By Dan Estabrook – July 31, 2008 (TNN)
As I sit in jury duty today, I realize that serving as a juror is one of those hallmarks of maintaining a true democracy. Fortunately, I can fulfill my duty and still entertain our readers as the City of San Francisco graciously provides free wifi access in the jury holding room.
In perusing the net today (awaiting my assignment or dismissal), I ran across a bit of green news that uses a message of patriotism to help educate the public on greening America. The Canary Project “produces visual media, events, and artwork that builds public understanding of human-induced climate change and energize commitment to solutions.”
One of the group’s current projects is Green Patriot bus ads adorning buses in Cleveland, Ohio. The posters were designed by artist Michael Bierut and encourage green patriotism which represents a new form of environmentalism, where “one sees action to address climate change as an imperative to protect both the American and world economies. This is an environmentalism of strength and unity.” It is part of a larger project known as the Green Patriot Poster campaign which is launching this fall. The campaign presents green and climate change messages in the design of patriotic World War 2 posters. The Canary Project will work with well-known designers to create these posters, and will even solicit designs from the public at large. The government used these posters during the war to mobilize Americans around the war effort; The Canary Project hopes to apply this same strategy to mobilize all of us to make ecological change.
Interestingly enough, the name Canary Project derives from an old practice when miners used canaries to warn them of deadly methane gas in the mine shafts. As the group shouts a new warning, the name indeed fits.
Read more here and visit The Canary Project here.
Source: Treehugger, The Canary Project.