Design 21: Social Design Network

The Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution being discussed at Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill. Host Annie Leonard introduces the energy traders and Wall Street financiers at the heart of this scheme and reveals the "devils in the details" in current cap and trade proposals: free permits to big polluters, fake offsets and distraction from what’s really required to tackle the climate crisis. If you’ve heard about Cap & Trade, but aren’t sure how it works (or who benefits), this is the film is for you.

View EcoMag on-line here.

EcoMag is a magazine about art, design & sustainability produced by EcoLabs. Each issue will focus on a theme while investigating issues lying at the root of the ecological crisis. EcoMag No.1 launched in June 2009 at the the Future Scenarios Climate Roadshow in London. The magazine will be produced annually, with work by artists and designers responding to complex ecological problems. The theme of the first issue is ‘Future Scenarios’. We are indebted to the authors: Mark Lynas, David Holmgren and Herman Daly and grateful for having been granted permission to borrow freely and/or republish work. EcoMag No.2 - which will focus on ‘Economics’ and new calls for submissions will be posted in November 2009.The magazine is available in hard copy on the EcoLabs website and also as a low pdf here.

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Scientists have given us their verdict: the situation is urgent. Climate change is happening. The C02 and other greenhouse gases we release into the atmosphere pose a deadly threat. Experts tell us that we have one decade to make a major shift in our consumptions patterns – after that it will be too late.

Illustration can, and already is, fulfilling an important role in spreading awareness of global warming issues. Thanks to its ability to make ideas visible, illustration can play a part in making change happen. Furthermore illustration provides a means of communicating the complex emotional reactions that are naturally part of dealing with such loaded information as climate change. Illustration can work to communicate an immediate and a holistic representation. We need this ability of visual languages to help spread an awareness of not only the science behind global warming, but the measures that need to be taken to cut our energy consumption.

We have already warmed the climate by 0.8° over the past century, and we are told that anything above 2° will be catastrophic. Despite the danger, there exists a serious disconnect between scientific opinion and public awareness. False pundits in the media have succeeded in confusing us. A MORI poll found that one third of the population knows little or nothing about global warming. An IPM poll found half of people unwilling to change their lifestyle (ref: Lois Rogers, Climate Change: Why We Don’t Believe It, New Statesman, 23 Apr...