Articles by Sarah K. Burkhalter

Fun events to attend this spring

If you're into eco-design, there are all kinds of conferences and meetings and such you can attend around the country. Today's Dig This will run down a few coming up in the next month.

April 13-16, Eugene, Ore.: HOPES (Holistic Options for Planet Earth Sustainability) conference at the University of Oregon. The 12th edition of the "only ecological design conference developed and managed by students." This year's theme: permanence/impermanence. How very Eugene.

April 19-20, Baltimore, Md.: The TurnKey Conference of the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International (whew!). The conference, all about humane treatment of lab animals, includes many sessions on facility design. No, I'm not making a statement about the rights or wrongs of animal testing here. Don't shoot the messenger.

April 25-27, Toronto, Ontario, Canada: EnvironDesign 10. Includes a visit to the world's first LEED-certified winery. And tons of design workshops too.

May 3-7, Atlanta, Ga.: EDRA 37 (PDF), the 37th annual conference of the Environmental Design Research Association. Topics range from Crime and the Built Environment to Environmental Gerontology. Speakers include former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young and recent Grist interviewee Dr. Robert Bullard.

May 4-7, Shepherdstown, W.V.: The Architecture of Sustainability, put on by the American Institute of Architects' Committee on Design and Committee on the Environment. Topics include "Is Sustainable Design an Oxymoron?" Hopefully they will find the answer to be no.

The huge Dig This international audience can find upcoming events in Australia, the U.K., and Estonia.

Anything I've missed?

A bit of here, a bit of there

With an ever-growing list of things I want to blog about, I'm inspired by Dave's inconsequential post to encourage him to grow his hair long again embark on my own post o' randomness.

So with no further ado:

If I were an artist -- which I most definitely am not, until "adults drawing like six-year-olds" becomes the new rage -- I would want to put my talents to use at something like disappearing zine. The artist renderings of rapidly-disappearing species are very cool, in a depressing-as-hell sort of way.

Increase fuel efficiency with magnets!

As the developed world scratches its collective head over the puzzle of fuel efficiency -- "Why would we want something that's good for us in the short term and the long term?" -- a Los-Angeles-based company has patented technology to reduce emissions and increase fuel efficiency, all with the humble holder-of-plastic-letters-onto-the-refrigerator: the magnet. Save the World Air, Inc., do-gooders and lovers of acronyms, own the manufacturing and marketing rights to ZEFS and CAT-MATE devices, which are ...

... specifically engineered to minimize environmental pollution, to enhance fuel system performance and to increase engine efficiency. Variations of these devices can be attached to the internal combustion engines or exhaust systems in most automobiles, motorcycles, off-road vehicles, generators and other stationary implements.

Could you go without shopping for a year?

MSNBC interviews author Judith Levine, who spent a year avoiding all unnecessary consumerism and just released her new book Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping.

Think you could do it?