Futures

Though not all designers have the opportunity to aid poverty, any designers can respond to the even larger scope of anticipated changes to humanity, that of global warming. The job of a designer is to design for the future; in order to create a successful design, the designer must accurately anticipate the consequences global warming. If a designer ignores these climate changes the sustainability of their work will be affected. For example, the Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth, estimates that “global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide” (Davis Guggenheim, 2006). If a designer is not aware of the water levels rising, and he or she designs a building for a costal area, he or she risks wasting millions of dollars and polluting the sea. Though this designer may be designing for a future, it is not the right one. Thus it is the designer’s responsibility to be informed on the anticipated changes to the environment.
the melting polar ice caps will be destroy the
natural habitats of almost all the Artic species.

Predicting the disputed climate changes may seem easer said than done, but not responding at all can lead to catastrophic results. Michel Serres states in The Natural Contract that the ”past, however distant, never knew such experiences. Because of our action, the composition of the air, and thus its physical and chemical properties is changing” (4). Others have used this claim to support their inaction with the belief that the climate is constantly experiencing these irregularities. However, it cannot be denied that our actions are the cause of these changes and that we must be held responsible. For it is because of our actions that the state of humanity and the world as we know it is at stake. Serres quotes “If we judge our actions innocent and we win, we win nothing, history goes on as before, but if we lose, we lose everything” (5) Here Serres means that if we don’t act we could forfeit the world, if we do act and it turns out that nothing changes we don’t lose anything. For a designer, every new challenge is an opportunity. Accurately anticipating the future may be impossible but the opportunity is a positive one and stakes are too high not to try.


Who could have guessed? Who guessed and did not act?


If the designers are aiming towards an environmentally friendly future, the question is, what chance do they have at truly altering the future of the climate? I have shown earlier that they must be aware of climate changes for the sake of their individual designs but what degree can they use their designs to help change the world? Harvey Moloch answers the question by explaining that “Design determines about 80-90 percent of an artifact’s life-cycle economic and ecological cost, in an almost irreversible way—raw materials will be used, gasses emitted, who will get hurt, how much will get to the landfill” (245-246). Because global warming is caused from a buildup of carbon dioxide, the designers, whose creations determine the admittance of gas can alter, on a large scale, the amount of carbon dioxide. “The concentration of carbon dioxide has been growing in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution, a byproduct of the fossil fuels: the propagation of toxic substances and acidifying products is increasing…” (Serres 4). Designers can control the uses of these toxic substances and aciditying products by changing what their products are made of and how they are made. The simple alteration of materials comprising a cell phone for instance could have a huge impact on the environment.
By: Katie Brunero

An Inconvenient Truth, The Science. http://www.climatecrisis.net/thescience/. Al Gore.
March, 12, 2007.
Moloch, Harvey. Where Stuff Comes From: How Toasters, Toilets, Cars, Computers and Many Other Things Come to Be as They Are. New York: Rotlede, 2003.
Serres, Michel. The Natural Contract. The University of Michigan Press, 1995.