the insignificant ramblings of a disturbed graphic designer
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Seattle
We went to Seattle last weekend to attend the wedding of our friends Patty and Rich, who met in Seattle but actually live in the Bay Area now. We stayed with our friends Chris and Jana, who used to live in the Bay Area but have since relocated to Seattle (Wedgwood, actually). Are you confused yet?
The wedding was an opportunity for Velma to see some old college friends she doesn’t get to see very often. Rich was one of Velma’s best friends in college, and they were part of the swing dancing scene in St. Louis, and later in the Bay Area.
Velma and I used to work in the same building as Jana, and Chris and Jana asked us to be the photographers for their wedding a few years back, in a park in the South Bay. They’ve since relocated to Seattle (Wedgwood), and were kind enough to put us up and show us around a bit too (I haven’t been to Seattle in over a decade). Not to mention picking us up and dropping us off at the airport! Friends can be awesome, can’t they?
We spent most of our time in the Fremont District and Queen Anne, and Jana and Velma spent a solid chunk of time in World Spice downtown, behind Pike Place.
Here are a few of the places/things I enjoyed in/around Seattle:
Eat Local A cool organic café and grocery on Queen Anne Avenue N. They use local ingredients and make small batches that are perfect for couples or individuals to pick up on their way home. They also brew Stumptown Coffee.
Nikki McClure Nikki McClure makes extraordinarily beautiful papercut illustrations in a woodcut-like style. You may have seen her calendars or notecards, or recognize her work from books or magazines. We came across a whole bunch of her work (including a few framed originals, which are fascinating to look at up close) in the above-mentioned Eat Local shop, since she illustrated all their product labels.
Destee Nation Shirt Company Chris took us to his favorite T-shirt shop. I really liked several of the designs, but since my travel bags were pretty stuffed and I didn’t want to spend much money on this trip, I decided I’d wait and maybe purchase from their website later.
Revival Ink I saw this artist’s tees and hoodies at a boutique in Queen Anne and at the Fremont Sunday Market too. I liked two or three of the prints a lot, and would’ve bought one of the hoodies, but while they’re a more earth-friendly 70% bamboo and 30% organic cotton, they have those terribly cheap zippers that seem to jam within a month of use.
Chocolopolis Another of Chris’s faves, this shop features some exquisite artisan chocolates from around the world, and has free samples out all day.
Hollywood Schoolhouse This is where the wedding was held, a lovely but slightly quirky historical building. The 1912 brick structure hosts lots of weddings and banquets, and has some interesting decorations.
Gas Works Park This 19-acre park is on the site of a former coal-powered gas and oil plant, acquired by the city in the ’60s and opened to the public in 1975. Right on Lake Union, in the middle of Seattle, the park features stunning vistas of downtown and the lakeside portions of the city (Velma, Jana, and Chris pictured above, enjoying the view).
Lenin Since we were only a block away, we simply had to stop and see the 16-foot bronze statue of Lenin in the Fremont. Olya had told me about this (appropriately enough) a couple years ago; I hadn’t seen it when I visited Seattle my first time. If you have a spare quarter-million bucks, you can buy Comrade Lenin for your yard. He’s for sale.
The Fremont Troll The other thing I hadn’t seen last time was the famous Troll. Somehow Holly and I entirely missed the Fremont neighborhood, although we squeezed in practically everything else in our three-day vacation about a decade ago.
World Spice Merchants This popular spot behind Pike Place Market occupied Velma and Jana so long I had to walk around outside because the strong smells were becoming too much for my allergies. Most interesting to me was the Mongolian tea brick, actual bricks of tea which in the past were broken up to use as currency.
Posted by espd at 8:52 AM |
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Friday, August 22, 2008
Urge Sierra Pacific to be a better corporate citizen
Sierra Pacific Industries plans to cut down a million acres of California's forests in the next 50 years. SPI is one of the biggest landowners in California and owns most of the forest lands in the Sierra. Our forests are not all parks, like most American believe.
SPI has one of the worst environmental records of California's logging companies due to its years of clearcutting practices and steadfast resistance to adopting to a more sustainable forestry model.
ForestEthics is applying pressure to Sierra Pacific and you can help.
Posted by espd at 9:39 AM |
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Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Battle In Seattle
Next month will see the debut of an independent film about the 1999 demonstrations against the WTO in Seattle. The movie looks like it will be pretty good, not the average Hollywood tale in which the “terrorists” all have foreign accents. Independent director Stuart Townsend has taken pains to present the story from many points of view, including lead characters from amongst the protesters, the media, the police, and the general Seattle citizenry who got caught up in something they didn’t understand.
While the the film’s official site features the normal marketing pieces about the cast, et al, it also features three very personal and extremely interesting short clips in which Townsend talks about his impetus to write and make this movie. Even more interestingly, the site features a great deal of information about the issues the demonstrators were trying to bring to light (see screenshot below).
There’s even a separate site, Who Controls the World?, which acts as sort of a historical archive of the 1999 protests, featuring short video interviews with protest organizers and participants, a day-by-day timeline, participant memories, and much more about the pitfalls of globalization.
The film opens September 19 in San Francisco and a few other cities. For a higher quality version of the trailer, go to Apple.com. IMDB entry for Battle in Seattle.
"Green" graffiti makes paint-free protests Photo gallery of culture jamming and graffiti techniques that don't rely on spray-paint. news.cnet.com/2300-13838_3-6242898-1.html
Posted by espd at 8:03 AM |
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Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Where have all the citations gone?
A few lifetimes ago I was a marketing and communications specialist for nonprofits, most notably for Bay Area Action and its later incarnation as Acterra.
For a few years I wrote and/or edited weekly email newsletters and action alerts. I started doing this for the Headwaters Forest Project at BAA, then created a weekly EcoCalendar of events all around the Bay Area, and later founded Acterra's first general email newsletter.
During that span of about eight years, I also performed a lot of other communications functions, especially surrounding the Headwaters issue. For a few years my website and email list were the best sources for news on the controversies emanating from the North Coast, and I fielded inquiries from small and big sources alike, everyone from elementary school students to the big media outlets such as Time and CNN.
I spoke at events (the Green Party's state convention comes to mind) and universities (I presented to a Stanford law class once, which was a bit unnerving, but then I reminded myself they were just students), I did radio interviews, I fielded calls and emails and faxes from reporters all over the world, and my email list contained addresses from places as far-flung as Japan and Australia and people from the press, government, and even Hollywood.
Copy this, please
This all happened in a time when the migration of such information to the Internet was much, much less frequent, and a lot harder to do. Nevertheless, lots of people copied my emails and forwarded them along to others. Which is what we wanted. Unlike commercial material, for which one might have copy-protection concerns, we wanted this information spread far and wide. Granted, we didn't want people to re-edit the information, so I simply attached a footer to my email template that stated that permission was thereby granted to forward the email in its entirety, for non-commercial purposes.
And people did it. In droves. They forwarded it on to their friends and family, co-workers, whomever. Some maintained their own large lists of concerned citizens interested in environmental issues, and they sent my emails along to them. Others posted my newsletters and action alerts on their AOL and Geocitieshomepages, on university listservs, and lots of other places.
Here are a few examples, still archived in various niches of the 'net:
Later, as search engines became more adept at crawling and indexing the content of the web (this had all occurred before Google existed), I'd be doing Headwaters research on AltaVista or Yahoo! or Dmoz, and come I'd across some of my old emails and articles scattered across the web.
Fading way
In more recent years I've noticed that Google's algorithm seems to be devaluing these old (nearly ancient in Internet time) posts, probably for fairly legitimate reasons (the HTML of those old web pages would not withstand semantic rigors of modern search technology), so they rarely show up in results, or if they do, they're buried many, many, many results pages deep. It's probably that a lot of those pages are simply gone now too, as people fold their old accounts or Geocities pages get closed down, or whatever.
When I first started noticing this, I must admit that it was a little sad, as it seemed almost as if my contributions were disappearing from the universe. I know this is not strictly true, but in a world where we seem to rely increasingly on Google to provide us with what we want to know (I'm certainly guilty of this reliance), it's disappointing that the content of those older articles is devalued in large part because the method used for archiving them did not use the modern HTML standards.
It's a little like devaluing the best encyclopedia in the (physical) library because its publishers have not yet made it available online. Perhaps the actual content contained in that encyclopedia is of better quality than anything published on the web, but most people would never know it because they'd never see it.
I'm conflicted about this on many levels. Partly because I believe passionately that people should have access to the best quality information (so I want people to go the library, or wherever they need to go for that single best source), but I also want that high-quality information to be much more widely accessible than that. Let's face it, the researcher in Prague seeking information on West Coast salmonids can't easily get the 700-page document off the dusty shelf of the tiny library of the Northcoast Environmental Center in California, can he? But what if it's the single best source, and it's not available online at all?
Technology will catch up
I believe (nearly) all of these documents will be available online someday. It may be a decade or more away, but it will happen.
And I will do my part. I have archived all my data from the Headwaters Forest years, and all my BAA articles and photos, and while they're not really in any usable order right now, I am confident that technology will continue to advance in ways that make the data easier to sort and publish. It's already been happening, with sites like Flickr making it easier to share photos, and tools like blogs and wikis making it easier to publish and collaborate.
Not all my contributions have faded away
Interestingly, search technology has more recently broadened to include the content of printed books too. Google Book Search began scanning the collections of several leading universities in 2004. While Google's tool is still in beta and it comprises mostly academic works, I was mildly surprised to see my name turn up with a few results. I was cited in Earth for Sale: Reclaiming Ecology in the Age of Corporate Greenwash, by Brian Tokar, and Writing for Real: A Handbook for Writers in Community Service , by Carolyn Ross, Joseph M. Williams, and Ardel Thomas. I'd forgotten that I was also thanked in Inciting Democracy: A Practical Proposal for Creating a Good Society, by my friend Randy Schutt.
Posted by espd at 8:00 AM |
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Thursday, May 22, 2008
Junk mailers pay less for postage than you do – a lot less
While individuals now pay 42¢ to mail a regular letter, direct mail marketers have once again been granted a much lower rate by the government bureaucrats who make up the rules. It costs just as little as 14¢ to mail one of those credit card offers you got twelve of yesterday.
ForestEthics.org believes junk mailers shouldn't be rewarded for invading our privacy and destroying the environment. Less than 10% of Canada’s Boreal Forest is protected. It is being logged at a rate of 2 acres a minute, 24 hours a day, to make things like catalogs and junk mail.
The Do Not Mail campaign has collected over 40,000 signatures since March. If you haven't made your voice heard yet, do it now.
Posted by espd at 2:31 PM |
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Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Tell politicians we need a Do Not Mail Registry
Unless you're a big fan of junk mail (I suppose there's someone out there like that) you may want to sign ForestEthics' petition to create a Do No Mail Registry that would work like the existing Do Not Call Registry.
An astonishing 100 billion pieces of junk mail are delivered in the U.S. each year, accounting for one-third of all the mail delivered in the world (!).
And guess whose forests are being cut down to make all that crap you just throw away?
Velma had been trying to get me to stop using antibacterial soap for a while. For starters, some of the main bacteria-fighting ingredients in these soaps, such as Triclosan, can create dioxins, chloroform gas, and have other harmful effects. Triclosan may also be harmful to downstream inhabitants we humans so often forget. There is also an argument that regular use of antibacterial agents may cause some bacteria to evolve resistance, making one susceptible to "superbugs" that can't be beaten by our normal treatments.
My counter-argument has always been that there are some things you occasionally get on your hands that you want every possible weapon in your arsenal to help get off. So maybe you do want to minimize or eliminate your use of antibacterial soaps, not use them for everyday use. But hell, if I'm gonna clean up cat vomit, or wipe dog crap off my boot, or...worse (*shudder*), then I want something just short of an acid dip for afterwards.
Finally I found an alternative product that claims to be antibacterial and protect the environment. I've been using it for a few weeks now, and while I certainly haven't tested it in any scientific way (sorry, my lab's been disassembled by government fiat), it seems to clean just as well as your average Dial of SoftSoap. I should note that I'm generally a skeptic when it comes to the claims of so-called "alternative" health and cleaning products, because I've tried so many of them over the past 10-15 years and far too many have failed utterly to work in the slightest perceptible way.
CleanWell claims its ingredient Ingenium "kills 99.99% of germs including MRSA (staph), E.Coli, and Salmonella on contact." The soap is kid-safe (no ingestion risk), and claims to be 100% green, 100% biodegradable, and is not tested on animals. It meets EPA and FDA standards for germ killing efficacy and contains no alcohol, nor the dreaded Triclosan. It's even made from plants on which no pesticides, irrigation, or fertilizers are used.
CleanWell's products include hand sanitizer and foaming soap, and it's still pretty new, just emerging in health food stores and the like. They have a list on their website of stores that carry CleanWell, but use my experience as a guide and call ahead to make sure they have the item you're looking for. I went to three places looking for the soap and they only carried the hand sanitizer in the first two. I finally tracked it down at Rainbow Grocery in the Mission.
CleanWell makes three soap fragrances: orange vanilla, lavender, and ginger bergamot. The labels peel right off if you want your soap dispenser to look more aesthetic (although I think their packaging design is far superior to most commercial soaps). When Jenny washed her hands at our house recently, she called CleanWell "so refreshing!" So I guess that's an endorsement ; )
If you're interested in further reading on the issues, science, and politics surrounding the efficacy of such health and cleaning products, CleanWell's Chief Technology Officer Dr. Larry Weiss writes a blog with voluminous amounts of information aimed at parents, kids, consumers, et al.
Posted by espd at 1:11 PM |
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Thursday, April 03, 2008
Thursday Top 5
We Can Solve the Climate Crisis Al Gore has launched a $300 million climate change initiative, one of the most ambitious and costly public advocacy campaigns in U.S. history, according to the Washington Post. When you play this video, notice the W in "we." How much do you want to bet it's going to flip over and become "me" if you go to the site and join in? www.wecansolveit.org
"Amateur" by Lasse Gjertsen I'm pretty sure I posted this a couple years ago, but it's such a classic I had to repost it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzqumbhfxRo
The fierce Humboldt squid When Jason sent me this description, at first he was playing an April Fool's joke on me. But the Humboldt squid is real. "A mysterious sea creature up to 7 feet long, with 10 arms, a sharp beak and a ravenous appetite, has invaded ocean waters off Northern California. Packs of fierce Humboldt Squid attack nearly everything they see, from fish to scuba divers." www.kqed.org/quest/television/view/774
Grolsch Gardens This is a really innovative branded game built with Flash. It's sort of a noir detective story; you have to collect clues and items and the story unfolds. You'll need a lot of time to play it, but it's really engrossing...or would that be engrolsching? www.grolschgardens.com
Posted by espd at 4:37 PM |
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ZDNet and the Green Enterprise
My friends over at ZDNet have launched their redesigned website and it's looking great. I never used ZDNet that much before, but the new changes to the site make finding content and just browsing around a lot more pleasurable. I spent some time the other day watching some of the interesting videos in the "Green Enterprise" section.
Posted by espd at 2:05 PM |
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Thursday, March 27, 2008
Thursday Top 5+1
Symptoms: Increased heart rate, fits of laughter... What if two members of the crew of the TV show "Scrubs" fell in love?
Don't try this at home Filming a slap in the face, then slowing it down to 4,000 frames per second. www.collegehumor.com
"Guardians" by George R.R. Martin Jason enthusiastically told me about this story he read a decade or two ago, and he was finally able to track it down online. It's by the fantasy and sci-fi author George R.R. Martin, and it touches on, among other things, the science of ecology. I really liked this story; it would make a good one-hour TV episode. Maybe Sci Fi Channel is listening? cerclefantastique.free.fr
Do the Test How many passes does the team in white make? www.dothetest.co.uk
I've been busy so I didn't have time to post a Top 5 last week. So here's a double dose of distractions for you.
What if humanity disappeared? This Sunday, the National Geographic Channel premieres "Aftermath: Population Zero," which imagines what it would be like if humans suddenly disappeared from Earth (coincidentally, they chose Velma's birthday for the date on which human history ends). Pets will starve, dams will break, electricity will shut down and nuclear plants will eventually melt down. And that's just in the first few months; they continue to forecast out to 230 A.H. (after humans). Using CG and cleverly edited real film footage, National Geographic has created an altogether frightening and fascinating vision. Since we don't have cable Velma and I can't watch it, but I'll Netflix this someday if it gets released on DVD. There's an interactive timeline and several preview video clips on the web. channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/aftermath/
The Wasmopolitan Cavalcade of Recorded Music Legendary producer Don Was has a show on the new online video source My Damn Channel, and so far he's got interviews with and/or performances by Ozzy Osbourne, Slash and Duff from Guns 'N' Roses, Sass Jordan, Jill Sobule (performing in an LA furniture store!), Sweet Pea Atkinson, and Lori McKenna, along with some up-and-comers. The Ozzy interviews contain some of the most interesting questions Ozzy's gotten in years (in this way, Don Was could kick Bob Coburn's ass), and they even briefly discuss the long-forgotten duet Ozzy did with Madonna on Was (Not Was)'s 1983 album Born To Laugh at Tornadoes. www.mydamnchannel.com/explore.aspx?channel=59 I also liked this rock–reggae band — Common Sense: www.mydamnchannel.com/channel.aspx?episode=570
The trouble with Steve Jobs Fortune has named Apple number one on its 2008 list of America's Most Admired Companies. Among the magazine's coverage, editor at large Peter Elkind uncovers some facts behind Apple's stock backdating scandal and 2004 surgery that saved Steve Jobs from cancer. money.cnn.com/2008/ There's also a separate interview with Jobs: money.cnn.com/galleries/
Facebook and privacy Much has been made over the last year about Facebook's privacy policy and terms of service. I happen to think most of this sharing is benign, but there's no question that it could be used (as could nearly any information) for the wrong purposes. While this video's outline of corporate and government relationships to Facebook are a bit tenuous, it provides some interesting insights that all Facebook users should be aware of. www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/
Does Google have a Master Plan? As if the Facebook video wasn't enough, this video contend that Google is secretly cooperating with the CIA and collecting your personal information for purposes that are possibly more nefarious than just simply serving up relevant text ads. I'm not sure how much of this I buy, but I'll look into the allegations of Robert David Steele, the former CIA agent. The video, btw, is worth watching if only for the terrific design. masterplanthemovie.com
Posted by espd at 4:06 PM |
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Sunday, February 24, 2008
The environmental impact of the wine industry
A few weekends back I attended a conference called Compostmodern, which consisted mostly of panels and presentations about sustainability as it applies to the graphic design industry. A couple of the presentations diverged slightly from the main focus, but they were interesting nevertheless.
One such was given by Jean-Charles Boisset, president of De Loach Vineyards and Boisset Family Estates, which make a wide variety of wine and spirits under various labels, in California and France. The charismatic Boisset's presentation was interesting on many fronts, but I was struck by some of the things I learned about the wine industry as a whole, and about his companies' efforts in particular.
Impacts
The global wine industry has a tremendous impact on the environment, from production and manufacturing through transportation and marketing, and ultimately with the consumer who must deal with the resulting packaging materials. Plenty of people don't bother to recycle (or can't) their wine bottles, and how many of us actually know what to do with corks, other than throw them in the trash?
Wine production itself accounts for a large amount of synthetic fungicides, herbicides, and fertilizers that end up in our earth and water. Not to mention the massive amounts of water used in grape production. "Likewise, untreated waste water from winery use — hosing down barrels, tanks and buildings — can harm the ecosystems in and around rivers, lakes and ponds." [source]
A 2006 study showed that a pound of waste is created for every bottle of wine made, including the release of 16g of sulphur dioxide into the air. According to Boisset, packaging alone accounts for a whopping 49% of the cost of every bottle of wine manufactured (including design and production of said packaging, presumably).
Biodynamics
A growing number of wineries are embracing sustainable techniques, and some — like De Loach — are making use of "biodynamics." I had heard the term before but I didn't really know much about it until Boisset's presentation about how his family vineyards in France are managed. Later I browsed the De Loach website and was enthralled by the unusually detailed description of what the vineyard is doing over several years to convert the estate entirely to biodynamic production.
From the De Loach website: "Converting 22 acres of vineyards to biodynamic farming methods requires time and patience. Before planting the new vineyard at DeLoach, we are enriching the soil by letting the land lay fallow through two cover crop successions and applying specific biodynamic compost and preparations."
"We will apply horn manure and barrel compost in the fall in order to introduce more beneficial microorganisms into the soil. Horn manure is the most widely-recognized symbol of biodynamics; [Rudolph] Steiner named it prep 500 in his original lecture. To make it, we bury a cow horn filled with cow manure into the vineyards and let it remain over winter. The horn provides nutrients to microorganisms in the soil that turn the manure into compost. The finished compost is essentially a "bug in a jug", or soil inoculum, that contains microorganisms naturally adapted to the farm's soil since that is where the compost is made. The barrel compost we will use was started in March 2005, and is a mixture of organic barley straw and clean cow manure, containing no hormones or other chemicals...."
Alternative wine packaging
I've long been aware of several companies' efforts to green the wine-making process, ever since 1996 or so when I learned of Fetzer Vineyards' use of recycled glass in their bottles and other sustainability efforts. I visited Fetzer on a trip north one year with my friend Laura Stec, a chef and environmental educator.
Another vineyard I've been impressed by is Bonny Doon, located in our very own Santa Cruz Mountains. They've pushed the industry to adopt the decidedly unsexy screw cap as a superior alternative to corks, for both environmental and freshness reasons.
Boisset, for its part, is packaging some of its wines in the even less sexy Tetra Pak, an aseptic package that you might be more familiar with from soy milk cartons. Boisset's French Rabbit label is sold in this alternative packaging.
As others have noted, the Tetra Pak is problematic. While it is theoretically recyclable, in the U.S. there are practically no communities that accept aseptic packaging among their recyclables. According to Boisset this packaging is more recyclable in Europe, but the fact remains that the U.S. recycling economy isn't up to speed on this packaging yet, and it may be another decade before we see its wide-spread recyclability (let's not forget that much of the middle of the U.S. still has no municipal recycling at all).
Is Apple improving its environmental record, or is it just spin?
Did anyone else notice that Steve Jobs actually made it a point, albeit briefly, to talk about Apple's environmental goals at his MacWorld keynote last month?
When I was checking out the specs for the new MacBook Air on the Apple website I was astonished to see on the Tech Specs page, a big, bold box labeled Environmental Status Report.
A short while later I went looking for Apple's page on their environmental standards, which I had seen last year but wasn't sure where to find it since they've redesigned their site in the meantime. I went to the home page of Apple.com and figured I'd have to click on "Site Map" and then look for the link there, but I was surprised to see an "Environment" link at the bottom of the home page, right next to "Job Opportunities."
It all made me wonder whether Apple is beginning to do a better job with their product designs, or whether it's just their marketing department that's doing a better job with spin.
Likewise, in 2005 the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) launched it's Bad Apple campaign to criticize, among other things, the non-ubgradeability of the iPod and Apple's reluctance to institute a take-back solution for electronics recycling. (SVTC's campaign was itself criticized in a 2006 article on Roughly Drafted.)
I've been wondering if these two watchdog groups had been following Apple's progress and what their take was. Alas, the SVTC's website search sucks and Google doesn't seem to have even spidered their content (!), so I didn't find much there, although it seems that SVTC is still pushing Apple for shareholder resolutions that would improve its computer take-back efforts.
Meanwhile, Greenpeace seems to have discontinued its Green My Apple campaign after Steve Jobs issued a very public pronouncement last spring on a page titled "A Greener Apple," wherein he described the company's plans to, among other things, phase out some of the worst chemicals found in CRT monitors. I thought this was a little bit disingenuous on Apple's part, however, since it had been clear for a while that Apple was phasing out CRTs for business and product design reasons, not environmental ones. Jobs' letter also signaled improvements in e-waste reduction via upgrades to its electronics take-back program.
In a statement about Jobs' letter, Greenpeace said, "It's not everything we asked for. Apple has declared a phase-out of the worst chemicals in its product range, Brominated Fire Retardants (BFRs) and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) by 2008. That beats Dell and other computer manufactures' pledge to phase them out by 2009... But while customers in the US will be able to return their Apple products for recycling knowing that their gear won't end up in the e-waste mountains of Asia and India, Apple isn't making that promise to anyone but customers in the USA. Elsewhere in the world, an Apple product today can still be tomorrow's e-waste. Other manufacturers offer worldwide takeback and recycling. Apple should too!" [Full article]
Greenpeace also issued a detailed analysis of Jobs' pronouncement last May. Almost a year later, though, they don't seem to have put out a follow-up yet. I hope they will.
Two weekends ago I was at Compostmodern, a one-day conference put on by the AIGA about sustainability and the design industry. I chatted for a while with the reps for the great paper company New Leaf Paper, and I asked them if they'd ever heard of Arbokem paper, which I'd used back in 1997 and '98 for some clients and for Bay Area Action's letterhead.
Arbokem's little-known Downtown Paper line was one of the best alternatives on the market back in the late '90s, and that's saying a lot. That time was pretty much the beginning of recycled papers' popularity, but almost no companies processed chlorine free and very few paper lines were 100% post-consumer.
But Arbokem's Downtown line was even better. It was 45% wheat straw (agricultural waste that would ordinarily be burned and cause air pollution), 42% post-consumer recycled paper, and 12% calcium phosphate, which whitened the paper without the normal chlorine bleaching process that causes cancer-causing chemicals to be poured into our streams.
Tonight I was thinking about the paper again and I Googled Arbokem to see if it's still around. Sure enough, the company is, and apparently they do all sorts of other obscure R&D, but it looks like the paper is not produced anymore. Shame, it was a great alternative.
Incidentally, while Googling Arbokem I came across this 1997 article from the Palo Alto Weekly that I'd never seen, which mentions my use of Arbokem (look for "Western Front Graphics," my old company name, about two-thirds down).
Posted by espd at 1:03 AM |
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Wednesday, January 09, 2008
"The Story of Stuff"
"The Story of Stuff" is a 20-minute history lesson and an economics course all in one, but it won't put you to sleep like your professors did. It's a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns and was produced by Free Range Studios, the same folks who did "Store Wars" and "The Meatrix."
Posted by espd at 6:50 PM |
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Saturday, December 08, 2007
Supporting causes
Updated April 2008: Added ACLU and Save the Redwoods League, which I had forgotten.
Velma and I used to support nonprofits with our blood, sweat, and tears. We first met in a large building full of nonprofits, where we both worked. When you work for an NGO, especially a relatively small, local one, you don't make a lot of money. Sometimes you make very little money (I was making below-poverty-level wages there for a while).
But you don't do it for the money. You do it for the "second paycheck." That's what they sometimes call the feeling you get maybe it's pride, maybe it's joy when you get to do work every day that's all about trying to make the world a better place. It's truly a wonderful and fulfilling way of life, if you can hack it.
These days, Velma probably gets that feeling a lot more often than I do (she works for Save the Redwoods League). I mean, I like my work, and I chose CNET Networks partly because I didn't want to work at an advertising agency or someplace where I'd only be selling more useless crap to more people. But while I believe my work's worthwhile, it's definitely not saving the planet.
Getting paid decent wages, however, does have its up-sides. Velma and I are finally in a position these days to save money for our future, and we're even able to give donations to a bunch of organizations we like. Even if we don't get out to Arastradero Preserve to plant native grasses anymore (our own garden gets most of that weekend love), we were happy to be able to support the work of several groups this year with monetary donations.
If any of these organizations sound worthy to you, please consider a gift.
I did some work for Amnesty International a long time ago, and I also donated to them a long time ago, but a new donation was long overdue. Most people know a little about Amnesty, but did you know how broad their focus really is, and how many worthwhile campaigns they have?
Mario Savio, on the steps of Sproul Hall, said, "There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all." When the law won't fix the problem, Earth First!ers put their bodies on the line to stop the destruction. Some of the Earth First!ers I've met were the bravest, most noble people I've ever known. In the old days I used to donate stamps to North Coast Earth First! but this year I finally decided to subscribe to the Earth First! Journal.
Earthjustice began as the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund and has provided legal assistance on environmental issues for almost 40 years, representing citizens groups, nonprofits, scientists, and others. "Environmental litigation has been key to preserving threatened natural resources and protecting people's environmental rights. Lawsuits have protected millions of acres of wilderness and hundreds of endangered species. They have helped improve air and water quality and have forced polluting companies to clean up their discharges." Plus I love their slogan: "Because the earth needs a good lawyer."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is sort of the equivalent of Earthjustice but for the Internet. EFF uses advocacy and lawsuits to preserve free speech rights in the context of today's digital age. Among its many activities, EFF has participated in lawsuits in support of the college students who published information about the major security flaws in Diebold Election Systems, and against corporate and government infringement of the First Amendment rights of individuals, artists, journalists, bloggers, and others.
The Environmental Protection Information Center has fought for the North Coast in the courts for years. Headwaters Grove probably wouldn't be standing today if it hadn't been for organizations like EPIC.
I've been watching KQED TV since I was a tot and listening since I was in my teens and 20s, and for the past decade or so it's been on almost constantly when I'm at home. I've learned so much from KQED radio that I can confidently say it's made me a better person.
“On the Media” is one of the best shows on radio, if you ask me. The media critics at this show keep a careful eye on world media, and fill in the listeners each week with healthy doses of wit and wisdom. I listen every week, even if I miss the air-time and have to download their podcast later. This year I was happy to contribute directly to WNYC where the show is produced.
Pachamama Alliance works with the Achuar, an indigenous group living in the Amazon basin of Ecuador, to develop a sustainability and economic plan that will protect and manage the two million acres of their tropical rainforest territory.
Planned Parenthood is a vital resource in a country that's incredibly backward about sexuality and where most people are hopelessly un- and misinformed about health and reproductive issues. They provide health and sexuality info to teens, women, and men, contraception, HIV/STD tests, pregnancy tests, and much more. We are proud to support the work of Planned Parenthood.
Velma may work there, but that doesn't stop us from giving them money. Save the Redwoods League was founded 90 years ago to acquire and protect what's left of the redwoods. You probably think there are a lot of redwoods left. If it hadn't been for SRL's work over the last 90 years, there wouldn't be any. Most of the redwoods in state and federal parks were originally bought by SRL and transferred to public ownership.
“This American Life” is the other show I can never miss. A few years ago I learned that Chris Ware had done an animation for a live performance of “This American Life,” and I'd seen a snippet of it online. It was awesome. This year I learned that it's actually available as a DVD/book as a premium for donating to the Chicago station that produces “This American Life” (see the “Lost Buildings DVD” description).
Velma's been interested in this little local org for a while, and she's considering volunteering with them. Urban Sprouts works with San Francisco school gardens "to help youth actively engage in school, eat better and exercise more, and connect with the environment and each other."
Wikipedia is truly one of the world's greatest resources, and truly one of the world's greatest ideas. I use it almost every day, and even though the slogan is "free knowledge for everyone," this year I decided we should pay for the privilege with a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation.
The Superest An ongoing character illustration battle between Kevin Cornell, Matthew Sutter, and occasional guest artists. www.thesuperest.com
WGA Strike: A Love Story The Writer Guild strike continues, but the writers keep writing, while the networks give you reruns and game shows. youtube.com/watch?v=EodzF_orJQY
Watch your (fo)odometer How many miles does your food travel from field to fork? Presented in an interestingly animated fashion. youtube.com/watch?v=p4RCyxgz97g
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Design firms and ad agencies that work with environmental groups
I have a reputation for working with environmental nonprofits, so I still frequently get requests to do graphic design for green groups or companies. Usually I'm too busy and I just can't do it. Sometimes they ask for referrals.
So I finally compiled this list of other designers and firms that have worked with environmental groups. I'm including a few advertising and PR firms too, since green groups can almost always use some expertise in their publicity campaigns, plus those firms usually have designers on staff too, or work with freelancers.
I can't vouch for all of these. Some of them I've only heard of through the grapevine, but some of them I've met and really been impressed by.
LIST UPDATED 11-28-07: Innosanto from Design Action turned me on to a few more companies that specialize in design for social change, and I found a few others on a site called renourish.
a5 Group Inc. size: boutique location: Chicago IL, St. Louis MO, and Grand Rapids MI clients include:Green By Design, Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, Environmental Protection Agency
The wedding was an opportunity for Velma to see some old college friends she doesn’t get to see very often. Rich was one of Velma’s best friends in college, and they were part of the swing dancing scene in St. Louis, and later in the Bay Area.
Eat Local
For a few years I wrote and/or edited weekly email newsletters and action alerts. I started doing this for the Headwaters Forest Project at BAA, then created a weekly EcoCalendar of events all around the Bay Area, and later founded Acterra's first general email newsletter.
Interestingly, search technology has more recently broadened to include the content of printed books too. 
While individuals now pay 42¢ to mail a regular letter, direct mail marketers have once again been granted a much lower rate by the government bureaucrats who make up the rules. It costs just as little as 14¢ to mail one of those credit card offers you got twelve of yesterday.
Likewise, in 2005 the 
