tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62310296380332969662011-04-29T23:08:20.016-07:00dannoreply@blogger.comBlogger11100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231029638033296966.post-20676429874036750082008-03-05T03:34:00.000-08:002008-10-28T21:06:56.489-07:00CLIMATE RETREAT LIVING PODS AS EDUCATIONAL TOOLS<br /><br /><br />PRESS RELEASE<br /><br /><br /><strong>Green blogger uses images of "climate retreat living pods" as educational tool<br />to raise public awareness about global warming issues</strong><br /><br />A lone blogger in Taiwan is using the Internet in a novel<br />way to help raise awareness about global warming.<br /><br />Green media activist Danny Bloom doesn't believe humans will have<br />to live in so-called "climate retreat living pods" anytime soon, but he<br />is using a series of computer-generated blueprints of the living pods as<br />an educational tool to help raise help public awareness about the<br />climate crisis.<br /><br />Created by Taiwanese artist Cheng-hong Deng, the living pod images<br />have appeared on hundreds of websites and blogs around the world -- in<br />English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French and Chinese. They were<br />formerly called POLAR CITIES, but after two years of using that<br />somewhat SCI FI term and meeting lots of resistance (and satire and<br />humor), Bloom felt that the term "climate retreat living pods" fits<br />what he is doing much better. He credits Alaskan professor Robin<br />Bronen, who coined the term "climate refugees" a few years ago in an<br />academic paper, with convincing him to use the term CLIMATE RETREATS<br />rather than POLAR CITIES.<br /><br />The 58-year-old climate blogger says he is using the Internet in a<br />novel way to get his message across.<br /><br />The message? "If we don't actively tackle the very serious problems<br />that confront the world now, in terms of global warming, then there is<br />a possibility that future generations might have to take refuge in<br />such climate retreats and interior living pods. I never want to see<br />these living pods become<br />reality. So the images Deng has created for my project are meant to be<br />a warning about global warming."<br /><br />Bloom says he has shown the images to internationally-acclaimed<br />climate scientist James Lovelock in Britain, who is known for his<br />pessimism and doomsaying about global warming. Lovelock told Bloom by<br />email: "It may very well happen and soon."<br /><br />"I hope climate retreats for climate refugees are never needed for<br />survivors of global warming<br />in the far distant future," Bloom says. "These images are meant to be<br />a wake-up call for those who are still sleepwalking through the<br />climate crisis."<br /><br />Bloom emphasizes that he has no agenda, political or scientific, in<br />terms of solutions to global warming, and says that he just wants to<br />participate in the global discussion about climate change in his own<br />personal way. "I am just using Deng's images to sound the alarm, a<br />visual alarm."<br /><br />He says that his Internet campaign, which began 2 years ago with a<br />letter to the editor of several newspapers in North America and<br />Europe, has had the result he is looking for. But the term POLAR<br />CITIES was too sci fi and futuristic for most people to accept, he<br />admits. So he is now calling the places "climate retreats" and he<br />believes he is the first person to use such a term worldwide.<br /><br /><br />A young blogger in Tahiti saw the images, blogged about them in<br />French, and said that while he found the living pod blueprints to be<br />fascinating, they made him just want to work harder in his daily life<br />"to help fight the climate crisis so that the worst case scenarios<br />never happen."<br /><br />CLIMATE RETREAT LIVING PODS:<br />http://pcillu101.blogspot.com<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6231029638033296966-2067642987403675008?l=npr101.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>dannoreply@blogger.com0