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Environmental Graffiti - environmental news blog

for environmentalists who don't take themselves too seriously

Amazing Paper Art by Yulia BrodskayaToday

All images courtesy of Yulia Brodskaya

In an inspiring intersection of visual art and typography, Yulia Brodskaya fashions ribbons of paper into stunning images so crisp it seems almost impossible that they’re not digitally produced. Her masterful manipulations make us think twice about what’s possible with an everyday material that’s used and very often discarded without a second thought.

It’s hard not to heart this Heart

Brodskaya’s papergraphic creations are often saturated with bright colours, but can also be boldly black and white, or clean white on white. Her expert use of fonts and colour, coupled with the intricacy of her work, make simple messages pop off the page. It’s difficult to peel your eyes away, or not find something different each time you look at an image.

Work produced for Guardian supplement, G2

Brodsksaya says of her work:

“I’m constantly experimenting and evolving, always pushing my style in new directions: my greatest passion is to explore ways of illustration and typography.”

She even has a stylish

What The Neocons Think About Sustainable EnergyToday

Image: wally glenn

Some skepticism is good, and I am certainly not suggesting that the government should always be trusted. But conspiracy theories tend to fall under two categories; “plausible” and “WTF?” Some people are incapable of dicerning between the two.

According to the winter ‘08 issue of the Intelligence Report, there was no shortage of the latter kind of conspiracy theory going around at the Ninth Annual Freedom 21 conference, held near Dallas last July. How does that concern us? Because most of the baseless and laughably paranoid accusations were aimed at the environmentalist movement, especially sustainable energy.

Image: nickhess

Among the dozen or so speakers at the conference were the rabidly anti-feminist and homophobic Phyllis Schlafly and Jerome Corsi, an illegal immigrant basher who recently got into trouble with Kenyan authorities for trying to enter their country illegally to dig up dirt on Barack Obama. These fine folks and their friends are convinced that sustainable energy is part of some diabolical scheme to undermine our Judeo/

Captured in DreamtimeToday

Mungo National Park at Sunset, where giant short-faced kangaroo fossils were uncovered. Image by ozcazz via Wunderground

The Australian aboriginal Dreamtime is a timeless mythic ‘world’ that exists for all eternity. In the Dreamtime, the Ancestors walked the earth, and created everything - plants, animals, geology and landscape. Many rituals in Australian aboriginal culture allow the tribe to contact the Dreamtime, to once again ‘live in it’ and be renewed, if only for a short time. Modern development that bulldozes and reforms a landscape destroys the ‘world’ of the Dreamtime, that is its most terrible result, according to the aboriginee people.

Mungo National Park image by ccdoh1

In recent years, scientists in Australia have found three new species of unusual extinct kangaroos. At least one of these species was a creature of the Dreamtime. Added to the list of ‘known’ kangaroos, are a long legged galloping ‘roo with long fangs that was an aggressive hunter, a horned ‘roo, and a giant, leaf-eating kangaroo. The giant short-faced kangaroo is the largest leaf

10 Amazing Moths with Multiple PersonalitiesYesterday

Image: aegle~busy shifting

Just like the bugs with faces we portrayed a while ago, their cousins the moths refer to a similar tactic when dealing with predators: frighten the hell out of them by putting on a scary face. Or should we say wearing their heart on their wings? In either case, these tactics are quite cool, take a closer look.

This above doesn’t only look cool in a Star-Trek kind of way but also has a cool name: Oleander hawk moth (daphnis nerii), often spelled Oleander hawkmoth. It can be found in southern Europe, Turkey, Africa and India. This moth with its distinct green “fur” (did you know moths could be that fuzzy?) has a wingspan from 9 to 13 cm.

Image: Charles Johnson

The Atlas moth (attacus atlas) really doesn’t take any chances: Not only is it the largest butterfly species, reaching a wingspan of almost 30 cm, its wing tips look like snake heads (the forked tongue seems to appear any minute) and the rest of its wing design like a colorful, scary mask. No wonder

These Are The Kind of Insects You Want in Your KitchenYesterday

Finding your kitchen infested with insects would ordinarily put most people off their food and have them straight on to pest control, but not if they’ve been let loose by designer Sayaka Yamamoto.
One of the design duo BCXSY, Yamamoto created the useful metal bugs to resemble everyday kitchen utensils as part of a project called Little Wonders.

The designs include espresso pots that look like weevils, cricket-shaped corkscrews and fly fish slices. The works are presented in glass-fronted display cases as you would present normal insects for viewing and are given specific (non-latin) names.

Sayaka reveals her inspiration for her Little Wonders collection on her website:

“When I was little I lived in the countryside, very close to the world of insects. I always enjoyed watching their many different shapes, colors and behavior – sometimes they made me scared and sometimes fascinated me.

“After I moved away from my parents’ house to the big city, I was seeing less insects and I almost started forgetti