Climate change is upon us in the form of piles of rotting seaweed known as sargassum. Rising ocean temperatures and changes in currents, as well as increases in fertilizer runoff and sewage overflows are responsible for the miles of algae blooms and seaweed piles along beaches.  Governments have begun to spend a fortune on clean-up plans.  Barbados, is one of the countries particularly worries about the growing situation.  Check out the photos and the news report which covers Mexico and the Caribbean. Click here for the article in the Washington Post by Nick Kirkpatrick.

To many of us the concept of rising seas is academic.  We use models, we write papers, we make many projections.  About twenty-five years ago painter Larry Mitchell began painting communities that are already beginning to go under.  Says William Fox who writes for the Center for Art + Environment Blog:  "Mitchell doesn’t just sail around the islands, but has formed longlasting friendships with their inhabitants, and a deep attachment to their independent lives and family-based fishing businesses. He saw how the twin pressures of economic globilization and global warming were eroding both the local societies and shorelines of the islands, and began to paint them, mostly in panoramas made from a vantage point slightly offshore. Mitchell’s depictions of ocean water are an astonishment. “There’s an underlying geometry to water. It’s infinitely complex, and a digital camera can’t capture it,” he told me last year. From fifteen feet away it looks like you could dive into the paintings. He joked, ““I’m a photographer; I just work really slow.” But once you’re within five feet of the canvas, you realize just how abstract is the brushwork. As he puts the lessons he earned in London, ”I learned a lot about paint by pushing it around to no end.”  

For more of the Fox blog click here.
For images of Larry Mitchell's paintings click here.

International Symposium for Next Generation Infrastructure
Washington, DC
September 14-15, 2015

ISNGI is taking place September 14 and 15, 2015, at the JW Marriott hotel in Washington, DC. Come join a genuine and coordinated global infrastructure research program about long-term infrastructure and land use planning. The 2015 symposium marks the third installment of ISNGI and seeks to determine best practices benchmarks and to create new knowledge to better inform strategies for long-term prosperity.

The world’s built environment is facing a diverse set of challenges and opportunities in the coming decades. We hope you can join us for ISNGI to help explore these issues and contribute your voice to this vital discussion.

Speakers include Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, representatives from the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative, Fluor Corp., Dominion Resources, New York Metropolitan Transit Authority, Transurban Group, the Brooking Institute, National Capital Planning Commission, as well as some of the best and sharpest minds from industry, government, and academia.

Registration is now open at www.isngi.org. HURRY for preferred registration rates before August 14, and to book your hotel room at a preferred rate. It is only $250 for the full conference program.

For questions about the conference, please contact Christine Haimann at chaimann@vt.edu