Higher Veg-ucation

Last Spring, Michael Crigler from Birdhead Design was teaching a class at the Art Institute of Boston called, ‘Design Can Change the World?’ You’ll notice that the title of the class is a question, leading us to ask, “can the visuals that represent brands and products influence the choices we make as individuals?”

To really grasp his teachings, you would have had to attended one of his classes. I had the fortune of attending one, not as a student, but as a guest lecturer. He wanted to show his students examples of alternative ways of living that people were practicing in the real world. My purpose as the guest lecturer was to educate people on the history of fossil fuel use in the world and to show the class my 1991 300D Turbo Diesel Mercedes Benz that has been converted to run on B100, or more commonly known as Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO).



The Students of this class were generally amazed at what I had to say and even more impressed that the vehicle we had converted actually worked and was achieving better gas mileage than when I was burning common Diesel fuel.



I couldn’t reiterate enough to them that what I was doing was just an example of how there are alternatives to almost every facet in our everyday lives, and in NO way are was this the way of the future. Hopefully the children of today can learn from this and make the appropriate changes for their future. Please watch the video below for highlights from the class. For more information on the use of vegetable oil as fuel, please visit: Grease Not Gas.