The future could be very different. Scientists at MIT claim to have made a key breakthrough in producing artificial photosynthesis, the process of converting sunlight into energy, by genetically modifying a virus.
We’re talking biomimicry meets genetic engineering meets solar power meets nanotechology. Who knows where it will lead us.
This great little video explains much of what’s wrong with the world, in just 20 minutes. Well worth watching.
After the September 11 attacks, President Bush’s message to the US people was “keep shopping”. Canadian “cultural jammers AdBusters have a different perspective, with their Buy Nothing Day on November 28th.
Of course, like all the other assorted “Days”, it’s not going to save the planet in one go. It’s meant to be a conversation starter to encourage people to think about the implications of what they buy, and consumer society in general.
Here’s some more AdBusters stuff…
I’ve just started reading Aldous Huxley’s novel The Island – which you can read online. The book is a utopian counterpart to his dysutopian classic Brave New World. The Island was written after Huxley discovered psychoactives, particularly mescaline and LSD, and his utopia is an east-meets-west society of psychedelics and buddhism.
The novel served as the inspiration for The Island Foundation, a website devoted to counter-culture and new “memes”. There’s some interesting stuff there – worth nosing around a bit.
Don’t be fooled by the nice old man in a wooly jumper appearance: James Lovelock is possibly the greatest thinker of the 20th (and early 21st) century – his Gaia Hypothesis will, I think, come to be seen an an epoch-changing landmark in human thought comparable to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.
And he’s pretty clear on how global warming is likely to affect the planet, too.
