Shark Truth is a not-for-profit consumer awareness campaign that seeks to engage consumers in a collaborative discussion to find alternatives to shark fin soup. We are dedicated to promoting awareness around the irreversibly detrimental effects of the shark finning industry, specifically working with (and not against) consumers.

My friend Claudia Li co-founded the effort with Vivian Kwong in the summer of 2009. Along with a great team of volunteers, they have been working hard to make Shark Truth an effective and engaging campaign. The team realized that existing campaigns (such as
WildAid’s Shark Conservation Program and Sea Shepherd’s Defending Sharks campaign) were not creating a dialogue with the Chinese community about the practice of shark finning. While these campaigns and others have done a great deal to raise the profile of this issue, they have mainly focussed on the supply side of the situation. Shark Truth, by choosing to focus their efforts on the demand side, have a chance to develop awareness amongst the culture and community that constitutes the largest market for shark fin. As Chinese Canadians, the team’s sensitivity to both the cultural and ecological facets of the problem provide them with an opportunity to effect real change. They know that another attack campaign full of images of blood and gore is not going to reach the Chinese community, so they are instead seeking ways to collaborate with the consumers of shark fin soup to find alternatives.

As a city, Vancouver represents the largest market for shark fin soup in Canada, and a major proportion of Canada’s Chinese population: 75% of Canadian Chinese live in either Vancouver or Toronto. Shark Truth’s organizers hope to make Vancouver the first step in a broader campaign. They have begun both Personal and Wedding Pledges to “Stop the Soup”, and have provided information on the website and other campaign materials (including Shark Truth info in fortune cookies!) about the unsustainable and inhumane practice of shark-finning.

I have been interested in the campaign and their unique approach since I first heard about it. In order to assist, I undertook the development of the Shark Truth website. In collaboration with the team, I designed and implemented a custom look and feel for the website, using WordPress as the CMS, and developed identity materials to match the existing logo. In addition to this role, I advised on web and social media strategy, and consulted on technology selection and maintenance.

The campaign is off to a great start. The Launch Event at Wild Rice was sold out, raising over $2000 for the campaign, and featured a presentation by world-renowned marine biodiversity researcher Dr. Nick Dulvy, IUCN Shark Specialist Group Co-Chair. Since then, we’ve had lots of interest from the community, including a pledge to not serve shark’s fin soup at a 1000 person wedding! That’s a lot of sharks who get to keep swimming a little longer.

It’s been a pleasure working with the team, and I fervently hope their passion and perseverance will help to slow and eventually reverse the demand for shark fin. Sustainability requires a thorough reassessment of how we use our planet’s limited resources. Sometimes this means slow changes. In other cases, such as this, change must be rapid and resolved in order to make a difference, else we risk losing one of Earth’s oldest and most beautiful predators, and with them the balanced ecosystems that have sustained our oceans for millenia.

Team North will design and deliver North House, a compelling, marketable solar powered home that makes use of the latest in high-performance architecture and mobile communication technology, while building Canada’s next generation of leaders in sustainable engineering, business and design.

This October, after a two-year development cycle, our team traveled to Washington D.C. to compete in the US Department of Energy‘s Solar Decathlon on the Washington Mall:

The Solar Decathlon joins 20 college and university teams in a competition to design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house.

The architects and engineers on the project did an incredible job: combining leading-edge technology, modern aesthetics, and innovative materials to produce a net-zero solar powered home that is viable for the Canadian climate. After a challenging two-week competition, we placed 4th overall! Full results can be found on the Solar Decathlon scoring page. We were pleased with our performance, and feel proud of the achievement we’ve made with the house. Full details on the specifications and innovations of the house are available from the team website.

SFU’s contribution to this undertaking involved the development of a control system for the North House, and the design and creation of a suite of web-enabled applications to provide feedback, control, and community networking to the residents of the house. My role on the project was comprised of contributing to the design team for each of these main pieces of the interactive system, and then undertaking the development of each with a small team of programmers.

For the control system, I worked closely with Chris Brandson of VerTech Solutions. He wrote custom drivers for each of the house’s hardware systems (lighting, shades and blinds, HVAC, retractable bed, etc.) and configured them to communicate with Embedded Automation‘s mControl. I then developed a Ruby on Rails application to interface with mControl using SOAP. This allowed the design team to develop a custom interface for the residents of the home instead of relying on an off-the-shelf solution. The controls were then presented on three embedded touchscreens: a 17″ display mounted in the western end of the kitchen backsplash and two 8″ displays at the north and east entryways. The central panel provides digital controls for all of the house systems, while the entry panels provide local controls for nearby lights. Additionally, from each control point residents can put the house into user-configurable Presets such as Home, Away or Sleep. These presets represent configurations for various activities or times of day that can be activated with a single button press. The control and monitoring system we developed was noted as a standout by software developer Patrick Smith in his Survey of Home Monitoring & Control Systems at the Solar Decathlon.

I worked with closely with interaction designers Kevin Muise, Jenny Thai, and Jin Fan on the web application. These talented designers delivered high quality HTML, CSS, and image assets that I then incorporated into the Ruby on Rails application and populated with dynamic data and enabled with interactive behaviour. The house data was made available by Rob MacKenzie’s datalogging systems. Along with this contribution to the project, his invaluable talents at network administration, hardware procurement, and his knack for pulling off last-minute hacks can’t be overlooked!

Finally, Kevin Muise and I completed the Mobile application together. He led the development with nearly solo design and prototyping work. I then developed the final version based on his prototypes and integrated it with the Rails app and control system. The mobile application provides access to a subset of the features of the desktop web application, including graphing utilities, house controls, and community networking.

Interactive demonstrations of the web application and iPhone application can be found on the Team North website under Interface Demos. Also, I was lucky enough to be interviewed by David Gura from NPR for a brief segment about the iPhone application that aired on All Things Considered during the competition. The segment is available online.

The competition and project as a whole were intense and challenging. The difficulty of channeling the talents and perspectives of students and faculty from a range of disciplines across three universities and two timezones cannot be overestimated. Over the course of the year, I clumsily learned to speak the languages of architects, engineers, computer scientists, and project managers while participating in many teleconferences and email exchanges. I learned how important priorities can sometimes be missed when working in large geographically distributed teams because each person and team thinks someone else is doing it. And I learned a great deal about what not to do (…and less of what to do!) in software development. That being said, everyone on the project undertook their part with such enthusiasm and determination that we were able to overcome these obstacles and successfully deliver a house that is beautiful, powerful, and viable.

My sincere thanks to everyone on the team for their dedication and determination over the course of the project. It’s been a truly memorable experience. Also a huge congratulations to all the teams and great people that participated in the contest, especially those I met from Germany, California, Louisiana, and Cornell. In the coming year, I’ll be applying much of what I’ve learned on this project to my ongoing research into information visualization and tools for feedback on energy consumption.

Other media links:

• Globe & Mail: North House Waves the Flag
• CBC News: The National (October 8th)
• SPIE: Students shine at the Solar Decathlon (video)

2007 was Creative Creature’s first year of 1% membership. The experience has been a very positive one so far. I believe strongly in the mission of the organization, and the practical commitment they ask for is a tangible force for change. As interested as I am in environmental progress, it’s unlikely I would have looked up CPAWS and made a donation today, had I not been a 1% member. The structure offered by 1% FTP makes it easier to organize these individual efforts to contribute to something bigger. It’s exciting to be a part of. I can only imagine what a difference could be made if a 1% environmental commitment were applied across the national or world economy. It really wouldn’t be so hard.

So, rather than a rant about the issue, I’ve decided to restrict myself to a list of the things I feel I’m doing right for the environment in my everyday business, and those that I need to improve upon. The latter are combined with a commitment on my part to actively pursue those improvements. Since this blog is dedicated primarily to my business, I will focus on those activities to do with Creative Creature.

The things I’m doing right

• I work from home, eliminating the need to commute.
• I turn off my monitors and speakers when I’m going to be away from my desk for more than a couple of minutes, helping to conserve energy. I also unplug my computer overnight (though I do leave it sleeping).
• I bike to all meetings, reducing the noise and pollution caused by car traffic. Thanks to the climate in Hamilton, I can do this throughout the year (though it gets chilly sometimes!).
• I use recycled paper for all printing, and use both sides of the page most of the time. I also recycle all fine paper waste that my activities generate.
• I donate 1% of my sales to environmental organizations through 1% For The Planet.

The things I can improve on

• I leave my routers, hubs, and telephones plugged in and running when I leave the house for days at a time, consuming unnecessary energy.
• I have not converted to CFL bulbs in my home. I have doubts about the Mercury in the bulbs, but this is debatable based on the method used for generating electricity in your area (ie. the method of energy production (coal plants) may produce more Mercury to power an incandescent bulb than a CFL would use in production and use combined). The energy mixture in Hamilton is primarily hydroelectric (Niagara Falls) and nuclear, so I’m still not sure about this.
• I use a wide variety of electronics loaded with plastics and heavy metals, every one of them manufactured under loose environmental guidelines in Asia and shipped overseas. The seemingly low environmental impact of the web industry (“It’s all digital! It’s all so perfect and clean!”) hides a lot of toxic waste. Not sure what my options are for this right now.
• I’m sure there are many more. Any suggestions?

Save Our Forests!

Finally, as a little goody for those interested in making the small changes, I’ve put together a little “No Junk Mail” 2.5″ x 3.5″ badge that you can download, print out, and put on your mailbox. I printed mine on sticker paper, but regular (recycled!) paper and some tape would work as well. If you’d like, you can download the artwork in Illustrator format and rework to your needs (maybe a skinny mailbox door?). Enjoy! I’d love to hear if you use it.

Download Formats

• 150dpi PNG
• 300dpi PNG
• Adobe Illustrator CS Format

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Public Domain License.

Yesterday I came across a banner ad for Blog Action Day while traversing the web. Interested by the title and graphic design, I followed the link to discover a pretty cool initiative started by a handful of (hippy, vegan, Baha’i) bloggers. The idea is this:

What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day?

One issue. One day. Thousands of voices.

The issue for the inaugural Blog Action Day is The Environment. I like the idea of focussing a wide variety of blogs on a single (multifaceted) issue, especially when it’s the central concern of our time. So far, around 3600 blog(ger)s have signed up for the event. The initiative seems to be relatively nonpartisan, which will hopefully increase its impact across perspectives (as opposed to ‘preaching to the choir’). In their FAQ, they state the following:

2. Does Blog Action Day have a specific agenda?

As much as is possible we are aiming not to push any particular agenda. Aside from the choice of theme each year, we encourage bloggers to write their own opinions, give weight to what they think is important and to be themselves.

We believe in unity in diversity, not uniformity.

3. Why the environment?

We have selected the environment as the 2007 theme both for the clarity of its importance and the undeniable urgency that issues like global warming and pollution have. It is an issue that can relate to virtually any subject, any blog and anybody.

The organizers have suggested several options for participants to help make the day a success. The first is to post on the environment on October 15th. They suggest writing about how the issue is important to you, how you go about decreasing your environmental impact, and what you think should be done to promote environmental protection. The second is to donate your day’s earnings to the environmental charity of your choice (four of the big ones are officially associated with the initiative – Greenpeace, the National Wildlife Federation, The Sierra Club, and The Conservation Fund). Finally, they suggest helping to spread the word about the day, as I’m doing here! As I devote 1% of my earnings to 1% for the Planet, I’m not sure whether I will be donating my day’s earnings (*most days $0! But I guess my monthly average divided by thirty) to one of the charities.

I’m also not sure exactly what elements of the issue I’m going to write about yet, but I’m excited to contribute to the day. I’m interested to see what others write, whether Blog Action Day is covered in the mainstream media, and how the concept of collaboratively focussing on a single topic flies in the blogosphere. I think it’s an idea with a lot of positive energy behind it. It’s really easy to register, so if this is something that interests you, add your voice to the chorus. See you October 15th!

The animated graph demonstrates the different trends (historic and anticipated) in greenhouse gas emissions in the province from 1990 to 2020, with Kyoto Targets and specific milestones illustrated. It will not be available online until after the Minister’s announcement for the new climate change plan, so I will not post it here. However, here is a screenshot.

The graph uses XML data to load in the various trends, targets, and milestones. All information regarding the statistics and presentation of the graph is included in the XML document to allow the client to easily add, remove, or edit the data as new information becomes available. This is then loaded into the Flash Player at run time, where the interface is populated with the trends, and the user is able to selectively play, show, and hide each trend on the graph.

In addition to this work, I was asked to develop some ideas for how to visualize our carbon footprint. Each Ontarian is responsible for about 5.7 tonnes of carbon each year (excluding the impact of industry, which bumps each individual’s footprint to 20+ tonnes). Nobody likes the sound of this, but educators in the field recognize that such a number is not the easiest statistic for people to relate to. To that end, the following were some brief ideas or sketches which came to my mind to try to visualize these concepts. The materials are intended for an upcoming Ministry website intended for a younger audience (10-20 years).

It has been interesting and fun to work on this project, and I hope to continue to combine my work in design and multimedia with environmental education and awareness.

Whereas, we do not believe our government, or any government, is doing enough to protect and restore the health of our planet, to work toward sustainable commerce, to exercise full cost accounting in our use of non-renewable resources, and to tax them accordingly.

And whereas, we recognize we do not have totally sustainable and harmless businesses, or lifestyles, and we have an obligation to mitigate the damage we cause, regardless of whether or not we make a profit.

Therefore, we have decided not to wait for any government to do the right thing. We are committing our businesses to donate at least 1 percent of our net revenues to efforts that protect and restore our natural environment.

As we all know, this world will not be worth living in if we continue on our present course of overconsumption and thoughtless destruction. A 1% ‘tax’ on business sales seems a miniscule price to pay to help preserve and protect the natural world. Critics will say it’s not enough, or that it’s too late. Either or both of those statements may be true, but they offer little in return for their cynicism. I hope that this kind of thinking will catch on on a broader scale in time to salvage what is left and build a better future for all of us. Let’s do what G. Love says, and, “Save the whales! And the pygmy marmosets too!”