drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci -- (the first?) Biomimetic Designer

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01.23.08

 

We believe in the power of open innovation, bringing together creative minds to create breakthrough solutions that touch every human life.

Founded in 2001, InnoCentive connects companies, academic institutions, and non-profit organizations, all hungry for breakthrough innovation, with a global network of more than 125,000 of the world's brightest minds on the world's first Open Innovation Marketplace™.

Kenny Ward told me about  how he maintains Toronto skating rinks.

On January 10, 2008 Bill MacDermott addressed an audience of about 30 at Webtego in Cleveland, Ohio.  

Bill is a solar convert - and  a franchise distributor of Unisolar products.

At a recent morning function, a “complimentary breakfast” was offered. 

This mural is on a building which is owned, as I understand, by the artist. It is just off of the SW corner of Detroit and W 25th.

Green-wash (green'wash', -wôsh') – verb: the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.

The 15 story Dulski Federal Building in Buffalo, New York is undergoing a down to the steel skeleton re-hab.   This building was constructed in the early 1970’s, and besides the time of its construction, shares other similarities with the Breuer designed Ameritrust Tower built in 1971 in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Technology is such an important wildcard in the social consciousness picture, whether we speak of the most innovative approaches to community development using WI-FI and FOSS in tandem or we celebrate some of the latest advances in product development.  While bumbling bureaucratic banter restricts radical progress at the nexus of environment and technology (current Ohio legislation insiduously inculcates clean coal and nuclear power measures as green and renewable technologies and considers a 35 MPG mandated standard by 2020 significant) some very innovative R&D experts have launched their media campaign to expedite progress by demonstrating how very close we are to a 100 MPG standard.  I was heartened by a full page ad which recently manifested via a variety of media outlets - I happened to catch the one in this week's issue of US News and World Report.

On Wednesday, January 16, I testified at the Cleveland City Council Public Utilities Committee's PURPA Hearing. More than 16 people testified asking Cleveland City Council Public Utilities Committee to cancel, or at the very least, delay their vote on whether or not to allow Cleveland Public Power (CPP) to sign a 50 year contract to buy power from the American Municipal Power of Ohio's (AMP-OH) proposed 1,000-megawatt conventional pulverized coal powered plant to be located in Letart Falls in Meigs County Ohio. The deadline for Council to decide is March 1, 2008. The next time for the public to comment in front of Council is set for Friday, February 22. The Jan. 16 meeting started at 1:30 p.m. and ended at 6:30 p.m. A much longer meeting then anyone expected. The entire meeting was extremely interesting and I learned a lot. It is important to note that though the AMP-OH issue was at the forefront of everyones mind, the just as important issue concerning CPP's Advanced Energy Portfolio Standard was discussed at length.

Click on the image to check for your own street--

Stream polluted by mountaintop removal

Friday Jan 18, NYTimes writes "The nation’s fourth-largest coal producer, the Massey Energy Company, was hit Thursday with a $20 million fine, the largest civil penalty ever levied by the federal government for a pollution violation of this type under the Clean Water Act.

The fine was part of a $30 million settlement with the government over accusations that the company violated water pollution permit limits more than 4,500 times from January 2000 to December 2006. The government said Massey had polluted and clogged hundreds of streams and rivers in Kentucky and West Virginia by releasing millions of pounds of metals, sediments and acid mine drainage into their waterways.

Here's the article U.S. Fines Mine Owner $20 Million for Pollution

And we want to do what; buy power for the next 50 years from a new coal fired power plant? Did we lose our thinking caps!!!!????

Read this PD article from October to see what Matt Zone thinks and plans and then click here to read about other villages and download what Bill Callahan thinks. Somehow Bill's argument strikes me as more well considered than Matt's. How about you?

Here's another perspective on coal from John Bolton, MD via Hillbilly Savants (I love the description of this blog -- "This blog is about our Appalachia - the real one, not the Hollywood-stereotype nor the third-world nation-esque stereotype being sold by do-gooders, or even the neo-Romantic sylvan stereotype that Rousseau would probably buy into. It should be interesting."

Here's what John had to say:
"If you think that having a coal fired power plant next door to your town will be an asset, drive up to what is left of the community of South Clinchfield,VA, in the shadow of AEP's Clinch River (Carbo) plant. Talk to the residents as I have. Listen to their stories of fumes from the smokestack flooding down to ground level when a cool night brings a temperature inversion. Hear how dust from the trucks coats the skin of their infants and blackens their bath water as if they had been working in the mines. Does it also fill their lungs? Sadly, only time will tell. I do not think that "black lung" benefits will be available to neighborhood children or adults who will be forced breathe rock and coal dust from the waste coal trucks. Add to this the fumes from a coal fired power plant and confine them in the small bowl that contains the town of St Paul. This could be a true witch's brew."

We want to saddle Southern Ohio (and the rest of the watershed which by the way includes the land west of the Appalachians to the Mississippi River and all the way to the Gulf of Mexico) with this??!! Really? Isn't there an alternative? The streams will look a funny color and it won't be someone's greywater system dye.

Over the last few weeks I have had the opportunity to visit friends who live in the suburbs outside of Cleveland and I have visited neighborhoods inside of Cleveland. 

I was very surprised to see our neighbor and friend Kurt Weaver featured in the stodgy, old PD.  I was even more amazed to find out that Steven Litt followed up on the story to reveal Kurt's real thoughts about Cleveland architecture. 

YOU ARE THE BEST REPORTER IN NEO -  YOU HAVE informative and educational NEWS!

From Article 19 and Neil Nisbet on camera: The Self and Bitter Ripples

The work: clips from 'The Self' by Fin Walker, a duet performed by Kajza Ekberg (pictured above) and Phil Sanger. 'Bitter Ripples' choreographed by Hofesh Shechter and performed by the whole company

Read about it here.

By Daniel M. Kammen 12/11/07

The January 14, 2008 Cuyahoga County Commissioner's meeting started sounding much like a New England Town Meeting.  

Coming down the hall towards the fourth floor Commissioner’s public meeting room, the Town Crier's sharply ringing hand bell competed with his yells of  Hear Yea! Hear Yea!

Naga DDB Malaysia painted the poster for this Regional Environmental Awareness straight on the tiles of pool.
“Don’t let this be our future. Save our rainforest, stop global warming.”

There was only one bid for the Breuer designed Ameritrust Tower opened this morning at 11:00 AM by Cuyahoga County.  That bid was submitted by K & D Development, who are the developers of the Stonebridge Condos on the west side of the Flats next to the Detroit Superior Bridge in Cleveland, Ohio. 

The above photo shows the artist's rendering of the K & D development proposal which, in my opinion, will nicely emphasize the Breuer Tower. K& D put the cost of the development at$ 200 million.

A while back, I posted this Pittsburgh-based site www.mymave.com as a place to advertise your skills.  Last night, talking to Ed Hauser--who described marketing his problem-solving talents--I realized that this is still available and free to anyone who has a skill to market.