Season’s greetings and welcome back for another edition of our weekly green news highlights. This week: should graffiti be illegal if it aligns art with nature? Which countries are leading the fight against climate change? And will video games be revolutionized to include thought-provoking and educational material on environmental issues?

Wunderbaum in Brooklyn, NY Image Credit: Mossitka

Urban Times asked – Green Graffiti: Is it illegal?  Edina Tokodi is the founder of NYC’s Mossitka, “a collective of eco-minded street artists dedicated to green guerilla tactics and inspired public art. Mossitka’s installations, animated and playfully, call to mind a more familiar, environmentally friendly state breaking down cold urban norms.”  Stunning moss designs are easily noticed on the streets of Brooklyn beautifully blending art with nature in urban neighbourhoods.  Todoki explains: “I think that our distance from nature is already a cliché. City dwellers often have no relationship with animals or greenery. As a public artist I feel a sense of duty to draw attention to deficiencies in our everyday life.”  Traditional graffiti has been condemned for devaluing urban landscapes, but ‘green’ graffiti actually “forges a strong connection between the urban neighbourhood and nature. It does not deface public property, and therefore, should not be classified as illegal art in any shape or form.”  It’s sustainable art. You can see more of Mossitka’s work here.

Which countries fail the most at climate leadership? According to the most recent Climate Change Performance Index released December 6, 2011, Europeans dominate the fight against climate change with Sweden, the U.K., and Germany topping the list.  No country on the list was awarded a ranking of 1st 2nd or 3rd with the label that no one is doing enough to combat climate change.  The US and Canada didn’t even rank in the top 50, at 52nd and 54th respectively.  Denmark had demonstrated the most improvement and Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and Estonia had the worst CO2 emissions. 

This is how the Climate Change Performance Index works:

“On the basis of standardized criteria, the index evaluates and compares the climate protection performance of 58 countries that are, together, responsible for more than 90 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions. 80 percent of the evaluation is based on objective indicators of emissions trend and emissions level (50 percent for emissions trend, 30 percent for emissions level). 20 percent of the index results are built upon national and international climate policy assessments by more than 200 experts from the respective countries.”

One Day, Video Games Will Beat Climate Change.  Why not use video games to educate kids on climate change?  Soho House NYC recently played host to ‘Gaming for Good’ run by design blog leaders PSFK. PSFK and Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project collaborated on a contest to solicit gaming concepts from designers around the world.  The designers’ challenge was to create a game that still engaged players while concurrently battling the climate crisis.  PSFK recently published a report called ‘The Future of Gaming’ which concluded “brands, non-profits and communities can leverage to build engagement and motivate their target audience towards achieving a desired goal or outcome.”  In other words, video games can be used for good and it doesn’t have to mean it’s a boring educational program.

Stay tuned for more green news.
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