Bangladesh - women moves with children after Cyclone Aila hits, Picture: Oxfam International

Another way to symbolize climate change is to show humans that suffer from the effects of it. Here is for example a picture of a family that is effected by the cyclone Aila. Those pictures naturally cause compassion – and it is always a tough decision whether it is right or wrong to play on one’s heart strings. In matters of climate change (at least the one we have been talking about lately) it must be said that there are floodings in Bangladesh since centuries already.

Rescued Katrina victims on Coast Guard helicopter (CG photo) by johnmcq (Flickr)

Still it is important to show those who are suffering from the effects of extreme wheather – as it is our first reference that makes us understand what is happening. So as soon as certain ethical borders are not crossed, pictures of victims are a legitmate means.

grangemouth
Originally uploaded by _gee_

There are many phenomenons in our changing environment that cannot securely be classified whether they are caused by human-made global warming or by climate change that happens naturally.

So one of the safest possiblities to get the message of global warming across is to display one of the causers of climate change – in this case it is the industry and its emission of carbon dioxide.

Industrial chimneys are probably the most impressive objects in that regard – here we can even see a very pleasing, almost romantic version of stacks.

However it is not only the industry that is responsible for the world climate, it is also the trillions of cars that are run by indiviuals. Still very impressive pictures to show – especially if it takes place in an environment that seems to smell through your computer monitor. But fog is not necessarily a phenomenon that is primarily connected to global climate change but rather a local weather occurence. Here is a picture showing smog in London in the early Ninetees.

A cow [15/365]
by Dave Wild // publicenergy.co.uk’s (via Flickr)

Some months ago I had the chance to design the key visual for the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum 2010. As the title “The Heat Is On – Climate Change and the Media” reveals, subject of the conference is our global environment which is heating up. Now as there are some problems in credibility recently (remember the hacked e-mails from a British University where scientist showed that they are ready to “tune up” statistics to keep the topic of climate change “hot” or the falling-down of climate star Al Gore’s respectability) it is even more important to picture the subject-matter in an objective manner. Let’s have a look on the approaches that exist to visualize climate change.

Within the next I will typify different approaches to the subject.

Members of Jeudi Noir

More than 8% of the houses in Paris (data of the city administration) stand empty. Supposably the real number is much higher. On the other hand even sharing a flat costs at least 400 Euros. This is a big problem for a city that is connected with terms like art and creativityWhat will the future be like if a city cannot offer space to live and work for upcoming younger talents that do not belong to the group of top earners? It’s of course possible that the mayor of Paris does not know about the importance of the creative industries and if he one day will know it might take years till a dull city administration will react on the issue.

The group Jeudi Noir did not want to wait so long. Their approach is to occupy houses that are empty and unused. Last “project” is a splendid villa on the Place de Vosges no. 1b. On one of the most demanded addresses in Paris the “Squatteurs” occupied a 1,300 square metre house that is degenerating since 45 years.

Spaces out of real estate perfection and capital are rare our cities. But it is exactly those places that creativity needs to grow and evolve. Assumed that the squatters treat the building at least better than its owners or even better start renovating the objects, it is the best strategy for the ghost buildings. “Eigentum verpflichtet” (property obligates) – and if the owner is not interested in caring for it, why not let creative people do the job that really have a motivation for it?

More information in English, French or German (including video).

Written at Cafe Kislev in the centre of Cologne, an enjoyable place with WLAN in the Zülpicher quarter.

There could not have been a better place for this panel discussion: Galeria Kaufhof held this event not in its headquarters a short walk away but in its Cologne warehouse amidst the things that matter: products.

Discussion topic was “Universal Design” and accordingly “how attractive products for all generations can be”. A lively discussion took place that add times tried to define the empty term “Universal Design”. For Prof. Martin Topel, professor at the University of Wuppertal and owner of the design agency Squareone in Düsseldorf / Germany, the expression is just a rehashing of old ideas:

“In general the principles that lie behind the idea of Universal Design were already defined by Dieter Rams in his 10 design principles* years ago.”

It seems obvious that the subject grows in importance now as the baby-boomers with reliable spendings due to safe earnings and pensions from the golden times have a high potential in spending money in goods. So retailers get more and more attracted to the idea of “Universal Design”.

Galeria Kaufhof, one of Europe’s biggest warehouse companies, has a special focus on demographic shift: in May 2009 together with six other companies, Kaufhof signed the “Berlin Declaration” where they commit themselves to actively participate in framing a society that will decline and age in the next years. In presenting the exhibition “Universal Design – Designing Our Future” that is initiated by the International Design Center Berlin the retailer underlines its ambitions once again.

Claudia Reinery, member of the executive board, with high experience in discovering and fulfilling customer’s needs seemed to be open-minded for good ideas in the field of Universal Design. Probably the right contact person for experimental projects. More than that it is important that a company of the size of Galeria Kaufhof sends the right and particularly powerful signals to the manufacturers.

*Here’s again Dieter Rams’ 10 Design Principles:
Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design is environmentally friendly.
Good design is as little design as possible.

Patrick Martinez sent me his interesting idea about how to keep the good old light bulb alive. Of course the only way is to virtualize it. So he did and produced Blank Bubble a downloadable version of a light bulb that even changes colour in the way you conduct it. It is possible to even hide the light bulb when you only want to have the light itself.

His aesthetic design invites to sit around the computer screen with friends and talk about the good old days of the light bulb.

“How will the coming rise in gas prices change the world“ asks Jeninne Lee-St. John on TIME.COM Christopher Steiner, author of the book $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better. In his opinion at $10 a gallon (that’s € 2,65 per liter in Europe) gift cards will become biodegradable and have expiration dates and at $14 a gallon (€3,70/l) Wal-Mart might collapse and manufacturing in the U.S. would be reborn.

Probably also electric and hybrid cars might come into the game. But to get this shift to alternative ways of car power it needs to become part of our public reality. First step will now be done in Germany. One of the biggest energy suppliers, RWE, today presented its new electrical filling pump in Munich. The new pump which has been designed by designaffairs will soon be installed in Germany’s urban centres. Berlin alone will receive 1,000 pumps.

In the next days we then have to talk about what big amount of energy and raw materials the production of electric engines itself costs. Probably we have to think over our way of individual transport in the end? However – this is a good subject for the Blog Action Day ‘09 on Climate Change.

In a country where the government wants to stay in control of its citizens, it is hard to find private or secret space. The only way to disappear from the eyes of big brother is to hide yourself. Artist Liu Bolin found a way to do so – respectively without photoshop or other manipulations. He just paints himself away. Found via reddit.

An interesting development comes from the company Greenhouse Energy and is called Microfueller (EFuel100).  It is a private filling station that allows to turn organic waste into ethanol fuel. Now – it is not that you can throw your old salad into the machine and the next day you drive 100 kilometres from that. The company itself will provide the feedstock for you. Greenhouse made contracts with companies that need to get rid of e. g. beverages that have date-expired and otherwise have to pay a high price to have those products hauled away for disposal.

Interesting and ground-breaking idea. Hopefully something like this does not lead to an increasing overproduction of things. It’s always a chain of systems that interacts with each. In the beginning it also seemed that using corn to produce fuel would be the most sustainable solution. Then it happened that the prices for corn rose worldwide – making it too expensive for people in poorer countries that are depending on it as a food.

However decentralized energy production is the most promising idea for the future. For example, the German bio-energy supplier Lichtblick is planning to install 100.000 gas power stations (“ZuhauseKraftwerk”) in private homes that supply heat for the building itself and energy for the public net. This huge swarm system with a capacity of 2,000 megawatts is equivalent to the power of two nuclear power plants.

More about the “Microfueller” project in an article published in The Economist. More about the Lichtblick idea soon to come here on ROGER LiVE – subscribe to my newsletter to stay up to date.

Waste is design flaw says Kate Krebs of the National Recycling Coalition

After the launch in 2008 greengaged returns to the London Design Festival with a full week of world-class events designed to help the design industry tackle the big issues around sustainable design. Hosted by the Design Council, with five brilliant guest curators, greengaged promises to inspire us all and challenge the design industry as a whole to create positive change.

All greengaged events are free and each lasts for a whole day with lunch included. Details about program and registration can be found on the greengaged website.