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Green Thing Code Swarm

The other day Twitter wrote a blog post containing a "code swam" video of their code commits.


It looked pretty cool, so I decided to create one for Green Thing.


To create one yourself you can get the code here, just follow the instructions. To make a video out of the images created there are instructions for that too.


The config file I used can be found here.



Climate scepticism 'on the rise'

Oh terrific - now less people in Britain think global warming is really happening and don't believe it's caused by human activity.


Between November 2009 and February 2010, 10% more people (in a sample of 1,001 British adults) didn't think climate change was happening. And the number who thought it was real and "largely man-made" was down from 41% to 26%.



75% of people thought that climate change was happening, but of those 1/3 thought the consequences had been exaggerated (it was 1/5 in November).


Part of the explanation for the sharp swing may be high profile media coverage of sceptic-fuelling incidents like the hacked emails from climatologists at the University of East Anglia, or the  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mistakenly claiming that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.


Even perhaps the 'cognitive dissonance' (confusion sown from two contradictory ideas) caused sense of failure at the Copenhagen summit."How could all those world leaders get together and nothing much happen if it was really that urgent", would be an understandable question.


But surely the biggest factor in disbelieving the concept of global warming' has been the big freeze over many parts of the Northern hemisphere this winter. Perhaps understandably many people may have found it hard to reconcile the fact that extreme weather conditions are caused by 'climate change' and that freezing weather is part of the overall warming of global temeratures.


Either way it's damn depressing news and pretty clear evidence that the curent strategies and tactics for communicating the realities and benefits of low-carbon living are not being effectively communicated.


[Spotted on BBC News]



Green Thing is looking for a social site editor

Green Thing quite possibly the most creative, inspiring environmental group on the planet (at least we like to think so ;-), is looking for a smart, passionate, connected, enthusiastic and energetic site editor/community manager, based in London. This is a full-time position.


About Green Thing
We're a non-profit (and registered charity, number 1125013) that believes in using world-class creativity vs. climate change - inspiring people to lead a greener life with brilliant videos and stories from creative people and community members around the world. Green Thing's mission is to reframe greener living as smart, sexy, fashionable and fun and something worthwhile on its own terms.

In its first 27 months, talent from Emma Thompson and Ryan Giggs to Dinos Chapman and Tugg from Basement Jaxx, have come out in force for Green Thing. Another 200 directors, musicians illustrators and animators have contributed brilliant bits of creativity all designed to turn green living from something you ought to do to something that people want to do. Green Thing's advisors include Wangari Maathai and Satish Kumar.


In little over 2 years since launch, people from 205 countries have tuned into Green Thing over 4.6m times, telling 56,500 stories, and saving over 13,500 tonnes of CO2 (we believe the savings are many times that).


The latest independent report from leading market researchers Hall & Partners found that:
• 91% of people have positive things to say about us.
• People tell an average of 10 other people about us.
• On average we help to inspire/remind people to 2x more CO2 than they otherwise would.


Green Thing has won Best Green Digital and Best Green New Media at the prestigious Green Awards for the last two years.


About you
You must swim with elegant ease in the sea of social media, so to speak, (you blog, you tweet, you Digg, you Flickr, Facebook and YouTube, etc) and be an active and connected spreader of ideas. You must also know and love all things sustainable and creativity in general and be able to write with wit, authority, passion and clever observation about a wide range of inspiring ideas to lead a greener life.


You can spot what makes a sustainable idea (for a new product or service or way of living) or a piece of creative inspiration about greener lifestyles unique, and tell its story in a way that makes Green Thing members smile and think and act - in other words it inspires them to actually DO something about the idea and put it into practice.


We write for a global audience - although 50% are UK-based and another 30% in North America - and you should have an equally global outlook. And while you'll be in charge of running Green Thing editorial and communities, much of the work is hands-on. Whatever needs to be done -- you'll be doing it.

You'll be working directly with Kim, who runs Green Thing operations, and Red, our software developer, and a team of creative contributors (designers, copy-writers, film-makers, advertising creatives, etc), as well as the founders Andy, Naresh and James.


About the job
You'll publish a daily inspiration feed of brilliant creative, inspiring ideas to lead a greener life (including a bi-monthly newsletter) for 35,000+ subscribers/followers/members in 204 countries and countless more ‘readers' (i.e. people who engage but don't subscribe). This involves:
• Research and blog and tweet daily content
• Build and manage a network of contributors (and filter submitted ideas)
• Edit and publish posts, including images
• Assign topics to freelance volunteer writers
• Liaise with marketing partners
• Build traffic and community
• Coming up with and helping implement larger creative content ideas for the inspiration feed
• Keep the website running smoothly
• Monitor and analyze web traffic
• Maintain and grow our social media presence (FB, YT, Twitter, Digg and the usual suspects)


Your qualifications
• 3+ years working at an online publication or possibly in an online marketing agency
• Business or marketing background
• Native English speaker with brilliant blog-writing skills
• Knowledge of HTML, CSS, blogging tools, image optimization, web hosting, etc
• Strong organizational skills (i.e. you don't need to be nagged ;-)
• Obsessive attention to detail
• Ideally to be based in London (UK), but can also work remotely
• Full-time availability starting March 2010
• Happy to work on your own. We have an office where the wider team of FT and volunteer staff congregate for weekly meetings and drop in at various times during the week but a lot of the time you'll be virtually connected to the team and physically on your own.


How to apply
If you want to be involved with all aspects of creating the most creatively brilliant stream of resourceful, heroic and imaginative sustainable ideas to inspire people in 204 countries to lead a greener life, then email to Kim Rutherford at jobs@dothegreenthing.com containing a short introduction and why you think you're right for the role, your cv, and a link to your own blog and Twitter stream if you have one. Thank you!



More than one way to skin a building

The modestly named Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA), has come up with something rather visionary - a transparent cocoon skin to wrap buildings which becomes a self-contained ‘micro climate’. It uses photo-voltaic cells to turn sunlight into solar energy, harvests rain water, creates better day lighting and uses all available convective energy for ventilation.








[Spotted on Architecture and Design via SmartBrief]



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