get the camera, honey, Manhattan's going under!

In a thought-provoking essay this week, BLDGBLOG asks a key question: "How do we visually represent climate change in a way that will make more people take it seriously?" BLDBLOG suggests that a recent visual campaign by Greenpeace looks "more like posters for tomorrow's specialty tourism firms", and could have unintended interpretations.

traffic engineers: creativity knows no bounds

Don't get too excited, guys and gals, but if you're having trouble designing roads so that people will actually drive at the design speed, how about this:

Several experimental Japanese "melody roads" have been deployed, whose cut grooves and bumps play distinctive songs through your car, but only when you drive slowly and carefully down them. This seems like a potentially useful bit of social engineering -- set the musical timing on a road at the safe speed, and combine that with timed traffic lights that reward you with a "green wave" if you stick to the limit, and you'd have a pretty good set of cues telling you how to travel at speed.

And I love the tag line from one of the comments following this BoingBoing post:

Next up: "Symphony for Road Rage in A(ccident) Minor"

wind-up lights

First Freeplay brought us wind-up radios and small torches; now they are turning their hand to bigger, brighter lights that would charged from a wind-up station:

As part of its LifeLight Project the Freeplay Foundation has drawn up designs for a charging base unit that would be able to power up several detachable lights that can be used around a home.

upcycling

We generally assume that the initial use for which something is designed is its primary use, and any opportunity to give the thing a second life by using it for another purpose is just a fortunate way to avoid sending it to the dump. Here's an idea that turns that concept on its head: a water bottle that is shaped deliberately so that it can be used like a brick in a building, by filling it with soil. One product, two uses. The designers call it the united bottle.

The Earth Architecture site has loads of other ideas and information on building with natural materials. Which brings me to the thought that while it is certainly a worthy achievement for the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center to be the first-ever LEED-platinum carbon neutral building on the planet, and for this office building to use LED lighting as the only source of artificial light, let's not forget that over the millennia, billions of people have lived in carbon neutral, zero-impact dwellings.

power from above

Who says large-scale wind turbines have to be outside cities? The Bahrain World Trade Centre - two 50-storey towers - will house three 225 kW turbines with diameters of 29 metres. The commercial towers, now under construction in Manama, will also have grey water recycling, natural ventilation, a heat recovery system, facade shading and PV panels.

no cash? pay with oil

A trial bio-bus service in Kilmarnock, Scotland, allows riders to pay with vouchers obtained by taking used cooking oil to a recycling depot. It's the perfect way to encourage bus ridership, reduce household travel costs, and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. This would be great in developing countries too, since it creates a completely new market for poor households with small quantities of a commodity that currently has no commercial value, and would otherwise be thrown away.

just not cricket

If Metrorail, South Africa's commuter train operator, is trying to win friends and gain passengers, they are not making much headway. An incident today provided a brilliant illustration of why they are failing.

I ride the train to work every day, and there are often things that go wrong with the trains. Sometimes - like when signal cables are stolen to be sold for scrap - events are beyond Metrorail's control. But the mark of a winning organisation is effective communication to help everyone through the bad patches. I would generally give Metrorail a rating of about 2 out of 10 for their passenger communication strategy. They do try to let us know when trains are delayed or cancelled; sadly, they are not very successful. But today they've just hit zero for passenger relations. Here's what happened on the 18:14 train from Cape Town to Simonstown this evening.

Leaving Cape Town Station, the third Metro Plus carriage was comfortably full, but not crowded. As we pulled into Newlands Station there was a large crowd of men in suits and ties, drinking beer. It seemed a bit odd - and probably illegal - for them to be drinking on the platform, but at first this struck me as a mere curiosity, considering that the station serves the Newlands cricket ground (no, I will not refer to it as "Sahara Park") and the train is convenient for spectators. Clearly, however, these men were not spectators, and their large number suggested a gathering of some signifcance.

Things started to get interesting when the carriage doors opened and a woman entered, asking the passengers to please get out and move to the next carriage. Nobody moved. The woman was behaving as if this was a perfectly normal request, but she wasn't getting much response. We were all too tired at the end of a long week.

So she raised the stakes. "These are International People," she said, apparently referring to the beer-drinking suits, "and they need this carriage."

A few people started shuffling towards the doors, but we were all a little confused after a hard day at work. They need our carriage? What are they going to do with it? Aren't they going to offer us drinks? I was thinking back to a few months ago, when Biggsy's Restaurant Carriage was still operating and I could enjoy a civilised glass of wine on my way home.

She tried again. "We need to clear the carriage; it was supposed to be reserved. Please can you all move along?" Oh, I see. These are Very Important People waiting to get on, and we are inconveniencing them. The Friday fog was starting to clear, and most of the passengers, compliant South Africans that we are, were getting out, and the suits were boarding.

I was still in two minds. Whether or not the carriage was meant to be reserved, it definitely was not. I had a right to stay where I was. But if these were Very Important International Visitors, would it not be a Good Thing to be hospitable and show them that we are Shiny Happy People who would love them to return to Sunny South Africa with their families and friends and euros?

But then the train whistle blew, and instinct took over. I made a dash for the next carriage.

To my utter amazement, the woman who had asked us to leave the first carriage was now in this one, asking us to move on to the next one. I stared at her in disbelief. Had I not already gone above and beyond the call of duty? Who are these people that we should be shunted around like sheep so that they could enjoy their beer-tinted tour of the False Bay coast? I turned from the woman's Metrorail label to look more closely at the badges on the suits.

They read, "Police Cricket". OK, these must be the players in the International Police Cricket Festival, on their way to Simon's Town Naval Base for the closing function of their two-week tour. Good for them. That makes me feel better. Not.

Ms Metrorail was pleading again. "Can you work with me?" What does that mean, work with me? That I should swallow my pride and acquiesce to the greater needs of international cricketers? That I should be stared down by a carriageful of policemen? Do we have any dignity, we public transport users? I stood my ground.

A man standing next to me was getting agitated. He was holding his train ticket, shaking it in Ms Metrorail's face. "I paid for this ticket," he was shouting. "I have every right to be here, and I am not moving again." She turned away, resigning herself to a partly cleared carriage, and tended to her brood like an agitated mother hen. "Are you alright?" she asked her charges. "Is everything OK?"

Of course it's not alright. It's a bloody disgrace. I tossed an expletive at a bemused cricketer as I jumped off at the next station. He didn't catch it.

[Update on 10 Nov 2007: Here's a thought from WorldChanging: transit riders' unions. Just imagine if those of us on that 18:14 train on Friday had an organisation representing our interests and providing resources for passengers. That could not only ensure that riders were treated with respect and equity, but could also help Metrorail understand passenger needs and how best to respond to them.]

the last resort

No matter how efficient we get in using resources and diverting waste as inputs to various processes, I imagine there will always be some waste remaining. So maybe its not so bad that the last unused bit should just be incinerated to squeeze out whatever energy is left. Of course, burning anything to get energy from waste will emit carbon, but that impact has to be weighed up against the carbon that would be given off through generating electricity from other sources, and also against the environmental impacts of dumping the waste instead.

The real problem right now is that so much waste is toxic (when did you last separate your dud batteries from other trash?) that incineration can only safely use a few waste sources. But after writing yesterday's post about the coming recycling revolution, I started wondering if the pressure to sort waste efficiently would eventually increase the proportion of waste that would be safe to incinerate. I hope that in 10 years, we'll be using fewer toxic materials in consumer products anyway. Maybe our resource use will be so efficient (reduce, reuse, repair, repurpose - and only then recycle) that the problem will be a shortage of waste to feed the incinerators. Now that would be a good challenge to face.

earth audit: turf wars of the future

It's not just established technologies - like those relying on oil - that are facing a resource crunch as supplies decline. As reported in New Scientist [subscription required] we are mining a whole raft of minerals and ores at such a rate that even new technologies will soon be affected.

Gallium and iridium are two minerals that some analysts say may only last ten more years before they run out, but are being used in a new-generation solar cell that promises to be twice as efficient as current technologies. Gallium is also used for making LCDs, which raises serious questions about the long-term future of flat screens for computers and televisions; and for LEDs, which are hailed as the next generation of lighting that will replace compact flurorescent bulbs. And even the CFL bulbs are threatened by the supply of terbium, which could be used up by 2012.

Of course, nobody knows for sure when any mined resource will run out, but without a global storekeeper watching over earth's underground supplies, we are in danger of banking on the wrong technology to address current environmental or energy challenges. What happens if we all switch to LED lighting to reduce energy consumption, and find there's only a five-year supply of the raw materials needed to make them?

We can keep hopping from one technology to the next - or make some drastic changes to the way we consume resources, and completely revolutionise the concept of recycling. As raw materials become more scarce and costly, companies are starting to look at new ways to extract material from what has historically been treated as waste. Mine dumps are one such source. Another, believe it or not, is roadside dust. In countries like the US, where catalytic converters are in widespread use, platinum is lost through vehicle exhausts, and ends up literally everywhere that vehicles go. Platinum is also in short supply (with an otherwise promising future in fuel cells), and geologist Hazel Prichard wonders if there's a way to collect it from road-sweeping machines for recycling.

Is Hazel Prichard the bag lady of the future, wandering the streets in search of platinum? "Hey, buddy, step away from the trash can. This is my turf." The revolution is nigh.

carbon slums

As global pressure increases for countries to reduce carbon emissions, there will be those who step up to the plate, and others who drag their carbon-heavy feet. The UK's Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, is promoting a climate change bill that could make the country the first to legalise carbon emissions reduction targets. No doubt others will soon follow suit, chanelling pressure down the political chain for provinces, districts and cities to set their own targets in support of national goals.

And what of those who resist? Will they become the carbon slums of the future? British Conservative MP Tim Yeo, chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee, is worried about poor planning that could result in regions that emit excessive amounts of carbon. Which makes me wonder if this could result in under-development in those areas: penalised by national governments and international agencies that need to meet targets, under-performing regions could suffer lower levels of investment, resulting in their showing symptoms of decline. It's all very well to say that municipalities will use the promise of funding as a motivator to develop low-carbon projects, but if the institutional capability isn't in place, it ain't gonna happen. (Something like South Africa's headlong rush to spend vast sums on projects tied to the 2010 FIFA World Cup - many of which won't make the deadline simply because of inadequate government resources to manage the projects. Two separate articles in today's Cape Times mention delivery problems faced in the housing and transport sectors, both of which are blessed with political commitment to get things done, but cursed with institutional challenges.)

The US has for years tied federal infrastructure funding to local air quality standards, forcing municipalities to clean up by directing funds to projects that contribute to cleaner air. Carbon just takes the concept to a new level. Hopefully, there will be mechanisms to root out the under-performing regions and economic sectors, and reduce their carbon output. Perhaps government threats to withold funding - a favourite tactic - combined with private companies needing to find low-carbon investment opportunities, will be enough to ensure overall compliance with national carbon emission caps.