Puff is attached near the exhaust pipe of your vehicle. Its color changes dynamically, visualizing the amount of pollution your car is producing. Green indicates the lowest rate of pollution, red the highest.

Modern artists have often tackled environmental and ecological issues head on, such as through incorporating litter and refuse into sculptures, while other artists (such as photo, video and film artists) have sought to document industrial waste and/or have taken strong oppositional/advocacy stances in their works.

In recent years, many artists have sought to move beyond these “reactive”, commentary, and  documentary approaches and create objects and devices that serve practical purposes (if still a bit fanciful in appearance). One such artist/designer is Karolina Sobecka, whose car emissions monitoring device, ‘Puff’ , provides colorful feedback to the car owner on how “cleanly” (or efficiently) he/she is using/burning gasoline.

This author recently contacted Ms. Sobecka and asked her about this device (’Puff’) as well as her other designs, and her artistic/social/environmental goals.

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Fireflies have always been one of nature’s most beautiful and intriguing miracles. I could still spend hours and hours on a hot, dark summer night tracing the paths taken by the fireflies in my parents’ backyard. The fun, of course, comes from tracing the path between “blinks”, when the firefly fades to black and you are left guessing as to where they’ll appear next.

Perhaps this nostalgia explains why, when I saw the “Firefly Watch” site from the Museum of Science, Boston, I was both transported and transfixed.

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More and more homeowners are using rain barrels to conserve water while collecting soft, non-chlorinated rainwater to nourish grass and plants.

This weekend, in Calgary, Canada, Clean Calgary Association, in partnership with the City of Calgary, will hold its 8th Annual Rain Barrel Sale.

With spring coming, local residents there are thinking about their lawns and gardens. Water usage in Calgary doubles in the spring and summer due largely to lawn irrigation.

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Obama will make it legal to make this world a better place

(if your state is so inclined) by allowing states to set higher fuel economy standards than the current Federal standards.

I look forward to tracking his progress. Check back quarterly…

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Obama To Reverse Bush’s Policy on State Fuel Economy Standards!

With Election Day less than 24 hours away, Leo wants you to know that now is your chance to vote (the environment).

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