Guerrilla artist Banksy has opened his first official exhibition in New York – an excuse for me to visit perhaps?! The fake pet shop aims to question “our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming”. Works include a robotic monkey, fish-fingers swimming in a goldfish bowl, and my favourite – “chicken” nuggets pecking at ketchup. It seems to be causing quite a stir around a subject that we’re aware of but tend to disregard.

Ooh I love a Google Maps mash-up anyday. Garbage Scout features photos of recyclable items submitted by people, overlayed onto Google Maps. The idea is, if you see people put out reusable stuff with their garbage, so you just snap a picture on your phone, and send an SMS to Garbage Scout. Then you see your picture of the item and description on a Google Map, like below. Neat.

Google maps are free (to anyone) to use and adapt – it’s a great way for a brand to offer customers a relevant service. I’d like to see more stuff like this that’s useful and helps the environment.

I’ve blogged about climate change and green things a fair bit, so it’s only right I give a mention to this great innovative new campaign from WWF to strengthen the Climate Change Bill – more here.

There is a lot of talk of climate change at the moment, and many brands (MTV for example) trying to get a bit of the action. Amongst all this clutter and confusion, it’s becoming more and more difficult for consumers to identify what they can really do to make a difference. You can’t help but notice that awareness is at an all time high, with action falling drastically behind.

That’s why I really like ‘Get on Board’…

1) It stands out from the rest – the idea is pretty crazy, but hey it works. Clever dudes at Poke.

“We’re going to construct a giant paper boat and giant paper plane and deliver them to parliament. They will be covered in the names of the people who have pledged their support for our call for a strong, effective Climate Change Bill.”

2) It’s really easy to take action. No I mean really easy. In a matter of seconds…I had signed up to the petition, and even contacted my local MP to ensure they strengthen the bill.

They’ve even got a blog to follow this amazing story. You can also ‘tell a friend‘ (but only one at a time apparently!)

Thanks to Asi for telling me all about this…

Yep that’s right, today is the day bloggers from around the world unite to blog about the environment – to get talking about a better future. Obviously I had planned on writing a long interesting insightful post about something green, but this day arrived too quickly. So instead I’m going to post this hilarious ‘green’ clip “Sex Party” from Virgin Trains. Okay, so this viral isn’t going to combat climate change, but it will get people talking which is the point of blog action day I believe.

By Glue.

Check out Anthony, Neil, and 360 Digest, for taking the time to write great green posts for todays event. Worth reading theirs instead ;o)

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind – the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.

I have already written several green posts myself, so I’m more than happy to get involved and do my bit for Blog Action day (October 15th). It’s a subject that is really starting to hit home with me. And I’d like to think we can all help make a difference. I’m not sure one day is enough, but if it gets people talking and word-of-mouth spreads, then it’s definitely a good thing. Much better than another celeb packed concert which just helps to ruin the environment!

Website and blog here, sign up to help here…originally found via Mashable.

Here’s the niiiice video promoting it…

Go on. Bloggers unite. Get involved!

I firstly just need to excuse myself for my sparser blogging recently. I did my neck in annoyingly by doing nothing which was quite awkward. Then I hurt my wrist quite badly at a roller disco, yes drunk, and I have learned my lesson! At this point I joined the “group for the accident prone” on Facebook. Shortly after, I went to a BBQ and slipped on a wet floor (sober this time) and managed to fracture my elbow. Rubbish.

Sorry that’s the end of my rant, and hopefully my injuries, as bad things supposedly come in threes. And poor Will has had a worse ordeal of his own so my sympathies go to him.

To cheer myself up I went to the Innocent Fete on Sunday, and had a chilled out day in the sun…yes the sun! Lots of loverly organic food, green stuff, crazy games, funky music, and smoothies of course!

My favourite stall I came across was for stuffyourdoodles, check out their website here. It does what it says on the tin. Kids draw funny doodles with their amazing imaginations, send it to stuffyourdoodles, and they hand make your personal design into a stuffed figure. They even use recycled fabrics so it’s green as well as cool. Simple but cool idea.

Found here, brilliant example of branded utility.

When Romania was in Red Code suffering from overheating somebody actually thought and implemented a great idea. The Lipton Showers started the fight with global warming.

Forget bombarding consumers with irrelevant marketing messages, provide us with something useful! It’s great when brands give something back and have something interesting to say.

I’ve seen lots of loverly green things about, it’s the hot topic of the moment, and brands are taking notice…

This sewing website is a beautiful interactive experience where you can stitch away (quite literally). What’s nice is how it involves multiple users so you feel part of the big cause. This sort of mass participation is becoming more and more popular.

This campaign by MTV is all about targeting yoof cultcha to reduce carbon emissions, but mainly it just looks cool! MTV Switch has public service announcements and online resources promoting green lifestyle choices, all backed by huge celebs.

And a deserving winner at Cannes, in a world’s first, ‘Earth Hour’ saw Sydney turn off its lights for one hour at 7.30pm on Saturday March 31 2007. Shows just how we can all make a difference!

Anf finally, if you use iTunes for your music, I stumbled across this great site – Tunes for Trees. For every 1o songs you purchase, a tree will be planted for you!

I wonder what brand will be next to jump on the green bandwagon!

Russell’s bright green post got me thinking about how brands are approaching climate change, so I decided to have a look around. I came across this really interesting Google blog post about how Google have offered all their European employees Google-branded bikes to get to work. Google is cool. And they’re helping their employees to ‘think green’.

While surfing I also found this nice digg-style site ‘Do the right thing’, where you can add and rate stories about brands who are doing the right thing (or not). So I decided to add this Google story. I went on there today to see my post third most rated on the homepage. Chuffed! Apparently, nine people so far think it’s really important. And Amelia thinks it’s pioneering (thanks)!

 I’m feeling green…