Some very cool entries. Is it just me or do a lot of them owe a bit to Archigram?

Waldspirale Complex looks amazing, almost "Gaudi Gone Green."

This is amazing, and Remy, yeah, it seems so obvious that it would have been done 40 years ago. Interesting that some great ideas are just sitting there waiting to be found.

I would urge everyone to watch Cary Fowler's speech. "Biodiversity gives us options, and options are what we need in a time of climate change."

Great shout out to Mac's Backs, I have been to Cleveland Heights numerous times on business and often find myself in there while stopping for a bite at Tommy's.

The garbage dump that was once the Pacific is one of the most depressing stories going on right now, and it needs even more attention than this. Glad to hear people are starting to pay attention.

Mixed emotions, indeed, but like you say that it is clear now that solar is making real business sense. Great that Chevron is looking to invest in developing technologies, but sad that they are using it to keep looking into the past. Exxon surprised me when they started exploring Algae, maybe this is just a baby step for Chevron to go in the right direction.

I just came across a photo series of the state of Mike Tyson's old mansion in rural Ohio. The photographs aren't as aesthetically pleasing as these, but do tell quite a tale. http://www.popgive.com/2008/07/abandoned-mansion-of-mike-tyson.html

Well, I do think the price is a bit much but the market will figure that out on it's own, but I have to say that if they can find people to buy them it is better than the scraps winding up in a land fill somewhere.

"A little mixing of environmentalism and economics could be very successful." Exactly. I feel that once the status quo realize the huge profits out there in more environmental and sustainable models there will be a huge amount of risk and capital going to that sector.

Peak Oil is still a problem in the future, but right now the trend is reversing itself in the fact that oil consumption is going down for the first time since the 80's. I just wrote about it in a bit more depth here. But, please do not take that as dismissing peak oil at all.

Very interesting rundown on hydroelectric power, and thanks for the link to the interview with Matthew Simmons, which I seemed to have missed the first time around. 

While I agree that this is a fantastic project both economically and environmentally - in terms of fuel efficiency - what happens to the 250,000 cars that the general public has turned in? Do these just become the "forgotten" costs of doing business or can the spent resources these vehicles represent be put to some further reuse?-MChttp://www.scribd.com/moulicohen

This represents an interesting reversal for a company that tried to do to coffee what McDonald's did to burgers namely, create a homogenous model in terms of look, taste and culture that could be relied upon to deliver consistency across the globe.Still if you take to heart the strategy I've read in an interview with one Seattle store's designer recently: http://su.pr/7SD8vZ"During this test we’ll put a few more out there. Most will have a different offering which you can do with a different brand. They will all be locally operated - the team recruited from the local neighborhood. They will have different hours to reflect the local residents needs and will offer things like poetry readings plus they will sell beer and wine. Their roots will be connected with the future."These novel offerings could be a nice contrast to the standard design, depending on how much free rein these individual branches have. There's no reason, Starbucks can't diversify its audience in this regard, but it will be interesting to see how "local" they're willing to go.

While I'm all for this kind of innovation, who's going to be able to afford these houses or more importantly, who won't? As crucial as it is to design for energy dependency on the small scale, wouldn't it make more sense to turn our (big corporations) attentions towards developing a better infrastructure (i.e. smarter energy grid) that can meet the needs of the population at large? I'm sure they'll be able to figure out ways to profit from that kind of change just as easily. And I agree that all of these technologies are fantastic, particularly when they are available at the consumer level, but we need to make sure the applications are effective and worthwhile, weighing out their relative value for good (efficiency, sustainable materials, what have you) versus their own set of impacts. Just because they seem beneficial in theory, at what cost?

So many fantastic ideas being discussed here - the power of open source, multipurpose design, the shift towards "product as service" in certain facets of our lives and the benefits of "real" world community building.Being able to monetize less tangible notions like utility and excess capacity should help to drive home why sensible adoption of sharing makes sense in so many ways beyond the bottom line. A bit of purposeful rethink.Much appreciated.