IF PRODUCTS �COULD SPEAK

TOWARDS A MODEL OF SUSTAINABLE DESIGN

JEN VAN DER MEER

NYU ITP

WEEK 3: FEBRUARY 9, 2009

RECALLED 2_7_2009

RECALLED 2_8_2009

TITANBOAs COULD ROAM THE EARTH (AGAIN)!

2_5_2009 CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY IMPROVEMENT ACT

BACK ON AGAIN

2_4_2009 MARKEY(D) PLATTS (R) BILL: 25% RENEWABLES BY 2025

2_6_2009 BRUCE STERLING LAUNCHES

IMAGINARY GADGETS PROJECT

Antikythera Device

TODAY’S FOCUS:

THE ROLE OF NGOs & ACTIVISTS IN BRINGING ABOUT A POSITIVE GREENER (OR BLUER) FUTURE

_Semantics _Brief history of US environmental movement _Silent spring _Deep ecology _Inverted quarantine

REFRESHER:

WEEK 1: Creators of products and services have a responsibility to know what’s in the stuff that we make.

REFRESHER:

WEEK 2: The greatest environmental impact, in terms of product life cycle, is often in the hands of the end consumer – use and disposal of products and services. To improve environmental impact, give consumers the tools to be better owners/operators of their stuff.

Create Spimes.

SEMANTICS

Blue is the new green.

Working definition of green/sustainable business:

Creating products and services that have a positive social and environmental impact.

Or, create products and services that do no harm.

Or, create products and services that know where they came from, and know where they’re going.

Or…..

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

USDA Mascot Woodsy Owl, September 1971.

1845: THOREAU WALDEN; OR LIFE IN THE WOODS

1864: YOSEMITE

1886: AUDUBON SOCIETY

1892: SIERRA CLUB – JOHN MUIR

1910: LAKEVIEW GUSHER SAN JOAQUIN, CA

1916: NAT’L PARK SERVICE

1948: DONORA, PA ZINC

1962: SILENT SPRING RACHEL CARSON

SILENT SPRING

These sprays, dusts, and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes — nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the “good” and the “bad,” to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in soil — all this though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects. Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called “insecticides,” but “biocides.”

Rachel Carson

SILENT SPRING

There is still very limited awareness of the nature of the threat. This is an era of specialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware of or intolerant of the larger frame into which it fits. It is also an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged. When the public protests, confronted with some obvious evidence of damaging results of pesticide applications, it is fed little tranquilizing pills of half truth. We urgently need an end to these false assurances, to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts. It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks that the insect controllers calculate. The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts. In the words of Jean Rostand, “The obligation to endure gives us the right to know.”

CARSON’S LEGACY

Environmental Defense Fund (1967)

EPA (1970)

Clean Air Act (1970)

DDT Ban (1972)

Deep Ecology (1972) Arne Naess.

DEEP ECOLOGY

Naess saw two different forms of environmentalism:

Long-range deep ecology movement: deep questioning, down to fundamental root causes. Involves redesigning our whole systems based on values and methods that truly preserve the ecological and cultural diversity of natural systems. Without changes in basic values and practices, we will destroy the diversity and beauty of the world, and its ability to support diverse human cultures.

Shallow ecology movement: stops before the ultimate level of fundamental change, often promoting technological fixes (e.g. recycling, increased automotive efficiency, export-driven monocultural organic agriculture) based on the same consumption-oriented values and methods of the industrial economy.

1969: CUYAHOGA RIVER ON FIRE

1970: EARTH DAY

1970: NRDC FOUNDED

1971: GREENPEACE FOUNDED CANADA

1978: LOVE CANAL

1979: THREE MILE ISLAND

1981: PETA FOUNDED

1984: BHOPAL UNION CARBIDE

1985: VIENNA CONVENTION: OZONE

1986: CHERNOBYL

1989: EXXON VALDEZ

1992: EARTH SUMMIT RIO

1996: KATHIE LEE SWEATSHOP SCANDAL

1997: NIKE SWEATSHOP SCANDAL

2005: KATRINA

2006: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

“REGULATION WILL SAVE US”

The environmental debate by NGOs had been framed as an issue that could only be dealt with through regulation, and public embarrassment of industry.

NGOs USE CAMPAIGNS TO GET RESULTS Not unlike a brand going through a process of advertising, NGOs pick specific issues to focus on, and they develop campaigns to get volunteers, the media, and constituents to become aware.

The history of the environmental movement, the early years, relied on regulation as an end result. Business could not be trusted.

Today, the changing of a business practice is often the aim.

APPLES AND ALAR

DOLPHIN SAFE TUNA

YES MEN

GREEN MY APPLE

THE DEATH OF ENVIRONMENTALISM Today's environmental leaders are addressing tomorrow's problems with yesterday's tools: regulatory and policy fixes.

And because serious global problems like climate change and the looming water crisis have been narrowly defined as "environmental," their equally narrow solutions are easy to marginalize and dismiss by conservatives, cynics, and other nonbelievers.

Environmental leaders need to "take a collective step back to rethink everything." Specifically: how to reframe issues and build coalitions around big ideas and values, not specific programs, much as the conservative movement has done over the past 40 years.

_2004. Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus.

HOMEWORK The “green” consumer. What did you find out?

SHOPPING OUR WAY TO SAFETY Environmentalism strives to fire citizens up, get them to act collectively, politically; to organize and force real change.

Environmental awareness does push many people toward activism, for sure, but we now see that environmental awareness can also lead to this other response, in which people act not as political subjects, not as citizens, but as consumers who seem interested only in individual acts of self-protection, in trying to keep contaminants out of their bodies.

_Andrew Szasz

INVERTED QUARANTINE Traditional quarantine — diseased individual/healthy community.

Inverted quarantine —diseased conditions/healthy individuals.

The environment is toxic, illness inducing. Danger is everywhere. How are healthy individuals to protect themselves? They can do so only by isolating themselves from their disease-inducing surroundings, by erecting some sort of barrier or enclosure and withdrawing behind it or inside it.

Inverted-quarantine products do not work nearly well enough to actually protect those who put their faith in them. But consumers believe they work. That belief, in turn, tends to decrease our collective will to truly confront serious environmental issues.

POLITICAL ANESTHESIA Feeling that one has successfully insulated oneself from an environmental threat, one feels no pain, no fear, no anxiety (maybe I should have called it "political anxiety relief"). It follows that one feels less urgency to do something about that particular threat.

SO THEN>>> Just as consumption and production were separated for the first era of the industrial revolution, so were consumption and political action.

Good green/blue design will incorporate the political into the process of consumption, and reveal the commercial in the realm of the political.

Because everything is connected.

EXAMPLES OF DESIGN FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION

NOKIA ECO SENSOR

SCORECARD.ORG

MAPECOS.ORG

EXPLOREOURPLA.NET/EXPLORER

DIGITALICSLATINO.ORG

NEXT CLASS:

Readings: The Okala Guide. Module 6: Meeting Stakeholder Needs, pp. 26-27.

Shopping Our Way to Safety. Part III: Consequences of Inverted Quarantine. Chapters 6, 7, and Conclusion, pp. 169-238.

Assignment due next class: Review an existing NGO or activist campaign that used tech-enabled community organizing to discuss in the next class.