Topics
Environment
The Fab Tree Hab: Finding Home in Living Organisms
Architect / Co-Founder, Terraform ONE
The co-founder of Terreform ONE and Professor of Architecture at Columbia, Mitchell Joachim, discusses his plans for the Fab Tree Hab—a ‘positive impact’ home formed entirely from elements of local ecosystems.
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Immortality as a Cure for Climate Change
Would an ageless society be a more humane society? Aubrey de Grey explains why he believes that, when we defeat aging, the world will band together to finally solve the major crises of our time. Watch
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Trees Bleeding Oil and The Future of Biotech
Princeton Biology and Public Policy Professor Lee Silver describes a vision (admittedly “sci-fi” for now) in which biotechnology has taken over the natural world—but in a responsible, sustainable way. He looks forward a potential distant future where, for example, trees are engineered to produce fuel. “If you can imagine something,” he says, “it's probably going to be done.” Watch
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Forget Oil. We're Going to Run Out of Water First.
Peter Brabeck, former CEO and now Chairman of Nestlé, thinks we’ll run out of the substance faster than we will oil, unless we change how much it’s considered a human right. Watch
Related Blogs
Brave Green World
November 19, 2009 — 4:01 PM
If RFK Jr. Gave Birth Today, His Child Would Have Diminished IQ: The Link Between Coal And Mercury
“Would you please turn the lights up,” Robert F Kennedy Jr. asked the stage crew as he took the floor of New York’s Town Hall in Times Square, about to deliver an environmental lecture to a roaring full house this Tuesday. “I want to be able to see if people are leaving.” It was a joke, just the first of many for the evening, but the fact is that RFK, America’s most prominent environmental lawyer, Chief Prosecuting Attorney for Riverkeeper and Chairman of Waterkeeper Alliance, does have a hawk eye on us all—on polluters, on lobbyists, on fake think tanks funded by oil and coal, on corporations, on Jane and Joe Shmoe, and on the government. Read more
The Voice of Big Think
November 17, 2009 — 6:27 PM
Stewart Brand's latest book, "Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto," contains a dagger in its subtitle. To write a manifesto on behalf of "ecopragmatism" is to imply that the current environmental movement has become dangerously impractical. In his Big Think interview today, Brand—one of the intellectual godfathers of the modern green movement—confirmed that the thrust was intentional, citing nuclear power and biotechnology as two developments that activists have undermined their cause by rejecting. Read more
Latest Ideas
Stewart Brand's latest book, "Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto," contains a dagger in its subtitle. To write a manifesto on behalf of "ecopragmatism" is to imply that the current environmental movement has become dangerously impractical. In his Big Think interview today, Brand—one of the intellectual godfathers of the modern green movement—confirmed that the thrust was intentional, citing nuclear power and biotechnology as two developments that activists have undermined their cause by rejecting. Read More
November 17, 2009
Ending the Tragedy of the Commons
It is becoming increasingly common knowledge that our world is on the brink of an unprecedented environmental crisis. However slow the reaction has been, it is beginning to take tangible form and, from petroleum to water, the need to preserve and reduce is becoming a mainstay of the global conservation. One of the essential—and painfully under-acknowledged—factors in this discussion is the question of just how collective societies deal with a scarcity of resources. As the work of Big Think’s recent guest Elinor Ostrom, the 2009 Nobel laureate for economics, demonstrates, our understanding of this question appears to have been woefully misguided. Read More
November 14, 2009
Immortality as a Cure for Climate Change
Would an ageless society be a more humane society? Aubrey de Grey explains why he believes that, when we defeat aging, the world will band together to finally solve the major crises of our time. Read More
October 7, 2009
Good News For the Oil Supply, But Is It Good Enough?
New York Times reported today that new technology and generous investments in the early part of the decade have been fueling a good year for the oil industry. Jim Hackett, CEO of Anadarko Petroleum, is not surprised. He talked to Big Think last year about how this new willingness to explore and the potential of new technology could produce advantageous results not only for Big Oil, but for everday consumers. Read More
September 24, 2009
Former New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni predicts that the farm table movement is here to stay. Read More
September 21, 2009
Big Think Interview with Mitchell Joachim
Big Think sits down with the Columbia and Parsons professor and cofounder of Terraform One. Read More
September 18, 2009
The Fab Tree Hab: Finding Home in Living Organisms
The co-founder of Terreform ONE and Professor of Architecture at Columbia, Mitchell Joachim, discusses his plans for the Fab Tree Hab—a ‘positive impact’ home formed entirely from elements of local ecosystems. Read More
September 17, 2009
As part of his dissertation at MIT, Mitchell Joachim designed a ‘nerf-soft,’ self-healing automobile that promises to prevent deaths from car accidents in our increasingly hot and crowded cities. Read More
September 17, 2009
When facing large-scale issues like the energy crisis and climate change, Mitchell Joachim argues that our solutions need to be as “big” as our problems. Read More
September 17, 2009
Daily Ideafeed
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Landscape
Distinct Extinct -
New research has revealed how the extinction of mammoths and mastodons changed the landscape of the earth.
November 20, 2009
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Meteoric
Fire Ball! -
Last night a fireball lit up parts of the Utah sky– and the phenomenon, which saw the dead of night as bright as day, was captured on CCTV.
November 19, 2009
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Global Warming
6 Degrees -
The world is on course for a “catastrophic” 6 degrees centigrade rise in temperature, meaning that the worst-case predictions for climate change are coming true.
November 18, 2009
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Dark Flow
What’s Out There? -
Something big lies beyond the visible edge of our universe, according to the largest analysis to date of galaxy clusters.
November 18, 2009
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Photo Fodder
Sealing The Deal -
An underwater photographer was shocked when a leopard seal tried to feed him a live penguin.
November 17, 2009
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High Five
Right-Hand Chimp -
Research on chimpanzees suggests that human language has its roots in the gestural hand communications of our primate ancestors.
November 17, 2009
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Energetic
Pellet Power -
A tiny pellet the size of a multi-vitamin could provide an endless supply of safe, clean energy - But is this unrealistic optimism?
November 16, 2009
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Drought Panic
“Bomb the Clouds” -
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is encouraging Cuban scientists to “bomb clouds” with aircraft in order to stimulate rainfall during sever droughts.
November 16, 2009
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Climate Change
“Out Of Time” -
President Obama has ruled out the setting of binding targets for tackling climate change at the Copenhagen summit next month.
November 16, 2009
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Super Bee
Sniff This -
A new breed of “super bee” has been bred by government scientists in a bid to tackle the honeybee epidemic.
November 13, 2009
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Compost
Pee Visit -
Gardeners at a UK heritage property are urging visitors to urinate in the gardens to help the gardens “go green.”
November 13, 2009
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Contaminated?
Diluted Supplies -
Traces of cocaine, hormones and spices are among the things found in the drinking water of Puget Sound.
November 13, 2009
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Loch Ness
Nessie? Balls -
Scientists searching for the Loch Ness monster have unearthed 100,000 golf balls – and no Nessie.
November 12, 2009
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No Danger
Brown Pelican -
The brown pelican has been removed from the endangered species list after a century of special protection.
November 12, 2009
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China
Unnatural Storm -
Chinese state media have reported chaos in Beijing after scientists artificially induced the region’s second fake snow storm.
November 11, 2009
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Traumatic Birth
Sharky Midwife -
Staff at a New Zealand aquarium were astonished to find baby sharks spilling from a wound in a female school shark’s stomach after she was bitten by another shark.
November 11, 2009
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Oh Deer!
In The Lion’s Den -
A deer was fatally injured after it jumped into the lion’s den at the National Zoo.
November 10, 2009
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Protection
Crabby Deal -
Scientists have discovered that female fiddler crabs trade sex with their male neighbours in exchange for protection from intruders.
November 5, 2009
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Hairy Scary
Bald Bears -
Female bears at a zoo in Leipzig have baffled vets by getting collective alopecia.
November 5, 2009
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Precipitous
Artificial Flutter -
Chinese meteorologists have successfully induced artificial snow to fall in Beijing after chemically seeding clouds to combat lingering drought.
November 2, 2009
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Spider Scent
Bloody Minded -
Spiders find a bloodsucking-by-proxy diet sexy—and it helps control malaria, new research finds.
October 30, 2009
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A Natural Obsession
Empty Food Fetish -
While sustainable agriculture is rapidly becoming one of the looming issues of our time, a myth-based propensity toward naturalness may be stripping the movement of any effectuality.
October 29, 2009
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Going South
Light Migration -
New research reveals that birds use light rather than magnetic fields to aide their migration.
October 29, 2009
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Humane Meat
Veal Issues -
What if eating veal was actually more ethical than shunning it?
October 28, 2009
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Pivotal Role
Volcanic Ice Age -
Volcanoes set the stage for the rise of the Appalachian Mountains and the ice age that followed, new research has found.
October 27, 2009