopy are tall bushes also of fruit and nuts. Under this, the lower berry bushes and vining plants grow.

Lower, are the forbs: perennial vegetable plants that grow year after year and require no disruption of the soil community. Below this are the perennial tuber plants and also down in the soil are the edible mushrooms. This is a perpetual food design that will produce more food per acre than the industrial agricultural system, without digging, disrupting and damaging the thousands of species of the soil community, and at the same time, continually building soil fertility and preventing soil erosion.

Next, we add hand made housing of straw-bale, adobe, log, rammed earth, or other local material, along with attached solar green houses according to many successful contemporary designs. The humans, of course, maintain a stable population and live with a stable biological unit.

Then we add a new human culture based on aiding the life force rather than its consumption and destruction.

(The Intelligence Daily: The Paradise Imperative)

New ad spot from Moms Against Climate Change pits child protesters against riot cops in the cuddliest demonstration ever.

Osocio says:

In December, at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, world leaders will come together to discuss this issue, and Canadians want results. zig joined with Environmental Defence, ForestEthics and hundreds of volunteers to produce this film, and the web site that goes with it, to inspire grassroots action from Canadian parents.

The effects of climate change are going to be very real within the lifetime of the current generation of children, and if our kids knew the facts, they would act. On the web site, people can upload their kids photos to be included in a projection that will appear on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper?Ǭ?s route to work leading up to the conference to remind him who he?Ǭ?s representing in Copenhagen.

AdFreak is more skeptical:

Zig’s cinematic spot for Moms Against Climate Change pits child protesters (shouldn’t they be in school?) against cops (don’t they have parking tickets to write?) to illustrate that if kids knew what was at stake, they’d take action. There’s no denying it packs a punch. That said, something feels off. I think I was expecting a boffo climax to really drive the point home. Why not have the sides embrace, each kid finding one of his or her parents among the riot squad, to symbolize that we’re all in this together? Conversely, acid rain pouring from above and “frying” every last person? That would make a strong statement! Sure, it’s easy for me to second-guess?

 
As spotted in today’s Daily Mail, Leipzig veterinarians are baffled as to what, exactly, is causing the sudden, full-body hair loss of the zoo’s female bear population.  Global warming, a possible virus?  No one knows.  But there is an upside: the zoo has experienced a tremendous surge in attendance.