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A new scientific paper has warned of the looming environmental and social consequences of the world’s appetite for sand. The study, headed by Aurora Torres at Michigan State University’s fisheries and wildlife school, notes that the global demand for sand and gravel is set to double by... View full entry
The demand for that material is so intense that around the world, riverbeds and beaches are being stripped bare, and farmlands and forests torn up to get at the precious grains. And in a growing number of countries, criminal gangs have moved in to the trade, spawning an often lethal black market in sand. — BBC
Writing for BBC Future, Vince Beiser explains how sand — a very specific kind of sand — has become the second most consumed natural resource on the planet, fueling global environmental destruction, criminal enterprises, and even "sand wars." "The demand for that material is so intense... View full entry
Building “sandcastles” is a bit of a test. Nature will always be against you and time is always running out. Having to think fast and to bring it all together in the end is what I like about it...Once I begin building and forms take shape I can start to see where things are going and either follow that road or attempt to contradict it with something unexpected. — Calvin Seibert, sculptor
Professional sculptor Calvin Seibert builds “sandcastle” structures that look like they could be straight from the sketchbooks of architecture's modernist icons. Whenever he starts sculpting his next sand structure, he usually only has “a vague notion of trying to do something different each... View full entry
To make matters more turbid, the nightmare of coastal reclamation occupies an imaginary and regulatory space created by several misunderstandings about territory itself. These become urgent against both the backdrop of our “oceanic” moment and the apparent dissolution of that idyll of 19th- and 20th-century geopolitical thought, the grounded state. — Harvard Design Magazine
Joshua Comaroff writes about contemporary sand/geo-politics, land reclamation, "sand wars" and secular(ism). View full entry
