Dive into the archives.
- InfraNet does HotDocs
[Chelyabinsk, Russia, a nuclear dumping site for decades, is the subject of the film Tankograd.]
Festival season is starting. In particular, we are excited about a slew of films that are part of the Canadian International Documentary Festival, nicknamed HotDocs, that runs April 29 – May 9, 2010 here in Toronto. With so many fascinating accounts [...]
- Inverted Infrastructural Monuments, pt. 3
[The Escondida Mine in the Atacama Desert, Chile. Image courtesy NASA GSFC, MITI, ERSDAC, JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.]
The nationalization of the Chilean copper mines, originally pioneered in the 1950s, was built around the considerable dependence of the Chilean economy on copper exports–some 60 to 75% of the Chilean GDP comes from copper exports. [...]
- Particulate Swarms
[Radar image of Sydney during the dust storm of September 2009 - its largest in 70 years.]
Editors Note: File under Glacier / Island / Storm, a studio run by BLDGBLOG at Columbia University GSAPP. Storm edition.
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"It is time / It is time for / It is time for stormy weather" – The Pixies
Storms deal in [...]
- P3-Post Peak Phosphorous
[Togo phosphates mining]
If you thought post-peak oil had generated media frenzy (and spawned endless sustainable design projects), there’s another, quieter crisis looming – post-peak phosphorous.
Phosphorus is at the heart of modern farming; an essential ingredient of agricultural fertilizers. It has no synthetic alternative and is being mined, used and wasted as never before. Inefficiencies [...]
- Medius Terra / Aqua
[Agriculture and Fisheries in the Mediterranean. Zoï Environment Network.]
We were excited to see that MedSec and UNEP have released a series of recent maps on various aspects of the environment dependent upon Mediterranean Sea. The series is titled, appropriately enough, "Environment and Security in the Mediterranean." They have documented Agriculture and Fisheries, Migration, Water, Population, [...]
- Sea Dust, pt 3, or Lithium Nirvana
[The massive salt playa in Bolivia covers about 9,000 km2.]
The optimism surrounding the potential of electric vehicles to mitigate resource extraction does overlook a few key factors that extend beyond the obvious economic and cultural hurdles. One interesting factor is resources needed; Yes, resources for electric and hybrid vehicles. Such as the need for massive [...]
