Mad Quickies: Ice, Ice, Baby and other Eco Info; Thor Revealed; Cali Trees Gonna Tree and More!
Friends, I have a fondness for odd vegetation. And, no, that isn’t the way I thought I’d start out the Mad Quickies today, but here we are, so let’s dive in! I love that nature abhors a vacuum and I am always oddly inspired by greenery pushing through wherever it can—something we need dearly now more than ever. So I quite enjoyed this feature on photographer Sinziana Velicescu’s series of Unusual Trees and Topiaries Sprout Alongside Buildings.
Velicescu says, “Part of my process is walking or driving around neighborhoods in and around the greater Los Angeles area and coming across these scenes spontaneously. The trees I seek out are ones that have a personality, so much so that they could almost replace human subjects. I’m drawn mostly to the trees that feel trapped by the urban landscape in which they find themselves or are trying to overcome their surroundings in some way.”
Her photos are particularly wonderful thanks to the her eye for architectural minimalist whimsy and the super-sharp LA light.
Velicescu’s on Instagram and Tumblr and sells her images on Uprise Art.
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Published by Johannes Feldmann, Anders Levermann, and Matthias Mengel at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the study tackles a remarkable question: could we save vulnerable Antarctic glaciers with artificial snow?
It sounds like an insane scheme to save Antarctic ice and it would take a lot to accomplish this. But these scientists have run the numbers and, well, why the hell not? I mean, really, how many alternatives do we haev at this point?
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We need a lot of things here to save this planet and I definitely think this is primary: We need a data-rich picture of what’s killing Earth.
“The United Nations has 93 indicators to measure the environmental dimensions of “sustainable development,” and amazingly, the UN found that we have little to no data on 68 percent of them—like how rapidly land is being degraded, the rate of ocean acidification, or the trade in poached wildlife. Sometimes this is because we haven’t collected it; in other cases some data exists but hasn’t been shared globally, or it’s in a myriad of incompatible formats.”
“In other words, if we’re going to help the planet heal and adapt, we need a data revolution. We need to build a “digital ecosystem for the environment,” says David Jensen, the UN’s head of environmental peacebuilding.
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If you haven’t already heard, there was a big pop culture announcement made at San Diego Comic Con as normally happens. The Casting of the New Thor was revealed and I am totally here for it!
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“As always, there are plenty of exclusive trailers premiering at San Diego Comic Con. We’ve already discussed the highly anticipated trailers for It: Chapter Two, His Dark Materials, The Witcher, Star Trek: Picard, Westworld, and Star Trek: Short Treks.”
That said, I have your rabbit hole for the day for all the OTHER trailers you might have missed in the news: Here’s All the Trailers You May Have Missed at San Diego Comic Con 2019.
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