Language Lost

Neolithic Objects: Ancient Language, Engraved Stones found in Glozel (8000-10,000 BC)

10,000 years ago the population was between 5 and 10 million
Leading anthropologists estimate that nearly 12,000 languages (or more) were spoken at that time.

Today our population is 6.5 billion
Approximately 7,000 languages are spoken today

At this rate in 100 years from now, in the year 2108, only 2,500 languages may be spoken.

One language goes extinct every month.

In lecture you may have heard me comment on these facts: "While it is important, for the sake of biodiversity to have a variety of languages spoken, what about the fact that more people are communicating?" This may not be a fact at all- sadly, we are loosing many indigenous cultures.

What does this mean?
What do you think about this data and the potential future of lost languages?

It's Not My Bag!

Americans throw away one hundred billion polyethlene bags a year: They choke thosands of marine animals annually; the inks used to print all those smiley faces break down in landfills and create a toxic seep. Though plastic bags take up less than 4% of all landfill space (they're easily compressed), estimates on how long they take to decompose range from a hundred years to a thousand.


-From onearth. "It's Not My Bag, Baby!" by L.J. Williamson.

Treehugger: "Ban or No Ban: The Debate over Plastic Bags in LA" by Jeremy Elton Jacquot

World Is Green: "...Is there an Alternate Solution?" (Green Economics)

Culture Jamming

What did you think about this book? Write a mini-review.

or...

After reading it and discussing it in class, what is a concept that Lasn presents that still resonates with you?

How will you, or will you, Culture Jam?



Students from the University of Georgia were asked to do culture jamming projects for their finals, for a communications course, the projects are posted here: Consumer Culture Jammers

A poignant blog about Culture Jam: here

Adbusters: The Culture Jamming Headquarters

Potential Energy: Virtue of Position & Imaginative Futures

Image from Star Shadow Remote Observatory, New Mexico, USA
Horsehead Nebula, Orion's Belt

"Look deep into nature, then you will understand everything better." - Albert Einstein

Dear Artists,

You are creative problems solvers by design.

The reason you have been required to take this course is because you are attending one of the top 10 public Universities in the Nation. The environmental issues that have been presented to you will grow with intensity and this is no time to sit back and let others solve the problems for us, especially given our place in the world.

You are a part of an essential dialogue of the 21st Century.

You know the data- you have read the books (I hope), listened to the lectures, shared your ideas, and will hopefully continue to develop your own.

The "Green Movement" is the fastest growing and most essential movement in our history.

Innovative solutions combined with new modes of thinking, of reconstructing culture, will be the savior of our planetary crisis.

Let this be an open space for the imaginative-

Reflect on the change the education of this course has offered you.

Exponential Population Growth: Homo Sapiens

"We are the first generation to live on earth to witness a doubling of population in our lifetime. The babies born within the nest thirty hours of your reading this sentence will replace the 250,000 people lost in the tragic tsunami of December 26, 2004. Nearly 3 billion more people will join the current population of 6.6 billion within fifty years, and the world has yet to figure out how to take care of those already here."
-Paul Hawken
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw it Coming

In this course we have heard much about our exponential population growth. We have also heard undisputed data about our remaining natural resources...

What do you think about population projections for our species?

Do you think that the earth can healthfully sustain a population of more than 7 billion people?
What might this world look like? Be like?

How much more can the earth really give?

While it is haunting to think about a "collapse" in our cultural systems, the reality is that a collapse is a reoccurring conversation surfacing in leading academic communities and elsewhere. Please share your thoughts.

Learn More:
Population Growth over Human History
One Hundred Interesting Mathemaical Calculations: #5: Exponetial Growth and Human Populations
"We Have Passed Our Sustainability" (www.overpopulation.net)
The No Impact Man

Restoring Animal Corridors: The Importance of Biodiversity

1. A stream corridor connecting forest and native grass habitats
2. The Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, crucial to the long-term recovery of grizzly bears and other wildlife labeled as one of the most endangered wild lands in the U.S.

Today in Professor Trumpey's lecture we heard about the importance of biodiversity and efforts to restore corridors for animals.

Groups around the world are working to establish "wildlife highways" with varying degrees of success. "In North America, the Wildlands Project is pushing for a huge "Yellowstone-to-Yukon" wildlife corridor. In Central America, conservationists are slowly and sporadically working on the Meso-American Biological Corridor. The dream: A monkey should be able to go up a tree in Panama and not have to climb down till it reaches Mexico," (Windstar Wildlife Garden Weekly)

"The corridor idea is relatively new: conservationists once thought that [preserves were enough. But groups of animals isolated from their species become genetically homogeneous, and don't develop the diversity necessary to adapt to threats- especially that of climate change," (Brandon Keim in Corridors Help Animals Flee From Climate Change).

What are your thoughts on these animal corridors?
They appear in our landscape as green, peaceful and graceful efforts to restore the natural environment and a natural way of life (migration) for animals... what else?

How might artists be a part of these efforts?

How do you imagine these corridors expanding into our world?

How might they extend into our urban spaces?

Also feel free to use this space to respond to the lecture as a whole, focusing on the importance of biodiversity.

Read More:
Corridors for a Healthier Environment
Article: Earth Times, San Diego
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
North Carolina State University Corridor Research

Plastic Mass

Hopefully if you’re at this site and reading this you are well aware of the alternatives to using disposable bottles and recycle the ones you do. The advent of bottled water sent our already wasteful consumer culture into pollution overdrive and it’s a tremendous task to put the brakes on the momentum of this waste. Here is a list of plastic bottle fun facts that put the magnitude of this pollution into scope.

* Plastic bottles take 700 years to begin composting
* 90% of the cost of bottled water is due to the bottle itself
* 80% of plastic bottles are not recycled
* 38 million plastic bottles go to the dump per year in America from bottled water (not including soda)
* 24 million gallons of oil are needed to produce a billion plastic bottles
* The average American consumes 167 bottles of water a year
* Bottling and shipping water is the least energy efficient method ever used to supply water
* Bottled water is the second most popular beverage in the United States

Although it can be easy and convenient to pick up bottle beverage products the end cost to the environment is staggering. So be mindful when you drink…and remember, friends don’t let friends drink from disposables!