Like an inversion of J.G. Ballard's first novel, The Wind From Nowhere – in which winds blow to hurricane strength around the world, flattening cities, decimating civilization, and making readers wonder why the book wasn't simply written as a short story – it seems that winds across the continental U.S. are slowing down.
[Images: Three covers from J.G. Ballard's first novel, The Wind From Nowhere: "London and New York reduced to rubble," the cover on the right side reads, "as nature goes mad"].
As The New York Times reports, "wind speeds in the United States have dropped 15 to 30 percent over the course of about 30 years." There is absolutely no reason to assume that this trend will continue at the same pace – but, should it, the winds of America would come to a stand-still within just four or five generations.
One of the suspected reasons behind this atmospheric deceleration is climate change, the NYT explains:
As polar regions warm faster than the Equator... the temperature difference between them – and the pressure differential – shrinks. And, lower pressure differences mean slower winds.
Of course, it shouldn't be surprising, meanwhile, that, "in scattered pockets of the country, wind speeds have risen." These sorts of changes are rarely homogenous: a cooling trend in one spot is matched by a warming trend in another; the death of breezes in one location is counteracted by increased number of hurricanes elsewhere.
Nonetheless, how interesting to speculate what might happen if the atmosphere gradually did fail, falling still, forming the aerial equivalent of a glacier: hazy and unmoving, polluted and heavy, a kind of anti-hurricane with no less deadly effects in the long term. Certain plants would no longer pollinate. International travel, by both sea and air, would become unpredictable. The use of fossil fuels would skyrocket.
I do wonder, then, if Ballard, given another few years in which to write, might have tried out this kind of anti-storm scenario, describing a world without aerial movement. The death of the sky.
In trying to absolve themselves of their litany of environmental sins, some golf courses have started using treated effluent water to maintain their unnatural lushness.
According to The New York Times, “Golf courses are all but weaned from municipal fresh-water systems, with 86 percent now using some other source, liked recycled effluent water, surface water or water treated by reverse osmosis. Significantly, 70 percent of superintendents surveyed said they were keeping their turf drier.”
Additionally, those that can afford it have been experimenting with “subterranean wireless sensors” to better manage and monitor their water use, turning their fairways into networked cyborg landscapes that are constantly reading the terrain. In terms of water conservation, they're turning out to be quite a success. One club superintendent is quoted as saying that they have cut the amount of water they use in half.
The implication here, of course, is that giving high-tech intelligence to other landscapes — to athletic fields, farms, parks and home gardens — could mean a reduction in resource consumption there as well.
Now if only some of these golf clubs try to absolve themselves of their racist, sexist and other socio-exclusionary policies.
"We have come to an era where society breaths technology. Screens are familiar
to us, however we do not know the consequences that tie with their domination".
So begins the LIFT conference blurb. My own take, which I'll talk about, is that
new technology connects us to each other more, but leaves us *less* connected to
the biosphere of which we are a co-dependent part. We need to use digital infra
in ways that reverse this ecocidal divide. Keynote speakers include Euan Semple,
Gunther Pauli, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet (the French Digital Economy Minister),
Usman Haque, Bruce Sterling. The event takes place in the Palais du Pharo, a
gift to Napoleon perched on the cliff tops at the entrance of the Vieux Port.
Marseille, 18-20 June 2009
http://liftconference.com/lift-france-09
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Via The doors of Perception (John Thackara)
Personal comment:
Je trouve le statement intéressant: le "biological devide" créé aujourd'hui par les technologies d'information. Pas faut, mais cela pourrait changer radicalement quand on connait les nombreuses technologies environnementales en cours d'élaboration. Et il serait alors intéressant de se poser la question: quels services pour créer cette connection "digitale" entre biotopes, biosphère, infosphère et humanité.
Ce n’est pas le premier site du genre, mais le genre de site qui accroche toujours, comme la première fois. Rodsbot répertorie, par thématique, les vues étranges trouvables dans Google Earth, le logiciel de cartographie 3D de Google.
Créé par Stéphane Clérice, du site Geotrotter dont il est une sorte d’annexe, Rodsbot affiche ainsi quelque 1139 vues étonnantes, drôles, voire effrayantes. Autour de thèmes très variés, des réalisations humaines (Human Made et Art)aux inévitables UFO. Voir aussi Look Like, Landscape, et Message. Sans oublier les loupés et zones censurées d’Error.
Loin des belles images (d’un certain Yann A-B par exemple), l’intérêt est ici l’aspect tangible (parfois éphémère) des prises. En cliquant sur une photographie on arrive dans l’interface de Google Earth. De là on peut s’approcher, s’éloigner, passer en mode carte ou relief, et se promener dans les alentours.
This blog is the survey website of fabric | ch - studio for architecture, interaction and research.
We curate and reblog articles, researches, writings, exhibitions and projects that we notice and find interesting during our everyday practice and readings.
Most articles concern the intertwined fields of architecture, territory, art, interaction design, thinking and science. From time to time, we also publish documentation about our own work and research, immersed among these related resources and inspirations.
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