Manuel Maqueda (founder of NextNow Collab’s Trash Island project) reminds us in this report that single-use plastic is used for applications that last days, hours, minutes or even seconds but pollutes our environment for hundreds of years. Earth Island Reports Plastic Pollution Coalition The Bioplastic Labyrinth Plastic is a material that Earth cannot digest. Every bit of plastic ever produced still exists and will be here with us for hundreds of years. Once in the environment, plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller particles that attract toxic chemicals, are ingested by wildlife on land and in the ocean, and contaminate our…
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Share This Parody With A Purpose: (No) Plastic State of Mind
NextNow Collaboratory is at the center of mobilizing a citizen movement against single-use plastic by shifting awareness. NextNower Manuel Maqueda is co-founder of Plastic Pollution Coalition and project manager of Trash Island, a NextNow Collab project. Recently, as an Advisor to PPC, Claudia Welss contacted the recently launched WorldShift Movement to to add the “Fourth R”–Refuse–to their “Shift One Thing Campaign“: (Actually, “Refuse” should be the FIRST R–Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.) “REFUSE single-use, disposable plastics such as drinking straws, bottled water at conferences, plastic to-go containers, etc. which will send a message to the purchasers of these items, and will…
Global Footprint Network Issues Earth’s Overdraft Notice TODAY
Reprinted from NNC collaborator Global Footprint Network: On August 21, We Exceed Nature’s Budget It has taken humanity less than nine months to exhaust its ecological budget for the year, according to Global Footprint Network calculations. Today, humanity reaches Earth Overshoot Day: the day of the year in which human demand on the biosphere exceeds what it can regenerate. As of today, humanity has demanded all the ecological services – from filtering CO2 to producing the raw materials for food – that nature can regenerate this year. For the rest of the year, we will meet our ecological demand by…
NextNow Collab Joins World Resources Simulation Center and Save the Date: Wednesday, March 31, 2010
NextNow Collab has become an institutional partner of the World Resources Simulation Center (WRSC) to help create powerful community around the use of information visualization tools to globally “visualize our resources, assess our needs, compare strategies and choose the best course of action.” Anyone familiar with the goals of NextNow Collab will immediately recognize the synergy between the two organizations. On Wednesday, March 31 from 6-7:30 p.m., Natural Logic (NextNower Gil Friend) and NextNow Collaboratory will host an event for WRSC at our collaboration space at the Strawberry Creek Design Center in Berkeley to introduce this critical work to our…
State of the World Forum Indefinitely Postponed: Letter from Jim Garrison
Dear Friends, I want to inform you that we have decided to postpone indefinitely the Washington conference Feb. 28 – Mar. 3. There is simply not a critical mass of receptivity at this time for the kind of “Climate Summit” we have designed, which has emphasized an integral approach to climate change and the need for an “urgency coalition” to come together to take immediate and decisive action to resolve the climate crisis As disappointed as we are that the conference will not take place, the considered opinion of all our conference partners has been that this is simply not…
Happy Holidays from NextNow Collaboratory
Last year we posted a card from 1Sky.org. This year, it’s from….Starbucks?!? “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Here’s wishing everyone, everywhere, a happy holiday season and a Very New Year, full of the energies of Love. Love is All We Need.
Pre-Copenhagen Sunday “Funnies” Courtesy of New Internationalist: International Climate Slam-Down
Not So Funny: Gort and Klaatu’s International Climate Slam-Down by Marc Roberts and Marc Hudson, in the December 2009 New Internationalist. Happy Sunday.
Say Yes (Live as if Every Star Were Wishing on You)
It’s been a busy couple of months–too busy to post! But they’ll begin showing up again soon. This has been around for a while but the message has never seemed more important. Thanks to the friend and collaborator who forwarded it (you know who you are) for sharing much-needed inspiration.
NextNower Bruce Damer’s EvoGrid: Attempting to Model the Origins of Life on Earth
A few days ago, NextNower Bruce Damer’s EvoGrid “Evolution Grid” project–an attempt to model the origins of life on Earth, a kind of “Artificial Origin of Life” experiment in a large computer simulation–was featured in the New York Times in an article written by veteran science and tech reporter John Markoff. The article includes reflections from Prof. Richard Gordon and George Dyson and two color images from the original EvoGrid movie. We hope this will raise the visibility of the project tremendously, assisting in attracting funding sources or partners to allow Bruce’s team to expand the effort in 2010 and…
NextNow Collab Joins Sustainability Cluster in the New David Brower Center
NextNow Collaboratory adds a second office by joining the Sustainable Enterprise Cluster at the new David Brower Center, one of the Bay Area’s most advanced green buildings. The building developers, Equity Community Builders, also developed San Francisco’s Thoreau Center for Sustainability. Situated right across the street from the University of California, Berkeley, the DBC considers itself the region’s hub for environmental and social action. It was conceived as a physical space that will foster collaboration among tenants and with the larger community, help catalyze a broader population in advocacy, and facilitate cross-sector communication and solutions. We’re thrilled to be part…
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