CLIMATE CHANGE AND FUTURE ENVISION
Posted by Mei-Ling Lu on November 17, 2014We buy things online and can receive them just a day after the day we ordered. We travel everywhere by car, by train or by plane. We use smartphone and laptop to deal with everything. We don’t have to be worried about feeling hot in the summer or feeling cold in the winter because of air conditioner and heater. We live in a convenient world that many stores open 24/7. We cooperate with different companies in different countries around the globe without the limitation of geography and time.
This is our world.
Several thousand Muscovites died in July alone in 2010 due to the unprecedented heat wave. Millions of houses and offices were out of power, plenty of flights were cancelled in several cities and some people died when deadly winter storm hit North America in 2014. Pakistan was devastated by floods and landslides, while the drought in Australia influenced the local agriculture. Destructive hurricane is no longer unusual. Ocean water warms up and causes ice melt from glacier and ice caps that resulted sea level rises globally.
This is also our world.
Why hasn’t the problem of climate change been improved? The problem has been existing for more than two decades and even the experts have appealed to us for several times to do something for saving our planet. The truth is that we lack foresight and only care about ourselves. We persist in our wasteful ways. For example, we still drive to work, use air conditioner, leave the light on, and eat beef.
Sometimes people think that technology could make their life easier and cleaner. In fact, it hasn’t occurred yet. For instance, producing a laptop computer causes a lot of waste, which weighs more than four thousand times than the laptop itself. Theoretically, electronic products should have long life, but the fact is that a laptop can only be used for few years before it gets a lot of problems. A smartphone can only be used for few months before people feel sick of it and want to get a new one. People print materials out more often because of the Ethernet makes connection easy between computers and printers [Thackara 2006, 21-22].
However, the truth is that it is impossible for humans to go back to the ancient times and to live in harmony with the nature where there was no cars, no technological devices and no processed food. “We will watch the rise in greenhouse gases until it is too late to do anything about it” [Wolf 2013]. Only when catastrophes, as showed in movies “The Day after Tomorrow” and “2012”, actually happened, people may be willing to live in a simpler way.
“There is no point in making moral demands. People will not do something on this scale because they care about others, even including their own more remote descendants. They mostly care rather too much about themselves for that.” [Wolf 2013] It is impossible, inefficient, and unnecessary to ask people all becoming vegetarians or building wind farms to replace all nuclear power plants.
What is the possibility? What is the solution?
Songdo, as a new “smart city” in South Korea, is developed as an embodiment of cloud of big data. Everything in Songdo is Hi-Tech. The city infrastructures have sensors that monitor and control everything including temperature, power use and traffic. Low-carbon is one of the core values of Songdo. More than one-third of the city is reserved for green space. The waste collection system eliminates the need for trash trucks. The innovative sewage recycling system helps with reusing of waste water. The increase in data consumption results in less resource consumption. Songdo has demonstrated its ambition to create an eco-friendly city [Halpern et al. 2013, 274]. Will Songdo be our future? Will it be the solution of sustainability? I think it is the first step on the way to an entirely eco-friendly world.
Everything we produced is pollution. We refill our own water bottle and use LED light bulb, but water bottles and LEDs will still become trashes eventually. Even in Songdo, a city aims to cause less damage to the environment, there are still cars, factories, consumables…etc. The current efforts just slightly slow down the environmental damages, but the global warming still exists.
In my opinion, there are three ways to create a sustainable future.
First, promote usage of decomposable materials. We should consider the material when we design. Can it be decomposed? Will it become a trash that exists forever on earth? Different from the traditional plastic, which is made from non-renewable fossil fuels, biodegradable plastic is a good example of decomposition. Today, biodegradable plastic is highly used in package, clothing, shoes, barcode and surgical suture. These products will finally decompose in natural environment instead of being burned and emit dioxin. I believe we have to develop more decomposable materials to make sure nothing harmful will be left on earth.
Second, encourage computing without tangible devices. Everything we produced is pollution. “If you have been to landfill, you will surprisedly find that most trashes are products. They are disposed just because they looks not new anymore.” [Suermann, 2014] The solution is to make everything “intangible”. In the past, people used huge amount of papers, go to physical place to discuss, and travel to conduct field research in order to get the information. Now these can all be done via computer and internet without any tangible waste. If everything is digital data and if we can deal with everything through computing, we can definitely reduce resources because digital data won’t produce any contamination. However, the device that supports the execution of computing is also a pollution. Therefore, computing without tangible devices, or, at least, decreasing the number if computing devices is important. For example, touchscreen can reduce the production of keyboard and mouse, and 3D Holograms can diminish the use of screen.
Third, establish a complete recycle and reuse system. It is hard to make everything “disappear” in this world. Therefore, we have to design a system that can recycle and reuse the material completely and entirely. The “completely” and “entirely” is to point out the careless recycled system today. For example, aluminum is a material that can 100% be recycled and reused. It remains the same quality even when it has been melted and reproduced many times. However, a lot of times, we throw the aluminum cans into the trash can negligently and produced “unnecessary trash”. The reason why we can’t recycle thoroughly is because the system is not well designed. First of all, it’s not compulsory. A fine system should be established to promote the use of recycle bins. A clear and easy to understand sign should be available so people are not confused on how to use recycle bins. In addition, not many places have complete categories of recycled trashes. Obviously, there’s still room for improvement.
As designers, this is our job to envision the future and to make something out of nothing. This world changes every day. Few years ago, something that is common today had just not yet existed. Who can ensure that we won’t live in the world that everything can be recycled and reused or everything is digital data and doesn’t need to be computed via tangible devices?
Bibliography
– Thackara, John.“Lightness.” In the Bubble: Design in a Complex World, 9-28. MIT Press. 2006.
– Wolf, Martin.“We will watch the rise in greenhouse gases until it is too late to do anything about it.” Financial Times. May 14, 2013.
– Halpern, Orit, Jesse LeCavalier, Nerea Calvillo, and Wolfgang Pietsch.“Test-Bed Urbanism.” 25:2, 2013.
– Suermann, Joerg. “挑戰全球設計 先學會自我行銷.” 商業週刊458期 (Business Weekly), October 22, 2014. Accessed October 23, 2014 <http://www.businessweekly.com.tw/KWebArticle.aspx?ID=56290&path=e>
Image source
Bendell, Jem. “The future of the climate debate”, openDemocracy, October 6, 2014.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/jem-bendell/future-of-climate-debate