Every year, the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife magazine team up to put on an international showcase of the best wildlife photography from across the globe: The Veolia Environnment Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition. Here are just a few photographs from the 2009 exhibition.

See also The Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition.

This fall, a raft of environmentally-themed films, from all perspectives, are premiering, and several are tying their launch to Climate Week N.Y.C., which is holding events around New York City this week.

For one day each year, residents transform parking spaces across San Francisco into miniature parks.

From the Article:

For many years there has been a kind of secret museum of photography under the streets of northwest Washington — an immense, windowless, climate-controlled archive with roots reaching back more than a century.

And since the early 1980s just one man, William C. Bonner, has been the museum’s primary denizen, becoming intimately familiar with its holdings: more than 11 million images richly documenting the life of the 20th century, from Uganda to the Mississippi Delta to remote lamaseries near the Mongolian border. “People don’t realize how beautiful this collection is,” Mr. Bonner said, “and it’s a shame, in a way, that I’m the only one who’s seen many of these pictures.”

The pictures make up the archive of the National Geographic Society, and it was this sentiment, said Mr. Bonner, the society’s archivist, that motivated him and officials there to explore the idea of opening up the holdings to the fine-art market [150 images to begin] for the first time. National Geographic’s goal is to find private and institutional collectors for the vintage black-and-white prints and later color images.

Source: NY Times

Award-winning entries will be published in the 2009 December/January issue of National Wildlife® magazine, and all winners will be featured in the magazine’s online PhotoZone. In return for your $15 entry fee, you will receive a one-year membership to National Wildlife Federation, including a subscription to the magazine (current NWF members excluded). You can submit as many as 20 images in any combination in seven categories. For more details about how to submit your photos and other information, read the official rules. Deadline is July 20.

Who can participate? Teams of 3-5 Illinois youth, ages 8 to 18

What do you submit? 2-D designs (11 x 17”) for rain barrel artwork that communicates the importance of fresh water in Illinois

When is the entry deadline? June 10, 2009

What can you win? The top 50 teams will be invited to Navy Pier to celebrate the Governor’s “It’s Our River Day” on September 19, 2009. At this event, each team will receive a free rain barrel on which to create their artwork. Top designs will be put on display for thousands to see!

How do you participate? Visit the “Art on a Rain Barrel” Web site for complete contest rules and to download an entry form.
www.chicagobotanic.org/calendar/rainbarrel

Questions? Contact artonarainbarrel1@gmail.com.

Rain barrels for this event are generously provided by Upcycle Products: www.upcycle-products.com.

Academy of Art University School of Fine Art Sculpture students have joined forces with art students from across the Bay Area to participate in San Francisco’s first-ever Radical Jewelry Makeover. After sifting through a rich supply of donated pieces from more than one hundred Bay Area residents, melting down precious metals, and forming creative new designs, the resulting fresh, unique, handmade, and mainly recycled jewelry are ready to be showcased at San Francisco’s Velvet da Vinci Gallery.

The contest was designed to increase environmental stewardship and public awareness of environmental issues. This year, the theme is commemorating the 100th anniversary of environmentalist Rachel Carson’s life. The contest’s intergenerational approach reflects Carson’s efforts through her writings to have adults share with children a sense of wonder about nature and help them discover its joys. All teams included both a person under age 18 and a person 50 years of age or older.

More than 140 individuals submitted entries to the Rachel Carson contest. Participants came from all over the US and the world and included intergenerational teams of families, neighbors, friends, and senior centers. Finalists in each category were selected by an intergenerational team of judges. Winners were then selected by public voting on the Aging Initiative website. More than 1,500 individuals cast their votes for their favorite entries.

The categories are Photography, Essay, Poetry and Mixed (Photo, Essay and Poetry).

Four new books illuminate the confluence of science, art and ornithology.

An Energy Star campaign to promote the recycling of refrigerators has resulted in an art exhibit that is filling the Great Hall of the National Building Museum with old refrigerators. “The Art of Recycling: The Coolest Act in Town” exhibit opened on August 25 and features about 50 old refrigerators that have been decorated by students, institutions, utility companies, private organizations, and individuals. Visitors to the exhibit can vote on the models they like best, and a panel of judges will select the top three entries based on which is the coolest, makes the best use of recycled materials, is the most creative, and portrays the campaign theme best. The exhibit continues through September 2, at which time the winners of the judges’ awards and the “Viewer’s Choice” awards will be recognized. Located in Washington, D.C., the National Building Museum serves as a venue for informed, reasoned debate about the built environment and its impact on people’s lives. See the DOE press release and the National Building Museum Web site.

Street artists are increasingly turning to non-destructive, paint-free forms of graffiti to make a point without permanently defacing property. Their urban pranks and social protests engage mobile gadgets, open-source software, and online social networking. They blend aesthetics from the hip-hop, punk, and do-it-yourself arts and crafts movements to convey messages from the silly to the politically provocative. Free speech, environmentalism, and anti-war messages are common themes.

During World War II the United States was able to mobilize industry and motivate its citizens in breathtaking speed. Factories were overhauled and consumption habits transformed. Conservation (in the form of rationing) became a patriotic act. Strong, graphically compelling posters played a crucial role in the success of this campaign.

Taking action was presented in these posters as vital for the common good of the nation and those who were willing to sacrifice were portrayed as attractive, dynamic American heroes.

To face the ecological crisis posed by global climate change today a similar mobilization of America is required.

View current posters here. In September, Green Patriot Posters will launch an online competition. Participants will be able to submit Green Patriot Poster designs, as well as to view and vote on posters from the rest of the online community.

One caveat: the site appears to be optimized for Internet Explorer. I had some display problems when I viewed it using Firefox 3.

Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” first a film and then a book, is becoming an opera. Officials of La Scala in Milan say the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to write it for the 2011 season, The Associated Press reported.

See also “An inconvenient opera? Gore goes operatic” in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Al Gore will finally get center stage — no, not the U.S. presidency, but in an opera. The Associated Press is reports that La Scala has commissioned composer Giorgio Battistelli for an opera based on Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” for its 2011 season.

Vehicles, both hot and not, have been enjoying an on-screen heyday. But Toyota’s Prius has remained something of a novelty act on the big screen.

An EPA panel of judges chose 10 finalists in each of the three categories and then the public picked the winners. To encourage participation and provide maximum public access, the contest was hosted on the photo sharing site Flickr.com.

We’re pleased to announce the winners, whose photos will be featured in a special gallery on the EPA Web site:

* Enjoying the Environment: Richard Burkart, Battle Creek, Mich.
* Protecting the Environment: Julie Larsen Maher, New York, N.Y.
* Nature and Wildlife: Alex Saberi, London, England

Winning and finalist photos: epa.gov/earthday/photocontest/winners.html

Global warming is the star in a festival of one-acts.

Garbage that doesn’t seem to know its place may also be suggestive. It is, at least, in a modest series of display windows at New York University, at the corner of West Third Street and La Guardia Place in Greenwich Village. The windows, installed on Friday, are a result of a collaboration between the university and the New York City Sanitation Department and were previously shown at the department’s quaintly named Derelict Vehicles Office, where abandoned cars and wrecks enter Purgatory.

The windows, at the Kimmel Center for University Life, describe themselves as “the first step toward founding a museum for the Department of Sanitation,” for this is an agency that, unlike its brethren the New York City Police and Fire Departments and the Transportation Authority, does not have its own museum. The exhibit grew out of a course given last fall, “Making a Museum,” that had the unfortunate subtitle “Materializing Regimes of Value With the New York City Department of Sanitation.”

September 1 is the deadline for turning in your short film on the methods for and ideas about responsibly managing and using water.

Rain Bird, of Azusa, Calif., is sponsoring its second annual Intelligent Use of Water Film Competition.

If you’ve caught anything like those moments in a photo, share it with us! We want to see how you would show EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. Send us your best photos in three categories:

• Enjoying the environment
• Protecting the environment
• Nature and wildlife

To encourage participation and provide maximum public access, the contest will be hosted on the photo sharing site Flickr.com.  People around the world are encouraged to enter.

The contest will run as follows:
March 24: entries due
April 1: Finalists announced, public voting for winners begins
April 15: voting ends
April 22 (Earth Day): winners announced

Finalist and winning photos will be featured on EPA’s Web site.

Full details about the contest, including how to enter are available at http://www.epa.gov/earthday/photocontest.

In its 4th year, FYI – Film Your Issue has grown into a global Internet-based competition that invites high school and college students in the United States and around the world to express themselves on pressing contemporary issues by creating and uploading short two-minute films on issues that impact them and their generation.

Beginning February 15, films can be uploaded to multiple participating platforms, including MTV, YouTube, and American Film Institute Screen Nation, as well as promoted on MySpace TV.

Awards and prizes include internships at USA Today, the UN, the award-winning PBS Series “P.O.V.”, and the Humane Society of the United States; a $5,000 college scholarship from the Gates Foundation; having your film broadcast on Starz; having entries distributed by the Associated Press to its 1,800 Online Video Network media outlets; being profiled on MTV News and presented at the NAACP annual conference; VIP Pass/film presentation at AFI Silverdocs; the Walter Cronkite Civic Engagement Leadership Award and Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award; and many more.

Visit The Environment issue category for topic ideas.

A full list of Enviro-health Link bibliographies is available at http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/envirohealthlinks.html.

Using 65 car hoods, a slew of computer circuit boards, 60 hollowed-out French doors, and 3,000 plastic water bottles, as well as reclaimed I-beams, streetlight lenses, lumber, steel, and plywood, a team of two arts collectives and one landscape architect has merged art, architecture, and what most people consider junk into a community gathering place. The resulting band shell, installed in San Francisco’s Panhandle park a few weeks ago, was conceived as a method for demonstrating how discarded materials can be recycled and repurposed — with little alteration from their original forms — into something attractive and useful.

“The Commuter Pod” Cartoon Write the Next Webisode Contest is a skills-based writing competition in which participants submit an original storyline script to be eligible to potentially be selected as the winner. “The Commuter Pod” has an entrepreneurial storyline about the development of an eco-friendly car of the future that is 100% recyclable and runs on alternative energy. Storyline Submissions are due by August 9, 2007. The winning entry for the Contest will have the opportunity to enter a contract which provides for payment of $1,000 in consideration for writing the next webisode for “The Commuter Pod” and the winning participant will be featured on www.StartupTime.com as well as receive additional publicity.

Live Earth is discussing more of the initiatives its implementing to keep the event green and says it will provide concert venues with the tools and guidelines needed to continue environmentally conscious activities after Live Earth is over.

In addition to recycling or composting plastic bottles and containers on-site at all locations, the Live Earth venues will optimize lighting to reduce energy consumption and exchange inefficient bulbs for efficient ones. A combination of solar, wind, and biofuel generated power will be sourced to power all energy sources including lighting, air circulation, musical equipment and amplifiers. Live Earth has also introduced a variety of ways to reduce the garbage produced by the shows.

“Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet,” the summer project that has placed artist-decorated spheres along a section of Chicago’s lakefront, is an art event on the order of the 1999 “Cows on Parade,” though it’s smaller, smarter and less obviously commercial.

More than 120 organizations have sponsored the creation of globes 5 feet in diameter by artists ranging from celebrities such as Jim Dine and Jaume Plensa to some who work for Whole Foods Market and teams of schoolchildren. They decorated identical globes embossed with continents and islands to draw attention to issues associated with the crisis of global warming.

A plaque beneath each globe carries text that describes the issue at some length as the globe pictures it. So this is a didactic show for an excellent cause that has prompted spirited responses, which generally are at the level of OK book illustrations. There are lots of words and charts and upbeat sentiments that justify exclamation points. But because the globes seek to instruct more than explore or give pleasure, they should not be looked to for high flights of imagination.

Plastic shopping bags are a scourge on the environment. What to do with all those plastic bags that seem to be just hanging around everywhere. One idea that seems to be a hit amongst the DIY and creative arty crowd is to fuse various plastic bags together and make fabric out of them. The basic process is to iron the plastic bags, with a sheet of baking paper between iron and plastic, until two or more sheets fuse together. Sound easy – well in theory it is, but it takes a little practice to get the timing and heat just right. Once you have it down, you can start experimenting with colours and patterns, using the plastic bag labels as decoration. And then …

Universal Pictures sure wants to go “green” with “Evan Almighty.”But wait, are we talking about “green” in terms of the environment or “green” in terms of earning back a production budget estimated at $175 million, making “Evan Almighty” the most expensive comedy ever?

You be the judge.

The post includes a pointer to the Get on Board campaign web site, which encourages people to reduce their carbon footprints while also promoting the movie.

Political songwriter Jeff Parnell has just composed a jaunty little ditty called “Subsidized Ethanol Blues.” (Click on link to play.) As Parnell sings it: “Sacrifice the water and land, and what do you gain? Line the pockets of cronies, playing that subsidy game!”

The rest of the lyrics are found below the fold:

Subsidized Ethanol Blues
By Jeff Parnell

I got the 51-cents-per-gallon, subsidized ethanol blues,
I do.
The water table’s dropping,
The land is worth less than my shoes.
We used to have something called free enterprise
But if you know the right people
You’ll get sub-si-dized.
I got the 51-cents-per-gallon, subsidized ethanol blues.

When it sells for less than it costs, how can that be?
I ask you.
When it sells for less than it costs, how can that be?
Follow the money, this don’t pass the smell test, you see.

I got the 51-cents-per-gallon, subsidized ethanol blues,
I do.
The water table’s dropping,
The land is worth less than my shoes.
We used to have something called free enterprise
But if you know the right people you’ll get sub-si-dized.
I got the 51-cents-per-gallon, subsidized ethanol blues.

Sacrifice the water and land, and what do you gain?
I ask you.
Sacrifice the water and land, and what do you gain?
Line the pockets of cronies, playing that subsidy game!

I got the 51-cents-per-gallon, subsidized ethanol blues,
The water table’s dropping,
My land is worth less than my shoes.
We used to have something called free enterprise
But if you know the right people you’ll get subsidized.
I got the 51-cents-per-gallon subsidized ethanol blues.

I suggest that David Roberts turn up the volume of his computer and get all his colleagues to sing along.

Atlas buckles beneath the weight of the Earth.

The sculpture, soon to be on display in Chicago as part of an exhibit about global warming, shows the mythological figure’s knee nearly hitting the ground as he strains to hold up a globe 5 feet in diameter. Continents covered by protruding rocks underscore the magnitude of the load.

It is an intergenerational photo, essay, and poetry contest that will be judged by the public. The contest’s intergenerational approach reflects Carson’s efforts through her writings to have adults share with children a sense of wonder about nature and help them discover its joys.

Entries must be joint projects involving a person under age 18 and a person 50 years of age or older and must be received by Friday, June 15. Finalists will be selected by a panel of judges. The public will then be asked to vote for their favorites in each category: photography, essay, and poetry. The winners will be announced in July. More information about the contest and its requirements is available on the Web.

Born on May 27, 1907, Carson is considered the founder of the contemporary environmental movement through her landmark book, Silent Spring. Its publication is credited with causing a reversal in the nation’s pesticide policy.

The contest is sponsored by the U.S. EPA Aging Initiative, Generations United and the Rachel Carson Council Inc.

More information about the contest: http://epa.gov/aging/resources/thesenseofwonder/index.htm

Marriott International wants to hear from its “green” guests! Log on to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/Marriott, for a chance to win a six-day, five-night “eco-cation” to the Los Suenos Marriott Ocean & Golf Resort in Costa Rica.

To enter, click on post video response and upload a video-three minutes or less – now through Earth Day, April 22, that best demonstrates how you, your family and friends are contributing to a greener, healthier planet.

The green video contest kicks off the company’s month-long support of Environmental Awareness Month and its partnership with “Clean Up the World,” an Australian-based global organization with 35 million volunteers in 120 countries.

Michael Bitz, a teacher and educational researcher, has long had an interest in comic books — but not as entertainment. He sees them as the perfect teaching tool.

Bitz is the founder of the Comic Book Project, which allows children to use their storytelling skills — through drawing and writing — and create comic books based on educational themes.

The article mentions a project done in the New York City schools, which resulted in the environmental comic book Save Our City, Save Our Planet. For more information about the Comic Book Project, visit http://www.comicbookproject.org/.

One globe sculpture will advocate hybrid cars. Another will push wind farms.

A total of 100 globes will be scattered along the downtown lakefront this summer to bring awareness to the need for solutions to reduce global warming.

Much like the popular Cows on Parade, each 5-foot-wide globe will feature an artist’s design.

Mayor Richard Daley unveiled plans Tuesday for the walking exhibit called “Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet,” which will crop up in the grassy area from Buckingham Fountain to the Field Museum.

Resource of the Week: NBII Digital Image Library
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Three words, folks: public domain images!

While it would be thematically appropriate to say that a little birdie told me about this site, that would not exactly be true. In actuality, Gary unearthed this particular jewel, and we thought you ought to know about it, too. Even if you don’t have a professional or personal need for nature- and wildlife-related photos, this site is worth a bookmark anyhow because well, it’s just nice to browse here. We like to see our tax dollars used for resources like this one.

National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) Digital Image Library

“Welcome to the National Biological Information Infrastructure’s Digital Image Library. Here you will find a diverse range of images related to nature and the environment. Our current and future collections contain images associated with plant and animal species, scenic landscapes, wildlife management, and biological study/fieldwork. You may browse our broad subject categories or search for specific images using the search feature. Each image’s metadata record contains valuable information about the image, i.e. scientific name, description, location, etc.

The mission of the NBII digital image library is to develop, grow and provide a digital library of biological, photographic images – offering a rich, Web-based resource of high quality images dynamically linked to associated metadata accessible and available to scientists, conservationists, decision makers, educators, students and the general public worldwide. NBII will make available on-line images from it’s (sic) own collections and from NBII partners, regardless of copyright, but we envision most images being in the public domain.”

From an intellectual property rights standpoint, there are three types of images here:

• If an image is listed as “public domain” you are free to use as you wish. No need to ask for permission for those images in the public domain. We just ask that you please give credit to the photographer and the National Biological Information Infrastructure.
• If an image is listed as “Copyright held by Source”, then the copyright is held by a designated third party. Please contact the person or organization listed under the “source field” to get permission to use their image(s). (Links to contact information for sources are provided.)
• If an image is listed as “Copyright held by Creator”, then the copyright is held by the photographer. Please contact the person or organization listed under the “source field” to get permission to use their image(s).

From a content standpoint, there are six main image categories:

• Animals
• Bodies of Water
• Environmental Issues
• Habitats/Landscapes
• Wildlife Management
• Plants

When you click on some of these links, you’ll see that certain categories are further subdivided e.g., Animals comprises Amphibians, Birds, Crustaceans, Insects, Mammals, Reptiles and Fish.

Notice the three colored tabs on the home page. By default, you are browsing via Biological Categories. If you click the middle Regional tab, you’ll see what looks like an interactive world map in the making which, when completed, will allow you to browse the images geographically. Click on the Special Collections tab for closely focused image resources that concentrate on individual species, the Guyra Paraguay Biodiversity collection (a “don’t miss” the burrowing owls), and five images from NBII’s Pacific Basin Information Node, of a plant called hiddenpetal Indian mallow.

The image library is searchable; the form looks like a simple keyword search, but it also supports searching by category, common or scientific names, file names or geography. Even a child doing a school report can easily find excellent images here; simply typing “snakes” into the search box returns 26 different photos. I browsed half a dozen of these and they were all in the public domain.

About the Library offers detailed information about the image formats and sizes, how to download them, and tips on how to use them. Check the Related Resources link for a selective list of pointers to related sites, along with brief annotations.

Source: Center for Biological Informatics, U.S. Geological Survey

Keep in mind that most thought not all images on federal government websites are in the public domain. FirstGov offers a comprehensive alphabetical gateway to many different photo and multimedia collections.

“No valuable books were harmed in the making of this product.” Artist Margi Laurin finds old library books on the way to the pulper, and creates journals out of them by keeping some of the more interesting pages and interspersing plain paper among them, probably about 80% journal and 20% old pictures. I just couldn’t pass up “Oil-the Buried Treasure” from 1975. Many are classic out-of-date science books from our childhood; others are Bobbsy Twin type novels. A clever idea, because the choices are fun and you really do know that they are junk repurposed. A new venture so nothing up on the website yet at ::Margi Laurin found at “>:: One of a Kind

Archaeologists say that jewelry was one of the first forms of human art. Recent evidence found in Israel and Nigeria suggests that our ancestors have been decorating their bodies for more than 100,000 years. Today, the most popular “bling” is often made of precious gems and rare metals extracted from deep within the Earth. But environmental and human rights advocates have raised red flags about unfair, unsafe and non-sustainable mining practices. Thankfully, conscious jewelry makers and retailers are now providing Earth-friendly alternatives.

Education: Art Hazards
Guidelines for the safe use of art and craft supplies in accordance with the California Education Code, which “prohibits schools from ordering or purchasing any product that contains toxic or carcinogenic substances for use in grades K-6.” Includes general guidance (such as avoiding inhalation hazards and solvent-based products) and a detailed list of prohibited products. From the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA).
URL: http://www.oehha.ca.gov/education/art/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/22660