GREAT ADAPTATIONS

I’ve posted in honor of Olive Riley, an Australian woman who passed away over the weekend at the age of 109. Olive RIley, or “Ollie” as her friends called her, was the oldest blogger. She started blogging at 107. Olive left us a wonderful legacy of her writing and her life, along with videos posted on Youtube.

I’m humbled and inspired. Come over to my Examiner column, where you can read more about Olive and follow the links to the special gifts she left us.

Suzanna

__________________________________________________________________

While doing some research for my post in the Examiner today, I discovered this wonderful adaptation. It’s an expandable bench made of newspapers.

This is the stuff that makes me feel expansive, full of possibility. To my mind, the potential is vast for artists and innovators and all kinds of regular people to collaborate, support each others’ ideas and inventions, and move together toward something viable.

See the expandable bench here at Inhabitat. This is really just the tip of the green iceberg in terms of the innovation that’s out there. Do you know of other interesting sites that showcase art from reclaimed materials? Share them with us. I’m working on a list now for functional art, and I’d love your suggestions and input.

Cheers
Suzanna

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Plants respond to changing environments by adapting (if they survive), and so do humans. It just doesn’t look like it sometimes. Stoicism and all.

We adapt as a first response to external information, and then, piggy-backed on the process of adaptation, we innovate. Adaptation is like that initial shrink-back when you touch the feelers of a snail (that might be a Northern-California-centric thing), and then the innovation is when the snail turns slightly to go around you. I’m trying to keep things simple today.

What follows are solutions to problems which affect us all, and while they’re all brilliant, many of them need tending to keep up with the world’s constant morphing.

1. The compass. (China did it, although they were using it to decide which way their houses should face)

2. Paper. (105 A.D. Another bow to China, they pulled this one off. They also created the first newspaper in 700 A.D. Now if they could just figure out free speech.)

3. The use of bamboo in building. (Fast growing, no pesticides, beautiful, strong)

4. Continuous closed loop algae bioreactors as super cost-effective fuel source. (Development from Vertigro, check it out.)

5. Light emitting diode, the LED. (Still coming into its own, probably the light of the future, lasts forever, and is almost cheaper than fluorescent now.)

6. The Earth Charter. (The global consensual statement on the meaning of sustainability, created from the input of over 5000 people from cultures across the world. Completed in the year 2000)

7. Float glass. (1959! The technique that gave us a pane of glass that doesn’t distort. Most glass still made this way.)

8. Locofocos: the early match. (1836 patent granted for friction matches called locofocos, to a guy from Springfield, Massachusetts. Sweden made the safety match, of course, and Joshua Pusey created book matches a few years later.)

9. Smoke detector. (1969. Check your battery.)

10. The ladder fire truck. (It just took a few years after the match was invented for this necessity to arise.) 1868, Daniel Hayes invented the Hayes truck.

11. This is my personal favorite: The application of physics to describe a vacuum as not empty, but actually as highly organizing and constantly communicating. (Nassim Haramein, The Resonance Project, 2001)

Help me build this list – send your favorite adaptation or innovation in the “Reply To” area below.

Happy morphing!

Suzanna

Peter Russell changed my life with his video, “The Global Brain.”

I first came across it in 1986, while teaching a workshop in deep ecology in Oakland, California. I don’t think I realized at the time how profoundly this man’s work would affect my own life.

The video and the book which inspired it have received international acclaim as challenging, compelling, and definitely before its time. It’s easily available on his website, The Global Brain, and I passionately recommend it.

Peter Russell’s imagination has not stopped its feats of engineering, as he has continued to develop his ideas about our participation in our changing world. When I look at my path of study of the imagination, awareness, and the brain, I can see how many ways his imagination has affected my own. Because of his inspiring expression, I altered my course to become technology-friendly, and began my own exploration of the unfolding potential of our times. I’m sure there are many, many others who have been encouraged along their way by Peter’s brilliance and his comprehensive, compassionate articulation.

From the description of “The Global Brain,”

Peter Russell, who holds advanced degrees in theoretical physics, experimental psychology and computer science, makes no apologies for presenting what may seem like a Utopian theory. He advises, “The image a society has of itself can play a crucial role in the shaping of its future. A positive vision is like the light at the end of the tunnel, which, even though dimly glimpsed, encourages us to step in that direction.”

I am officially placing Peter Russell in the Luminaries Hall of Great Adaptations. Applause!

Suzanna