Today is Blog Action Day, and team Inhabitat is joining thousands of other sites around the world as we spread shock waves of awareness around the issue of climate change! As the web’s largest blog dedicated to sustainable design, we tackle this issue on a daily basis through our headlines – but today we also wanted to share a more personal response from our team. By nature climate change is an issue that extends to every corner of the globe, and our worldwide team of writers are engaging with it on a daily basis – read on for our responses!

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We posted about the exciting release of Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People, a few weeks back, and now it’s time to celebrate! Join author Emily Pilloton (founder of humanitarian product design coalition Project H Design and Inhabitat Senior Editor) on Tuesday October 6th, 6:30pm, at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City for a panel discussion with Cooper-Hewitt curator Cynthia Smith, Metropolis editor-in-chief Susan Szenasy, and Core77’s Allan Chochinov, followed by a reception and book signing. Register for the event via the Cooper-Hewitt site here ($10 members and students/$15 non-members).

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Happy Earth Day! (or screw earth day, depending on your point of view) This Earth Day, we’re feeling conflicted about the mixed meanings that Earth Day has for the environmental movement and environmental progress. Since Earth Day is meant to be a day about finding a global perspective on the state of our environment, we thought we’d take a poll of our contributors to see what Earth Day means to each of them. As we turn the page on the 39th annual celebration of the planet that we all call home, we asked our writers to share their plans on how they plan to spend April 22, 2009. From Australia and Sweden to San Francisco and New York City, here’s a look at what Earth Day means to different Inhabitat writers. We’d love to hear from you. How do you plan to spend YOUR Earth Day, and what does this holiday mean to you? Make sure you respond, because our favorite response wins an Inhabitat T-shirt!

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Attention gadget geeks!

The 2009 Greener Gadgets Conference kicked off today in NYC, and Inhabitat is on the scene, bringing you up-to-the-minute news from this groundbreaking event! We’ll be live-blogging the whole event – right here in this post — so stay tuned (and read below) for frequent updates!

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Design nonprofit Project H has completed the construction of their first Learning Landscape, a playground that teaches elementary math concepts using ten interactive games. Built from reclaimed tires in a simple sandbox structure, the pilot installation was built at the Kutamba AIDS Orphans School in southern Uganda by Project H design fellows Dan Grossman and Heleen de Goey. The grid system facilitates games that teach addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, along with spatial and logical reasoning. The Kutamba installation is the first of many – Project H hopes to build at least 5 more in Africa and in the US. Please help fund the construction of additional Learning Landscapes by donating to Project H here.

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Calling all New Yorkers who believe design can change the world! Tomorrow night, Friday December 5th, join us as we head to Brooklyn for Project H Design’s GIFTING FOR GOOD holiday party at Cornichon, from 7-11pm. The event will help support their New York Chapter and the local Women In Need Family Shelter. Local designers will be selling their wares from jewelry to accessories, ceramics, papergoods and t-shirts, with $1 for every $5 spent going to fund household items for the women at the shelter. There will be drink specials, you can make donations to Project H on behalf of loved ones for the holidays- And Inhabitat will be there, too, selling T-shirts and bags and other great green gifts from our shop!

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With one day left in the contest, Project H is in the lead to win $10,000 from Ideablob, but their lead is narrowing and THEY NEED YOUR VOTE! As we broadcasted last Monday, the product design nonprofit Project H Design is hoping to win the $10,000 to fund their Design For Education project in which they’re designing math toys for a school for the Kutamba School for AIDS orphans in Uganda. It’s becoming a closer and closer race by the minute, so please take 2 clicks of your mouse to vote for Project H (founded by Inhabitat’s own Emily Pilloton). Voting ends Tuesday night at 11:59 pm Central Time.

HELP PROJECT H WIN $10,000 BY VOTING ON IDEABLOB HERE>>>

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Project H Design, the product design nonprofit founded by Inhabitat’s own Emily Pilloton, is currently in the running to win $10,000 for their newly launched project: designing educational math toys for the developing world and US retail markets. They’ve assembled a team of designers, social entrepreneurs, and manufactures to develop a math toy that will be locally-manufacturable in the developing world (based on the Kutamba School for AIDS orphans case study and Architecture for Humanity project in Uganda) in addition to a sister US retail product based on the same concept/system. Ideablob hosts a monthly contest that awards $10,000 to one great idea, aka the one that receives the most votes. Please help Project H by voting for them on Ideablob!

HELP PROJECT H WIN $10,000 BY VOTING ON IDEABLOB HERE>>>

Happy Earth Day! This Earth Day, we find our Inhabitat team has grown to span nearly every corner of the globe. Since Earth Day is supposed to be about finding a global perspective on the state of our environment, we thought we’d take a poll of our contributors to see what Earth Day means to each of them. These unique perspectives are a driving force behind this blog and a welcome presence in our shared outlook of environmental stewardship. As we turn the page on the 38th annual celebration of the planet that we all call home, we asked our writers to share their plans on how they plan to spend April 22, 2008. From Hong Kong, India, Australia, Uganda, Germany, the U.S. and more, here’s a look at what Earth Day means to different Inhabitants. We’d love to hear from you. How do you plan to spend YOUR Earth Day, and what does this holiday mean to you?

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Happy New Year from Inhabitat! Today marks the beginning of a new calendar year, and it’s the perfect opportunity right now to look towards the coming year with new ideas, goals and resolutions. While it’s traditional for us to make personal resolutions, we at Inhabitat feel its important to reflect on the environment and the state of the design industry and make some green design resolutions for 2008. What is the future of green design? What important issues, movements, and ideas do we foresee being influential? What do we hope to see in the coming year? Read on to hear our thoughts, and from all of us at Inhabitat, here’s to a wonderful 2008!

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Jill is the founder of Inhabitat, as well as a freelance designer and green design consultant based in New York City. She created Inhabitat in the Spring of 2005 as a way to catalog her endless search for new ways to improve the world through forward-thinking, high-tech, and environmentally conscious design. Educated at Brown University, where she received a B.A. in Art Semiotics, and Central St. Martins, where she received an M.A. in Design Studies, she currently resides in New York City, which so far has been good for her obsession with rooftop gardens and vegan junk food restaurants.

Jill can be contacted at: inhabitat@gmail.com

+ Interview in Vogue
+ Profile in Architect Magazine
+ Profile in the Wall Street Journal
+ Interview on PSFK
+ Schoolblog on Archinect

EMILY PILLOTON – Managing Editor
Emily Pilloton is Inhabitat’s Managing Editor, and Founder of Project H Design, a charitable organization that supports, inspires, and delivers product design initiatives for Humanity, Habitats, Health, and Happiness. She is also a freelance design writer, furniture designer, and nomad “based” in San Francisco. Trained in architecture with degrees from UC Berkeley and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she has written for GOOD Magazine, Innovative Home, and ID, and has also taught design theory in Chicago. When she isn’t traveling or emailing, Emily enjoys baking cupcakes and playing trivia board games.

Abigail Doan is a fiber, mixed media, and environmental installation artist based in NYC and Siena, Italy. She has worked and traveled as a documentary film researcher, an art director for digital media and 3D design projects, and as an outreach coordinator for environmental education initiatives. Educated at Princeton University and Purchase College, she has exhibited her artwork in numerous shows internationally and is also a featured artist on Greenmuseum.org, the online environmental art museum. When not writing about art, craft, gardening, and fiber, Abigail is busy getting her hands dirty restoring a 14th century farmhouse in rural Tuscany. She and her husband are using local reclaimed materials while abiding by strict historic and regional preservation codes. She is also currently designing and crocheting air loft “canopy” gardens and is creating a fiber and vegetation based jewelry collection.