 Yesterday we toured the great black hope for US oil independence from the Middle East: the Athabasca Tar sands in Alberta Canada. The trip was organized by Tom Abraham who started “Destinations at Risk.” The name says it all. With oil prices causing an epidemic of “For Sale” signs on SUVs and guzzlers in the US, and escalating concerns about reliance on foreign oil, oil consumers are turning to Canada for supply. One MILLION barrels a day are squeezed out of the sharp sand particles with steam or hot water. This dirty extraction process uses clean water, natural gas and gobs of electricity.
Ed Burtynsky, the Ansel Adams of our time, sounding like he’s been sent by God as our Tour Guide, told us that the process uses one barrel FOR EVERY FIVE it creates.
The outcome is hurting us all, and most of all it is a serious issue for the First Nation people who fish and hunt downstream, who live in a place so remote that roads don’t reach them. They are concerned about feeding fish with two heads caught to their kids and letting their families dink the water. Why do people need to care? –This sounds like an awful thing to say, but here’s why we ALL need to care: we are all First Nation people now. Even if everyone in Alberta gets cancer from mine tailings, and wildlife evaporates at alarming rates, and this mining continues without any regard to health and reclamation planning, the CO2 cost is going to hurt us all.
C’mon Suncor—why are you so proud of ONE POND in the process of reclamation after 30 years of mining? Can’t you do better? The government of Canada is selling off one of the largest carbon sponges in the world faster than we can say “Fort Chipewyan Cree.”
Blue Practice has been working hand in hand lately with the premiere software company Autodesk, maker of AutoCAD and other important design tools on an internal communications program developed to engage the workforce.
At a recent quarterly “All Hands Meeting” on August 22 for the 1,200 global employees in the PSEB division of the company, the Blue Practice team helped launch the quarter's green design theme by inviting Michela O’Connor Abrams, Publisher and President of Dwell to be a guest speaker on the topic of "Design Matters: Why the Future Belongs to Right Brain Thinkers". 
Michela delivered an inspiring talk on the power of design to move companies into the future that was attended by a large live audience at the San Rafael Civic Auditorium and by a global workforce via the internet.
Other elements of the communications program kicked off on August 22nd included a challenge for employees to answer Michela’s question of the audience: What in the world needs good design the most? Winning responders will attend a keynote address by Al Gore at the West Coast Green conference and expo in San Jose September 26th as well as select green, sustainable furnishings chosen and curated by Dwell editors. The Dwell editors will be judging the results and choosing winners.
In coming months, Blue Practice will be curating an on-going Inspiring Speaker Series for Autodesk, providing in-office and web-based installations and helping the PSEB division brand the exciting initiative.
 Boarding a helicopter to get an aerial view of the Athabasca Oil Sands project, refineries, upgraders and open pit mines. Then visiting the Oil Sands Discovery Centre for a general overview of the processes involved in extracting oil from sands. Afterwards, a tour of the Suncor upgrading plant.
The oil sands, located outside Calgary, CAN, are believed to hold 60% of the world's remaining oil – including 175 billion barrels in proven reserves. The bitumen process of extracting oil from sand requires large amounts of energy (equivalent to heating 4 million homes a day) and many question its usefulness because of the high cost of the operation. The trip is led by George Butterfield and Edward Burtynsky, a world-renowned photographer. We hope to be participating in more trips like this, that provide a rare insight into “destinations at risk”.
After nearly two years of nose-to-the-grindstone work building and managing our clients' marketing and PR, we at Blue Practice just held our first company offsite. We're still relishing the afterglow. That rare opportunity to close our doors, shut off our phones and turn our attention inward for a long and critical look at our business, the landscape of sustainability, and how our talents can best serve a quickly-evolving world couldn't have been more rewarding. We brought forth some revolutionary thinking and creative program ideas that will really help us build a stronger agency in the months ahead. Helping set the mood, of course, was the venue for our meeting – the EcoShack. Jessica recently bought one of these DIY yurt setups from Stephanie Smith, the company's founder. Smith is an architectural designer, an entrepreneur and a champion of light and nomadic lifestyles. Her designs are inspired by the ad hoc, indigenous and archetypal typologies typically found at the fringes of society and culture. The structure was actually much bigger than I expected, and provided an airy interior for our day.
Here's my greentech find of the week. When I speak with people about renewable energy, the conversation inevitably turns to battery storage, and inefficiencies riddled in the process of pulling power offline to use when the sun's not out, or the wind's not blowing, etc. Now, scientists at MIT have found a way to build a better battery, using a technique nature's perfected over millions of years: photosynthesis. With inexpensive and readily-available materials, the scientists have learned to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen in room-temperature conditions with neutral pH. The two can later be recombined, generating energy with near 100% efficiency. They say they'll be able to matriculate this technology out of the lab and into commercial applications in as little as ten years. While the timeline is doubtlessly optimistic and relies heavily on engineering of the technology into energy applications, I am very excited to hear of an elegant, nature-inspired solution to this very important challenge.
World’s Largest International Solar Conference and Expo has arrived! 
The press conference kicked off this morning and we ran out of chairs—always a good sign. The presenters included Markus Elsässer (Chief Executive Officer Solar Promotion International GmbH), Professor Eicke Weber (Chairman of the Conference Committee Intersolar North America / Director of theFraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE), Dan Martin (Executive Vice President SEMI) and Dr. Dieter Salomon (Chairman of FMMI / Mayor of the City of Freiburg). Pictured here are Mr. Elsasser, Robert Frick along with Blue Practitioners Tim, Marc and Jessica.
Blue Practice took to the convention halls of Downtown LA June 5-8th, 2008 for the third annual Dwell on Design Conference + Expo, where we registered over 150 media representatives for the show!
The conference was kicked off by LA City Council President, Eric Garcetti who discussed LA's green building and smart development future and how the Dwell community has bolstered that progression. The topics over two days ranged from a LEED mandated future for LA building to the state of the prefab home movement to landscape design and "immortality through product" or the way designers can use product design as a way to imprint culture with an enduring mark.
The Expo was packed with 12,000 people checking out over 200 of the most innovative breaking sustainable modern design products including a whole "pop up" prefab neighborhood, a LifePod solar residential structure and the Ecoshack Yurt, a product that David Keeps from the LA Times says “re-imagines living spaces in green fashion.”
As the future permanent home of the Dwell on Design show, LA was the ideal backdrop for the myriad events, home tours and parties that rounded out the weekend.
 On Monday, June 3rd, a select audience of solar industry leaders, policy makers and media were treated to a wonderful lunch at the Four Seasons in San Francisco, a very civilized setting for the discussion of matters that will certainly affect the future of civilization as we know it. Panelists from Germany and the U.S. participated in a lively discussion on the topic of transatlantic opportunities for the North American solar industry, specifically focused on what the U.S. market can learn from the German market. Markus Elsässer, the Chief Executive at Solar Promotion International and Professor Eicke Weber, the Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Solutions, both made special trips from Germany to speak at the event. Dan Martin of SEMI, Doug Payne, the Director of Business Development at the SolarTech Consortium and Eric Wesoff, a Senior Analyst at Greentech Media represented the U.S perspective. While time was limited and the discussion only scraped the surface of this compelling topic, the event illuminated the value of the upcoming Intersolar North America conference in solidifying relationships between players in the international solar industry.
 Another way that the government shirked their responsibilities when it comes to environmental protection. Saving a stand of redwoods to protect an owl, or a river for a fish, seems a whole lot less commital than trying to fix our climate for who may ultimately be the martyrs for climate change - the polar bear. What good is endangered status if we refuse to address the nature of their situation? Maybe we should rename them instead - solar bears? Read the press release.
 Yesterday was the high holy holiday for bike commuters - "Bike to Work Day". As a daily bike commuter, it's a kind of dream come true to see so many people taking advantage of the fresh morning air, a bit of exercise, zero emission transit, and the relaxing certainty that comes from knowing you're not getting in a jam. Overall, more than 50,000 riders participated in the Bay Area. The Chronicle reported that bikes made up 2/3 of all traffic heading down Market Street!
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