James Lovelock gives humankind only one chance to survive – and he’s not optimistic

New Scientist, 23 January 2009
by Gaia Vince

With his 90th birthday in July, a trip into space scheduled for later in the year and a new book out next month, 2009 promises to be an exciting time for James Lovelock. But the originator of the Gaia theory, which describes Earth as a self-regulating planet, has a stark view of the future of humanity. He tells Gaia Vince we have one last chance to save ourselves – and it has nothing to do with nuclear power

Your work on atmospheric chlorofluorocarbons led eventually to a global CFC ban that saved us from ozone-layer depletion. Do we have time to do a similar thing with carbon emissions to save ourselves from climate change?

Not a hope in hell. Most of the “green” stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It’s not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it’ll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning. I am not against renewable energy, but to spoil all the decent countryside in the UK with wind farms is driving me mad. It’s absolutely unnecessary, and it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt – that’s an awful lot of countryside.

What about work to sequester carbon dioxide?

That is a waste of time. It’s a crazy idea – and dangerous. It would take so long and use so much energy that it will not be done.

Do you still advocate nuclear power as a solution to climate change?

It is a way for the UK to solve its energy problems, but it is not a global cure for climate change. It is too late for emissions reduction measures.

So are we doomed?

There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste – which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering – into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO₂ down quite fast.

Would it make enough of a difference?

Yes. The biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes of carbon yearly; we put in only 30 gigatonnes. Ninety-nine per cent of the carbon that is fixed by plants is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so by consumers like bacteria, nematodes and worms. What we can do is cheat those consumers by getting farmers to burn their crop waste at very low oxygen levels to turn it into charcoal, which the farmer then ploughs into the field. A little CO₂ is released but the bulk of it gets converted to carbon. You get a few per cent of biofuel as a by-product of the combustion process, which the farmer can sell. This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won’t do it.

Do you think we will survive?

I’m an optimistic pessimist. I think it’s wrong to assume we’ll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It’s happening again.

I don’t think humans react fast enough or are clever enough to handle what’s coming up. Kyoto was 11 years ago. Virtually nothing’s been done except endless talk and meetings.

I don’t think we can react fast enough or are clever enough to handle what’s coming up

It’s a depressing outlook.

Not necessarily. I don’t think 9 billion is better than 1 billion. I see humans as rather like the first photosynthesisers, which when they first appeared on the planet caused enormous damage by releasing oxygen – a nasty, poisonous gas. It took a long time, but it turned out in the end to be of enormous benefit. I look on humans in much the same light. For the first time in its 3.5 billion years of existence, the planet has an intelligent, communicating species that can consider the whole system and even do things about it. They are not yet bright enough, they have still to evolve quite a way, but they could become a very positive contributor to planetary welfare.

How much biodiversity will be left after this climatic apocalypse?

We have the example of the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum event 55 million years ago. About the same amount of CO₂ was put into the atmosphere as we are putting in and temperatures rocketed by about 5 °C over about 20,000 years. The world became largely desert. The polar regions were tropical and most life on the planet had the time to move north and survive. When the planet cooled they moved back again. So there doesn’t have to be a massive extinction. It’s already moving: if you live in the countryside as I do you can see the changes, even in the UK.

If you were younger, would you be fearful?

No, I have been through this kind of emotional thing before. It reminds me of when I was 19 and the second world war broke out. We were very frightened but almost everyone was so much happier. We’re much better equipped to deal with that kind of thing than long periods of peace. It’s not all bad when things get rough. I’ll be 90 in July, I’m a lot closer to death than you, but I’m not worried. I’m looking forward to being 100.

Are you looking forward to your trip into space this year?

Very much. I’ve got my camera ready!

Do you have to do any special training?

I have to go in the centrifuge to see if I can stand the g-forces. I don’t anticipate a problem because I spent a lot of my scientific life on ships out on rough oceans and I have never been even slightly seasick so I don’t think I’m likely to be space sick. They gave me an expensive thorium-201 heart test and then put me on a bicycle. My heart was performing like an average 20 year old, they said.

I bet your wife is nervous.

No, she’s cheering me on. And it’s not because I’m heavily insured, because I’m not.

Profile

James Lovelock is a British chemist, inventor and environmentalist. He is best known for formulating the controversial Gaia hypothesis in the 1970s, which states that organisms interact with and regulate Earth’s surface and atmosphere. Later this year he will travel to space as Richard Branson’s guest aboard Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo. His latest book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia, is published by Basic Books in February.

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Is climate change irreversable?

Climate change is essentially irreversible, according to a sobering new scientific study. As carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, the world will experience more and more long-term environmental disruption. The damage will persist even when, and if, emissions are brought under control, says study author Susan Solomon, who is among the world’s top climate scientists.

“We’re used to thinking about pollution problems as things that we can fix,” Solomon says. “Smog, we just cut back and everything will be better later. Or haze, you know, it’ll go away pretty quickly.” That’s the case for some of the gases that contribute to climate change, such as methane and nitrous oxide. But as Solomon and colleagues suggest in a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it is not true for the most abundant greenhouse gas: carbon dioxide. Turning off the carbon dioxide emissions won’t stop global warming.

“People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide that the climate would go back to normal in 100 years or 200 years. What we’re showing here is that’s not right. It’s essentially an irreversible change that will last for more than a thousand years,” Solomon says. This is because the oceans are currently soaking up a lot of the planet’s excess heat — and a lot of the carbon dioxide put into the air. The carbon dioxide and heat will eventually start coming out of the ocean. And that will take place for many hundreds of years.

Solomon is a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Her new study looked at the consequences of this long-term effect in terms of sea level rise and drought.

If we continue with business as usual for even a few more decades, she says, those emissions could be enough to create permanent dust-bowl conditions in the U.S. Southwest and around the Mediterranean. “The sea level rise is a much slower thing, so it will take a long time to happen, but we will lock into it, based on the peak level of [carbon dioxide] we reach in this century,” Solomon says.

The idea that changes will be irreversible has consequences for how we should deal with climate change. The global thermostat can’t be turned down quickly once it’s been turned up, so scientists say we need to proceed with more caution right now. “These are all … changes that are starting to happen in at least a minor way already,” says Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University. “So the question becomes, where do we stop it, when does all of this become dangerous?”

The answer, he says, is sooner rather than later. Scientists have been trying to advise politicians about finding an acceptable level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The new study suggests that it’s even more important to aim low. If we overshoot, the damage can’t be easily undone. Oppenheimer feels more urgency than ever to deal with climate change, but he says that in the end, setting acceptable limits for carbon dioxide is a judgment call. “That’s really a political decision because there’s more at issue than just the science. It’s the issue of what the science says, plus what’s feasible politically, plus what’s reasonable economically to do,” Oppenheimer says.

But despite this grim prognosis, Solomon says this is not time to declare the problem hopeless and give up. “I guess if it’s irreversible, to me it seems all the more reason you might want to do something about it,” she says. “Because committing to something that you can’t back out of seems to me like a step that you’d want to take even more carefully than something you thought you could reverse.”

[Source: National Public Radio]

‘Immortal’ jellyfish swarming across the world

The Turritopsis Nutricula is able to revert back to a juvenile form once it mates after becoming sexually mature. Marine biologists say the jellyfish numbers are rocketing because they need not die. Dr Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute said: “We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion.”

The jellyfish are originally from the Caribbean but have spread all over the world. Turritopsis Nutricula is technically known as a hydrozoan and is the only known animal that is capable of reverting completely to its younger self. It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation. Scientists believe the cycle can repeat indefinitely, rendering it potentially immortal. While most members of the jellyfish family usually die after propagating, the Turritopsis nutricula has developed the unique ability to return to a polyp state.

Having stumbled upon the font of eternal youth, this tiny creature which is just 5mm long is the focus of many intricate studies by marine biologists and geneticists to see exactly how it manages to literally reverse its aging process.

Now, that is a worry – I can think of a lot of people who I would not like to see being rejuvenated!

[Source: Telegraph UK]

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Biophysical Economics – economy returning to nature

The matrix we live in is controlled by economic forces that are still driven by the belief in unfettered growth of almost everything, leading to ever-increasing profits through unstoppable consumption. This article by  The Tyee though suggests that a change might be in the offing, with economists beginning to take seriously the notion of Biophysical Economics. Biophysical economics is based on a conceptual model of the economy connected to, and sustained by, a flow of energy, materials, and ecosystem services. That means we have to work with nature, not against it.

The year 2009 will witness a tsunami of appeals to economists to fix, as disgraced Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan put it, the “flaw” in their thinking. Most will get it wrong.

The proposals for bailouts, regulations and government spending sprees all share one tragic flaw: they assume no physical or biological limits to human growth. Most economists cling to an 18th century mechanical universe that conjured an “invisible hand” of God, that would allegedly convert private greed into public utopia.

Indeed, a few got rich, but the meek inherit an earth featuring child slavery, sweatshops, a billion starving people, toxic garbage heaps, dead rivers, exhausted aquifers, disappearing forests, depleted energy stores, lopped-off mountain tops, acid seas, melting glaciers and an atmosphere heating up like a flambé.

Meanwhile, a rigorous subculture of scientists and economists have been working to free economics from its 18th century quagmire by reconciling human enterprise with the laws of physics, biology and ecology.

Their time has come. This year, 2009, will signal the birth of a genuinely innovative economics that will eventually displace the patchwork rationalizations for greed. The new ecological accounting is variously called “dynamic equilibrium,” “steady-state” or “biophysical” economics.

What about technology?

Ignoring nature remains the tragic conceit of conventional economists, who presume we can grow our economies forever without regard to quantities of materials, energy and pollution. Biophysical economics, on the other hand, acknowledges that there exist no cases in nature of unlimited growth.

Dr. Albert Bartlett, emeritus professor of physics at Colorado University, urges economists to learn the laws of nature. Non-material values — creativity, dreams, love — may expand without limit, but materials and energy in the real world remain subject to the requirements of thermodynamics and biology. “Growth in population or rates of consumption cannot be sustained. Smart growth is better than dumb growth,” says Bartlett, “but both destroy the environment.”

What about technology? Some economists imagine that computer chips or nanotechnology will save us from the laws of nature, but every technical efficiency in history has resulted in more consumption of energy and resources, not less. Remember when computers were going to save paper? That never happened. Computers increased paper consumption from about 50 million tons annually in 1950 to 250 million tons today. Meanwhile, we lost 600 million hectares of forest.

Nor is the Internet a celestial realm where ideas are exchanged for “free.” Computers require copper, silicon, oil, toxic chemicals, massive energy for server networks, and garbage heaps for techno-trash. In every industrialized nation, energy and material consumption is increasing, not decreasing. Technology is not energy. It costs energy.

Malthus revisited

In the 1970s, World Bank economist Herman Daly wrote “Steady-State Economics,” to outline the future of ecological economics. Daly makes a distinction between “sustainable growth,” which is “impossible” and “sustainable development,” which is natural. “The larger system is the biosphere, and the subsystem is the human economy,” says Daly. “We can develop qualitatively, but we cannot grow beyond the biosphere’s limits.”

A U.K. commission chaired by Sir Nicholas Stern called global warming “the greatest market failure ever seen.” Pavan Sukhdev, economist for Deutschbank, estimates that forest destruction erases $2.5 trillion in “natural capital” annually. Mark Anielski, an economist in Edmonton, estimates that “ecological services” from Canada’s boreal forests — carbon capture, water filtration — are worth about $93 billion per year.

In the 19th century, Thomas Malthus and John Stuart Mill introduced ecological economics, warning that human expansion would eventually meet natural limits. Industrialists have mocked Malthus and ignored Mill for two centuries, but the evidence now suggests that the discovery of petroleum only postponed the effects.

Many economists now recognize that Malthus and Mill were essentially correct. A 2008 Goldman-Sachs report about commodity shortages stated, “we see parallels with Malthusian economics.” Popular investment advisor James Dines told a New York investment conference in May that food and fuel scarcities are a “result of a Malthusian planetary limit.”

“Limits to growth are real,” says Anita M. Burke, former Shell Oil and B.C. Hydro sustainability advisor. “We must embrace adaptation strategies that create new ways of being in relationship to each other and the planet. The solutions offered by growth economics are inadequate. These will be replaced by an economics that accepts the limits and laws of nature.”

Biophysical Economics

“Energy used by the economy is… a proxy of the amount of real work done in our economy,” says Charles A. Hall, at the State University of New York. In the 1980s, Hall and others hypothesized, “Over time, the Dow Jones should snake about the real amount of work.” Twenty years later, a century’s market and energy data shows that whenever the Dow Jones industrial average spikes faster than U.S. energy consumption, it crashes: 1929, the 1970s, the dot.com bubble, and now with the mortgage collapse.

World oil production plateaued in 2005, and as the price of oil rose from $35/barrel in 2004 to $147 in 2008, it added a $3.5 trillion annual cost to human civilization. “That reduced discretionary income,” says Hall, “the domino that led to a decline in aggregate demand, particularly for suburban real estate.” Jeff Rubin, chief economist at CIBC World Markets, agrees: “Oil shocks create global recessions.”

A popular Wall Street publication, The Corporate Examiner, is planning a special edition this year on “the end of faith-based economics,” with an article by Hall and his colleagues. In October, Hall convened the first International Conference on Biophysical Economics in Syracuse, New York, and will publish a book this year. “Since economics is about the production and transfer of physical things or services that require energy,” says Hall, “it is a biophysical science, not a social science.”

Robert Costanza, director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, will launch two periodicals this year: an annual academic anthology, The Year in Ecological Economics, and a bimonthly magazine, Solutions, for technical and popular articles about ecology and economics. “To repair our economic system,” explains editor Ida Kubiszewski, we must realize that “the mounting environmental and social problems we face are systemic. Articles in Solutions will employ whole-systems thinking.”

The editorial board includes pioneers of ecological economics — Herman Daly, Ernest Collenbach and Vancouver’s Bill Rees, who developed “ecological footprint” analysis at the University of British Columbia. Rees calculates that human consumption of the biosphere is “already 30 per cent into overshoot,” consuming more than the ecosystem can replenish. “We must account for the environment,” says Rees, “reduce total consumption, and then address equitable distribution.”

‘Sooner or later…’

“We are dying of consumption,” says Peter Dauvergne, sustainability advisor at UBC and author of The Shadows of Consumption. “The unequal globalization of the costs of consumption is putting ecosystems and billions of people at risk.”

To honestly achieve a “sustainable” economy, humanity must step through a paradigm shift, as profound as the transition in the sixteenth century, when Copernicus showed that the earth is not the centre of the universe. Likewise, ecology teaches us that humanity is not the centre of life on the planet. Just as the Pope’s henchmen refused to look through Galileo’s telescope, some economists avoid looking out the window to see what keeps humanity alive: photosynthesis, precious materials, and concentrated energy.

“Sooner or later,” as ecologist David Abram puts it, “technological civilization must accept the invitation of gravity and settle back… into the rhythms of a more-than-human earth.”

In the 21st century, human enterprise has reached the scale of the planet. We have to account for ourselves on nature’s balance sheet. This is biophysical economics. It appears inevitable. Biophysical culture is what we will make of it.

Tips for greener motoring

Image by reflexer via Flickr

Your driving habits, the type of vehicle you drive and the conditions under which you drive will affect your vehicle’s environmental performance. Follow these tips for greener driving.

Minimise your vehicle use

Think about your travel needs prior to your travel. Planned travel decisions will result in fewer trips and more efficient/cheaper travel than unplanned decisions made ‘on the go’. Some travel planning tips:

• Plan to do a number of errands in one trip rather than several trips and save both time and fuel (for the first couple of minutes of a car trip the engine is cold and this results in an increase in fuel consumption per kilometre).
• Patronise shops near to you whenever possible to reduce the distances you travel by car. Walk or cycle to your local shops if you can.
• Avoid peak-hour traffic whenever possible.
• Use alternative transport, eg. public transport (bus, train, tram or ferry), walking or cycling. These alternative methods of travel are often cheaper, and may provide other benefits including increased fitness.

Drive in high gear

The engine runs most efficiently between around 1,500 and 2,500 rpm (lower in diesels). To maintain these low revs you should change up through the gears as soon as practical and before the revs reach 2,500 rpm. Automatic transmissions will shift up more quickly and smoothly if you ease back slightly on the accelerator once the car gathers momentum.

Drive smoothly – avoid unnecessary acceleration

Drive at a good distance from the car in front so you can anticipate and travel with the flow of traffic. You will be able to see such things as traffic lights changing or cars turning and minimise your fuel use through braking and accelerating back up to full speed.

Minimise fuel wasted in idling

Minimise fuel wasted in idling by stopping the engine whenever your car is stopped or held up for an extended period of time. By having the engine switched off, even for a short period, you will save more fuel than is lost from the burst of fuel involved in restarting the engine. The net increased wear and tear from this practice is negligible.

Speed kills economy

High speeds result in high fuel consumption. At 110 km/h your car can use up to 25% more fuel than it would cruising at 90 km/h.

Minimise aerodynamic drag

Additional parts on the exterior of a vehicle such as roof racks and spoilers, or having the window open, increases air resistance and fuel consumption, in some cases by over 20%.

Look after your vehicle’s tyres

Inflate your vehicle’s tyres to the highest pressure recommended by the tyre manufacturer and make sure your wheels are properly aligned (remember to keep your spare tire inflated as well). Looking after your tyres will not only reduce your fuel consumption it will also extend tyre life and improve handling.

Use air conditioning sparingly

Air conditioners can use extra fuel when operating. However, at speeds of over 80 km/h, the use of air conditioning is better for fuel consumption than an open window.

Travel light

Don’t carry more people or cargo than you have to. The more a vehicle carries the more fuel it uses; an extra 50kg of weight can increase your fuel bill by around 2%.

Service your vehicle regularly

Keeping your vehicle well tuned will minimise its environmental impact.

[Source: Green Vehicle Guide]

Buy a car by its emission rates

This list of course will change change over time; for the latest updates as well as for more information on all kinds of aspects of green motoring (if there is such thing 😉 ) see the Green Vehicle Guide.

Increasing speed and efficiency in processors by sacrificing accuracy

An interesting post on Slashdot by Soulskill:

“Modern computing has always been reliant on accuracy and correct answers. Now, a professor at Rice University in Houston posits that some future applications could be revolutionized by ‘probabilistic computing.’ Quoting: ‘This afternoon, Krishna Palem, speaking at a computer science meeting in San Francisco, will announce results of the first real-world test of his probabilistic computer chip: The chip, which thrives on random errors, ran seven times faster than today’s best technology while using just 1/30th the electricity. … The high density of transistors on existing chips also leads to a lot of background “noise.” To compensate, engineers increase the voltage applied to computer circuits to overpower the noise and ensure precise calculations. Palem began wondering how much a slight reduction in the quality of calculations might improve speed and save energy. He soon realized that some information was more valuable than other information. For example, in calculating a bank balance of $13,000.81, getting the “13” correct is much more important than the “81.” Producing an answer of $13,000.57 is much closer to being correct than $57,000.81. While Palem’s technology may not have a future in calculating missions to Mars, it probably has one in such applications as streaming music and video on mobile devices, he said.’

Pieke Bermans – irregular mass production and viruses

Pieke Bergmans is a young Dutch industrial designer who seems to be best known for her “virus design”: infectious objects.  The forms she creates are organic, taking their lead from natural shapes as well as the occasional freedom of being able to flow into their final ‘gestalt’. Bergmans uses a range of materials for her design, from metal, ceramics and wood to glass.

I find a couple of her design concepts quite appealing. One is that of irregular mass production or Unlimited Editions, where unique objects are industrially mass produced – a seeming contradiction in terms. The other is that of viruses: objects infecting and affecting their environment.

Crystal Virus [2005-2008]

A series of virus-formed crystal vases are fluently crawls over tables and chairs. They leave black burned stains in their confrontation with the furniture, but still they can be regarded as friendly beings.

This series is made by the hand of master glassblowers at Royal Leerdam Crystal under Bergmans’ supervision. Big hot crystal bubbles are pressed onto wooden furniture, and while the crystal burns into the wood, some of the woods texture is integrated into the vase. Vase and furniture are then displayed together as an installation.

The Crystal Virus concept evolved between 2005-2008, starting at the beginning with the use of discarded or relatively low-value objects as companion pieces for the glass vases. Later on (in 2007 at the Salone del Mobile), the creation process moved upmarket when famous furniture pieces by Charles & Ray Eames, Maarten van Severen, Sori Yanagi, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Jean Prouvé and Jasper Morrison proved to be much more interesting subjects (Vitra Viruses). Through form, colour, value and reputation, they claimed a much more  prominent role in the matter.

I guess in all cases though, Crystal Viruses are about what Bergmans calls ‘a meeting’: between design and art as well as the modern designer and a traditional industry. It’s of course also a confrontational, almost brutally invasional meeting between the Crystal and the furniture, and it’s about the past meeting the future: in form of the rebirth of the seemingly complete and final ‘old’, which is transformed in the meeting act into an emerging ‘new’. Thus this meeting becomest a sojourn in the endless journey death and renewal.

The meeting between crystal and furniture is called by Bergmans ‘an Infection’, and it is a spectacular sight. The bubbles of hot and fluent crystal are pressed against the furniture. In bursts of fire and smoke they melt together (see video clip below). The black burned stain in the furniture is captured inside the crystal like a fingerprint, and the objects belong together from then on. In this context and given the kind of violence taking place during this provocative drama, the act of rebirth takes on an almost cosmic, primordial character.

Rebirth or renewal though aren’t the only metaphors coming to mind. In a more mundane and functional way, one could also say that instead of a union having taken place, the piece of furniture simply has become a pedestal for the crystal object. Or, in another way, one that seems more appropriate to Bergmans’ intentions, the crystal object can be described as sitting on the furniture like a parasite, a virus.

Droog Design (2008 ) presents ‘Massive Infection’, a large table that is completely overrun by Crystal Virus vases

Big Mama [2008]

With her soothing soft features, the Mama Virus lures in all weary beings that lack rest and comfort. However, once embraced by the Mama Virus, it takes some willpower to escape from its relaxing lobes.

Utopia Infected [2006-2007]

Reflection = infection. Astonishing how a creature can hide itself so well, and then suddenly expose itself so extravagantly. Beware: A high risk of contamination is involved when they are around. The mirrors shatter their surroundings into distorted fragments.

Sticky Virus [2006-2008]

This elegant virus clings to anything it touches: Objects, buildings, people, everything can be infected. The Sticky Virus has a great impact and spreading power. Especially at parties and other special occasions, people seem to be very vulnerable. Individuals are known to proudly display their infections, causing jealousy amongst uninfected bystanders. This allows the virus to rapidly spread through all willing subjects

Melted Collection [2008]

A collection of melted blue furniture by Pieke Bergmans and Peter van der Jagt, which is as extraordinary at first sight as it is after close inspection. From afar, the forms look strong, fluid and natural. Even though their bright blue skin is deeply contrasting, the objects are by form connected to whichever surface they rest on. This makes the alienating Melted Collection adapt and become part of their environment. From up close, we notice that the edges of these objects are deformed and melted. The slight gradient of colour that follows the natural curves of the material indicates that these objects were in fact baked to achieve their final forms.

Unlimited Edition [2007-2008]

Unlimited Edition or irregular mass production is a unique production of unique vases. Pieke Bergmans & Madieke Fleuren, working together for the first time, developed a mass production process that would churn out individual objects. It resulted in a series of vases that is titled ‘Unlimited Edition’.

“We designed various templates that we place into an extrusion machine. Thus, the machine extrudes endless tubes of clay. Because of the speed and flexibility of the clay, the tubes force themselves in maximum and almost impossible conditions and shapes. We cut the tubes of the extrusion-machine and place them onto a drying table. Because we have researched the quality and max-deformation of this clay, we have managed to develop a new product that is always unique but can be mass-produced: an Unlimited Edition.”

Light Blubs [2008]

A series of unique crystal lamps by Pieke Bergmans, with Royal Leerdam Crystal and Solid Lighting.

You may wonder: What is a light blub?? The answer is simple: it is a light bulb that has gone way out of line. Infected by the dreaded Design Virus, these Blubs have taken on all kinds of forms and sizes you wouldn’t expect from such well behaving and reliable little products. Nevertheless, they seem to be enjoying their new free existences. They could be found shining across Milan during the Salone Del Mobile 2008.

The lamps are all unique handcrafted crystal pieces, equipped with leds by Solid Lighting Design.

For more on Bergmans’ design go to her website.

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