Panic Button

Inhale.

Take as much air in as you can.

After you give up television and newspapers, the mornings are the worst part: that first cup of coffee. It’s true, that first hour awake; you want to catch up with the rest of the world. But my new rule is: No radio. No television. Cold turkey.

When the newspaper comes I just recycle it. I do not even take off the rubber band.

You never know when the headline will be: “Third World War broke out!”

Or: “London flooded!”

Where the television used to be, there on the counter, I put an aquarium with the kind of animal inside which does not make waves, suites the wallpaper of the living room and matches the décor. An aquarium which when you turn on the heat lamp, does not tell you that the rainforest is felled, does not mention the increase in nuclear armament, nor the fact that new terrorist attacks are expected or that London’s crime rate has peaked a higher level than ever before.

You get all this anyway by just glancing at a newsstand or getting into a cab with the radio turned on too loud…but if you buy a glass tank filled with water instead of the TV and all you get is a bunch of illuminous guppies.

It is called Cocooning, when your home becomes your whole world.

Prehistoric man used mass panic as a weapon when hunting animals, especially ruminants. Herds reacting to unusually strong sounds or unfamiliar visual effects were directed towards cliffs, where they eventually jumped to their deaths when cornered.

Humans are also vulnerable to panic and it is often considered infectious, in the sense one person's panic may easily spread to other people nearby and soon the entire group acts irrationally.

Maybe, in a society which surrounds us with panic triggers, we all should get aquariums instead of TVs and radios or throw away our newspapers to make this world a better place?

Now you can take a good deep breath.

Because I still have not.

Further reading:

Neil J. Smelser's, Theory of Collective Behavior

art-nat

In reference to Shola’s art-nat, I was interested in the argument of how future technologies can be used in conjunction with natural gases (and I assume sustainable energy’s) to better nature and prolong the climate change epidemic. But I am interested in the necessity for future technologies such as the LG notebook.

I totally agree with Shola when it comes to alternative use of energy’s such as natural gases to coal but are these energy’s being misplaced. In our house at uni we recycle plastic, glass, paper, metal and have a compost in the garden, but there’s still an era of guilt when I hear the 6tonne lorry chug down the street collecting all the renewable materials.



I’m sure the recycling of tonnes of “rubbish” outweighs that of the pollution of the truck but I still can’t help but wonder how much pollution is caused through the collection of our do-gooderness. Some of the collection trucks along with London busses (RV1 to Covent Garden) are now powered by hydrogen fuel cells but not all of them are.

The notebook in Shoal’s blog looks quite tasty and is fuelled well but at what cost? Were the materials recycled such as the laptop Shola mentions after and if so were the materials sourced locally. Do we need more technology to write some notes down. The chalk and slate was abolished when paper was readily available but you could get more use out of a slate compared to that of several pieces of paper. Maybe in an instance like this we should go back and look at more rudimentary technologies such as the etch-o-sketch and save all sorts of materials without needing an energy source to operate them.

I was also intrigued at the statement that climate change also has a risk on the natural which is true don’t get me wrong, but what about the natural having effects on us. We as a species are predators and to fill this gap we have to make sure that there is enough to go around, but did you know that cows contribute more to climate change than cars do!! With a little of our help of course, the deforesting for grazing land, fertilizer being burnt off and of course cow fart, account for 18% of recent greenhouse gases. Stupid I know but if we (humans) were to vanish from the planet and all technology abandoned, C02 levels will still be contributed to at a rate the planet would still have a hard time handling.



We are the ones to blame for the situation we are in and many sacrifices will have to be made to counteract that, but I feel making new technologies such as note books powered with gas isn’t the way to go, I realise this is an example of what can be done with natural energy source’s but maybe we should step back and wonder if we really need some of the technologies we already have.

Reading:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/cows_and_climat_1.php
also check this out, anti recycle!!!: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/07/is_recycling_ut.php

Design Takes On Risk.

In his blog entry titled “Chill Out,” Russ discusses the emergence of a niche that “people are exploiting,” a preparation for “the results…concerning the planet’s predicament.” I assume Russ is also referring to designers in this statement?
After browsing the SAFE website (introduced to us by Jennifer in last week’s lecture), one thing became apparent: designers are increasingly using their work to comment on the world around them and are becoming less concerned with functionality (though, of course, functionality still remains).

Recently, there has been an intense focus on Muslims and Islam in the American and Western media, most of it “characterized by a more highly exaggerated stereotyping.” One of the larger ‘risk societies’ that dominates the headlines is the so-called threat of terrorism. Speculations about the latest conspiracy to blow up buildings, sabotage commercial airliners, and poison water supplies seem to play on Western consciousness; simultaneously, this has opened up a new playground for designers. Tobias Wong (featured in Icon #41), for example, has created a range of products that reference the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including “Box Cutter” and “NY Pocketbook.” He has resorted to this type of work because he is “frustrated that other designers don’t.” In addition to these statement pieces, the SAFE website also sees designs such as a metal headscarf by Galya Rosenfeld.

“Design Against Crime,” a workshop initiated by Central Saint Martins, focuses on the role of the woman’s handbag in crime prevention; fliers such as “Keep Your Bag Safe” (by Sean O’Mara) compliment designs such as the “ZipZip” bag by Georg Hansis and the “Karryfront Screamer” bag by Adam Thorpe. Similar explorations into ‘keep-safe’ handbags have also been explored by Miriam van der Lubbe; her piece “Me and my Beretta” is a leather handbag moulded into the shape of a gun; “we made this because we didn’t feel safe on the street and wanted to express this,” comments van der Lubbe.

Returning to the issue of “the planet’s predicament,” a series of projects have also emerged in response to climate change. Toby and Dave from &Made, for example, undertook this theme for their self-initiated project, “Climatised Objects,” in which “the flagship piece, Either Oar, a solid timber dining table was inspired by recent spates of flash flooding in the UK. In times of need, the deceptive contemporary dining table transforms into a life raft; the legs and partial table tops are removed to offer themselves as oars.”

Perhaps Russ is right in suggesting that such products are unnecessary, but maybe they become necessary as indicators of what is taking place in our world today. In a world where the media has become completely useless at providing a balanced account of global events, it might be quite possible that design fills this space. However, it is not so much the expression of the government (and what they want the masses to believe) that is being projected, but more so the valuable expression of the individual designer’s perceptions.

The immateriality and invisibility of ‘risk societies’ means that all knowledge about it is “mediated and…dependant on interpretation.” The mass media provides a visual presence for the hazards associated with dilemmas such as terrorism, crime and climate change. The inescapability of interpretation makes risks “open to social definition and construction, putting those in a position to define risks – the mass media, scientists, politicians and the legal profession – in key social positions.” Perhaps now is the time to include the profession of “the Designer” into this list?


References and Further Reading:

• Safe: Design Takes On Risk, MoMA.
• Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World by Edward W. Said.
• Icon Magazine, #41.
• &Made, Toby and Dave.
• The Risk Society and Beyond: Critical Issues for Social Theory edited by Barbara Adam, Ulrich Beck and Joost van Loon.

No Exit

“Another day, another climate-change story. All of this leads to a deaf audience.” [1]

Andy, MI, USA

It might seem astonishing that in times of global warming and environmental catastrophes somebody like Andy from Michigan, USA can still allege an opinion like this. So what is it that bores us when it comes to environmental issues? Is it the fact that we are not (yet) directly affected? Is it because we do not realise that the world we live in, faces fundamental changes?

The problem of global warming is that it is not an individual problem; it is a problem that is communal.

But presuming there would be no ‘exit of an inconvenient truth’ is fundamentally wrong. Our daily life embodies various ways of exiting situations we don’t want to face up to. Lame excuses for example. Ignorance. Idleness. Economic interests.

Maybe the worst of all exits one can take from the inconvenient truth of global warming is the disrespect towards things which are not human-made. Set the case; If I went to Vatican City and smashed the precious Pietà sculpted by Michelangelo Buonarroti I would probably not get free from jail ever again. Imagine I would go to Mecca and destroy the Kaaba - the chances of surviving this would equal zero. The same would apply if I broke off a stone from the Western Wall in Jerusalem…

However, nobody would care if I went into the rainforest and chopped down a thousand year old tree. The problem with us is that we treasure only what is made by humans. Our disrespect towards nature is rooted in the fact that we take it for granted. Rather than appreciating it we sell it for profit. Rather than seeing it as something special and unique, we see it as a resource we can exploit and waste.

But to stick to the truth: By changing the earth’s climate, by extinguishing various kinds of animals, by polluting the air and by wasting water, we do not essentially harm our planet. The planet earth will still rotate around the sun. The only thing that will change are the conditions for life. Nature might not be concerned with the fact that for the next three million years only bacteria might survive on our planet.

Primarily, we just wipe out ourselves (and animals and plants depending on similar living standards).

Thomas Hobbes once wrote: lupus est homo homini. Maybe he was never more right.

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6321351.stm

Chill out...

Designing a Panic button

Right, we’ve clearly entered this planet at an awkward time.

It’s the time where anybody can have access to anything to better their lives, it is also the time when people have to start changing their behaviours to better the future.

But there is a niche where people are exploiting, creating or maybe just preparing for the results of what we are all hearing about concerning the planets predicament.

Due to years of wrecking the planet with fumes and what not (although we all complain, its made your life more comfortable!) we are now being told that the world is going to be flooded, burnt by the sun, terrorised as well as other natural disasters. Well holy shit! Lets all abandon ship and grab a life jacket.

This whole panic button idea is stupid, fair enough, if you live on a fault line, its good to prepare for earthquakes. But I doubt creating some emergency bunker is going to help in the event of a nuclear attack; if you don’t die from the blast the radiation will get you. 2, what makes you think other people will be looking for you, I’m sure they will be wanting to look after themselves. 3, your going to be stuck in a bloody hole with the same 3 people for the rest of your remaining days, no one needs that!!

The same “just in case” scenario can be said for climate change flooding the planet. There have been products by designers such as N55 who built the Snail Shell System. A portable home that you can roll around suitable for one person. This product may not be aimed directly at emergency survival but its products like these that make people say “shit, we better get one just in case”.



Also, these people that have prepared for major catastrophes have done them selves a mischief from the offset, if you know someone with a boat and you heard the worlds going to flood, what do you do? You go up to that person with the boat and a couple of beers and try get on it with them and so does everyone else because there panicking, rendering the boat useless.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all up for sustainable energy and living on this “beautiful” planet for as long as possible, but if people spent as much time averting these catastrophes as they do anticipating and preparing for them maybe we might get some where.

One more thing, maybe if there wasn’t so many Panic buttons such as warning signs, life jackets and rubber corners, people will be more chilled out resulting in a friendlier planet, then we can all concentrate about getting it back to how it should be… clean.

Artifical Natural

Evergreen City

Until very recently, I lived and worked in the London Bridge area. During work I would always take my lunch to eat between the new buildings near City Hall. It was hard to find comfortable, private, peace and quiet anywhere else in an area so purposely conceived, as it will not afford comfort where it did not plan for you to rest. For example the area is less than sparsely fitted with benches.

There are half a dozen or less infant trees planted between two building faces that cause an alleyway down onto the river front. They cry from the brickwork as if infiltrating weakened pores in an otherwise tightly woven fabric. Captured, restrained and ultimately 'unnatural'. This display is one of attempt, rather than execution in 'incorporated' design. Also among these infants is another tree. Much larger and dominate over its siblings; David Batchelor's Evergreen installation is nothing more than two shrub shaped green light boxes interlocked atop a stainless steel trunk. Its an abstract but an accessible form. Its singular colour and unmistakable top heavy construction offers the growth associated with plants. There is perhaps no more widely recognised referent system than nature.


I like Evergreen, or 'The Tree' as it is otherwise known (it had become a community focal point). It may have just been a somewhere among anywhere to sit and eat but I was consciously drawn into its form. I assigned a positive association to its collective shapes and colour.

As the real trees stagger aside, Evergreen appears a symbol of perfection. A reduced minimalism of all that is essential in replicating form. The plastics and metals it is built from connote a new evolution and at night it fluoresces a brilliant green as if to defy the natural daily cycle of life. It is captivating in its simplicity and reminds me of Olafur Eliasson's Weather Project at the Tate Modern, where a huge sun crescent, mirrored into a perfect circle in the ceiling was hung in the main hall. People would lie below engrossed in it's glow whilst waving at their reflection. I remember walking down the entrance ramp convinced by its light and warmth. I would assign the same emotions to this installation as I would to the real center of our solar system.

If my emotions react to these signs rather than truths, I am apparently satisfied by the substitute and furthermore, there may appear to be advantages in recreating nature. Although the tree would never flower, seed or grow, the sun would also never set. However, despite my best efforts to imagine these technologies positively, I can't help but picture a neuromantic scene of depression; the post-climate reconstruction of a once sustainable ecosystem.

I fear our grasp of reality has already shifted somewhat. We conceive Disneyland to be fake but at what point does urbanity cross beyond the realms of real? Would we even notice? Baudrillard claims such imaginary worlds conceal the changes in reality, or rather conceal the fact that “the real is no longer real”.[1]

From traffic to television, an ambience of distraction surrounds the city. They say it never sleeps, thus we are already astride the rhythms of the natural world. I would suggest those concerned by our 'new' efforts to manipulate the weather, by means such as cloud seeding (as mentioned by Katy), be consoled in this is not a new thing, so do not worry. We started dictating the weather long before we started to mimic it.



[1]Baudrillard, J. quoted in Birch, T. (1990) The Incarceration of Wilderness, p18.

See also: McLaughlin, A. (1993) Regarding Nature. New York University Press.

Artificial Natural

I want to feast on fish all my life!

I disagree that we (humans) are somehow more important than other animals in the eyes of anything other than ourselves. I would argue, as does James lovelock, that we are of no particular significance.

In his book Gaia, James Lovelock proposes his theory that the planet earth alters its geo-physiological structure over time in order to ensure the continuation of an equilibrium of evolving organic and inorganic matter. The planet is characterized as a unified, holistic entity with ethical worth of which the human race is of no particular significance in the long run.

Transforming conditions on Earth, are also shaped through the alteration of living organisms. Lovelock describes how Algae thriving on severe cooling of the earth many thousands of years ago, multiplied to such an extreme that they formed a layer on the oceans surface, their dark colouring absorbed the suns heat, warming the Earth.

Climate Change is causing accelerated changes to Gaia and reducing diversity. How will ‘Gaia’ respond to a reduction of diversity? Will it narrow its conditions favorable to us, creating extremes the likes of which we are beginning to see today (draughts, flooding, desertification).

I do not think we should respond to Climate Change for any other reason than our own selfish desire. I do not want fish to be abundant for their sake; I want them to be available to satisfy my desire for Sushi. I do not suppose that our actions will have a registered effect on Gaia, but they will on us.

Reading
Gaia, James Lovelock
The Boundaries of Humanity, James J. Sheehan and Morton Sosna

Artificial Natural

When some of my friends talk about global warming, most of the time they talk about how the weather is getting humid and how annoyed they are because the heat waves makes them extremely hot. What many of us forget is the effect the heat and other factors of global warming are having on the animals and plants, that have been on this earth longer than us. The use of technology has risk not only to the human race but also to the natural.

According to scientist it is because of the escalation in use of technology, global warming is now a big problem. From the effect of global warming and in turn climate change, there is a large rise in the number of death of animals. “Climate-induced changes in the ocean have never been more dramatic than in the past three or so decades…sea surface temperatures in this part of the Atlantic Ocean in northwest Africa declined by 1.2 degrees Celsius during the 20th century.” (Roger Highfield, Telegraph). This reminds us of the cycle of life, and how much we need to preserve the natural.

Our constant use of technology to live our everyday lives, suggest we are killing of defenceless life forms. Driving to the shops or leaving the lights on, uses energy. The use of energy causes carbon emissions that are released into the atmosphere which helps form global warming. As people live longer there is an increase in the use of technology and carbon emissions, it is because of this that the natural is suffering. It is our obligation to repay the natural (being plants and animals) by finding a way to protect them from the effects of climate change. I say protect because even if there was a large drop in the amount of carbon emission released into the atmosphere today, there would not be any recognisable change until 100 years has passed. An example is the dying coral in the earths oceans. They do not have that long to wait for the amendment of global warming. Therefore something needs to be done now to reserve the natural that we have left.

We as designers can do this by taking into account the life forms that we may affect because of what we may design. “In an age of mass production when everything must be planned and designed, design has become the most powerful tool with which man shapes his tools and environments (and, by extension, society and himself). This demands high social and moral responsibility from the designer” (Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World)

LG has recently designed a “e-book” (shown below) as in ecological notebook. It uses fuel cell batteries, which work on natural gas, methanol, and other economical kinds of liquefied fuel. This could be extended by creating the laptop from recycled materials. We simply need to remember that it is not only humans that is affected by global warming, but the natural world needs help to survive.

Bibliography:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2007/02/05/ecfish05.xml

http://g3.commongate.com/post/LG_e-Book_Laptop_Concept_Features_Fuel_Battery_and_OLED

Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World

Artificial Natural

( home constructed with 6000,000 lbs of recycled materials
from "future-forward design for the world you inhabit")


(Rana Creek's " these giant metal wall panels deal with integration of greenery into built environments" - inhabitat )

Because of the negative effects mankind has had on the earth everyone must be held responsible for not only his of her past actions but the actions they plan to take. Because of their position in the shaping of our world, designers have an ethical responsibility to preserve and protect nature. It is their plans that plot out the shape of our visual world; they must acknowledge global warming and take responsibility for the changes to come and the problems that can be prevented.


Of course, the rebuttal to this belief is expressed in the common quote that “art (should be) for arts sake”. To this Frank Lloyd Wright replied, “Art for arts sake is a philosophy of the well fed.” Indeed this proves even truer today. With the greater frequency of droughts and fires, the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes doubling in the last 30 years and the spread of Malaria to higher altitudes (in such places as Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet about sea level), the problem cannot be held off any longer (An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore). It has been proven that the raised level of Co2 in the air, causing global warming, is a direct result of artificial and unnatural causes. It is predicted that deaths from global warming will double in 25 years, or, 3000,000 people a year. (““) Wright’s argument implies that art simply for the sake of art cannot stand on its own without a stable economy and environment. The current pressures of global warming and the dramatic changes, which are expected to affect our environment within the next few centuries, should arouse the ethical obligation of designers and artists. Though art for art’s sake may be an freeing “minimalist” philosophy, it won’t be possible if the new building you are designing next to the Thames becomes part of the river itself. Though these environmental changes may not immediately affect artists as much as the threat of poverty (which the Wright quote is aimed at), their hypothesized affects will spare no one.


In her paper Reconfiguring Kinship in Techonscience, Donna Haraway states that “ Most Western narratives of humanism and technology require each other constitutively: how else could man make himself? Man births himself through the realization of his intention in his objects.” (299). Man must realize too, his position in the world around him. Nature has been turned into the unnatural. Though designers have the challenge and responsibility to attempt to achieve aesthetic perfection they also have a responsibly to the future of our world. If Man births himself through the discovery of himself in what he makes, let him save himself through his accountability. After all, designers can help the environment from their choices of materials to the very structures they sculpt. Because of the effects of their artificial creations, designers have an ethical obligation to acknowledge and protect the environment.

sighted sources:
Inhabitat, www.inhabitat.com/sustainablebuildig.php: Future-Forward Design for the World You Inhabit.

The Haraway Reader, Donna Haraway. Routledge New York and London (2004).

An inconvenient Truth, Al Gore.
The Science. Al Gore: http://www.climatecrisis.net/thescience/

Artifical Natural

There are currently six billion tons of carbon dioxide being admitted into the worlds atmosphere so consequently we will soon we will be breathing twice as much CO2 in every breath than our grandparents did, unfortunately it is not only us who will suffer from the consequences of our irresponsible actions but more so our environment and every other creature inhabiting it.

When we hear of illegal poachers killing endangered species for their precious coats or ivory we are disgusted and refuse to wear fur but in relation to the whole ecosystem falling apart this is clearly a minor problem, but for a strange reason we don’t see it this way. It is certain that global warming is happening, yet no one can predict exactly how severe the consequences will be which is probably why it is so easy to push it to the back of our minds and feel little guilt about it. Yet the beginnings of climate destruction are happening, unfortunately the worst hit areas are also the most rich in flora and fauna such as the Andes Mountains. Not only is their habitat being reduced and changed but other effects include migration of non-native species which will end up killing each other off and their natural yearly routines shifting. Perhaps people will become more concerned about this when it affects them, only when there are swarms of locusts migrating to England and eating all our food will people take note. This illustrates that humans on the whole are selfish and predominantly concerned with what is happening before their eyes than something on a mountain in Africa.

You can buy eco-friendly light bulbs and turn your television off at the plug when you go home but its still not enough. But every little helps right? It seems that the situation will get a lot worse than it is now for people to really start caring, this maybe to late to do anything about but that is the risk the majority seem to be taking. It is nice to think that we do care more about our environment but unfortunately there are to many hypocrites and few that really do that much about it.

Artificial Natural

Jason’s comments on over-packaging and the ‘natural wrapper,’ on some foods raises questions about whether we as designers are stepping on nature’s toes, struggling to create artificial solutions to problems nature has already overcome. Whilst packaging does provide designers with a canvas space to make a specific product stand out and give an area for legal packaging information, it rarely has a secondary function and consequently creates vast quantities of waste.

Jonathan’s blog highlights the problems of human ‘waste,’ but whilst humans acted as part of nature, their ‘waste’ became fertiliser or even food for a whole host of other species as part of a complex web of dependency. Problems have started occurring as scientists and designers have failed to consider the entire lifecycle of products, creating things which are entirely unnatural and consequently cannot be broken down and reabsorbed into the eco-system. Nuclear, plastic, and electrical waste will accumulate and scar our planet until an artificial or natural solution evolves. With our conscious determination to create we should adopt a conscious responsibility to deconstruct or re-create after a given objects useful life.


Used electrical wire, Zulu craftsman, Africa

Professor Bob Spicer showed us the devastating effects our waste is having on the atmosphere, and consequently our climate. Yes our climate is cyclical and as Jonathan mentioned, nature is a rapidly changing and constantly evolving force, but we have now accelerated the rate of change to a speed where evolution can no longer keep up. Many species are already feeling the impact of climatic change and as with canaries in coal mines we can observe these more sensitive species in order to evade their fate.

Changes in the migratory behaviour of birds has been noted, with ‘unprecedented numbers of warblers, blackcaps and chiffchaffs,’ choosing to winter in England. ‘With average temperatures predicted to rise steadily over the next century it is possible that in 10 or 20 years the migrating warblers will become established as birds wintering in Britain.’ As Professor Bob Spicer demonstrated with the climate forecasting models, the British climate is not the only area changing; northern Africa and the Sahel countries will become hotter and drier. Cuckoo numbers are already in decline due to this, as it is suffering ‘from drought in northeast Africa where it spends the winter.’ Likewise ‘Other species wintering in this area may also be affected by the lack of water and insects to eat.’

The latest design proposals which tackle the climate crisis seem to worryingly assume that man has tamed nature and now holds the reins. Cloud seeding and creating a giant sulphur screen may well enable us to continue driving our 4x4s, but these ‘5 ways to save the world,’ don’t address the real issue of our excessive carbon production. Neither do they consider the dwindling resources of fossil fuels. The latest bird flu crisis in Suffolk illustrates what can happen when humans twist nature to suit our economic needs, viruses and infections thrive on the cramped conditions supported by industrial farming and similarly monocultures with arable farming.

Whilst I have argued that humans have a lot more to learn from nature and that many design solutions already exist within the natural world, I also have some deep rooted concerns about the way we artificially intervene. Another planet saving idea comes from Professor Jones, who wants to ‘add one of the components of urine - urea - to the areas of the ocean that lack phytoplankton.’ Urea is a nitrogen-rich fertilizer that helps plants grow, exactly the same fertilizer which when it has seeped into river or coastal water sources from sewage causes eutrophication.

Coastal Eutrophication

‘Eutrophication generally promotes excessive plant growth and decay, favors certain weedy species over others, and is likely to cause severe reductions in water quality. In aquatic environments, enhanced growth of choking aquatic vegetation or phytoplankton (that is, an algal bloom) disrupts normal functioning of the ecosystem, causing a variety of problems.’ But Professor Jones thinks it will turn these areas into a lush "forest", eventually reversing the effects of global warming. The consequences are another scientist’s problem.


The Times: March 25, 2006 ‘Traditional herald of spring is in danger of falling silent,’
The Times: November 18, 2006 ‘Lazy birds give African winter the cold shoulder,’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/6354759.stm
http://hsc.csu.edu.au/earth_environmental/core/caring/9_4_4/944net.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutrophication
http://www.re-f-use.com/view_product.php?id=50025&action=previous
http://www.ozestuaries.org/indicators/Images/swan_algae.jpg

NO EXIT (for some)

The planet as some would have us believe is at breaking point. This growing fixation towards highlighting the crisis, which “will” unfold, leads us to believe that it is a case of change or be changed. That this perhaps is our penance for a century of revolutionary progression and decadence. Various civilisations have been at breaking point throughout history, always at the edge of progression or demise, and now we are no different. Although this time the scale is not national but global. Or is it?

Governments talk of global initiatives and treaties at hyped up summits in which pens are waved and ego’s feathered. But what change is there? And what is the incentive? Does it stem from a deep belief in doing what is right, a moral stirring centred within concepts of justice and morality, or in the preservation of self? The decision is not moral, it is rational; whether it is ethical is neither here nor there. The choice is made out of wants and perhaps needs. Concepts of ethics and immorality are banded about but they are afterthoughts, labels in current trends of thinking, dictated by cultural perceptions.



A supposed step up from national to global politics embodies ideals of a community, a community that spans the globe and seeks to inhabit it indefinitely. But from where did this concept of unity spring? Countries in power will preserve resources all over the globe in the name of ethics but come the time when flooding makes refugees of millions they will discard them and make safe what resource is left in whatever country is ripe for ethical protection in the name of national interest under the guise of global interest.

Concerning environmental policies it is interesting to observe that the global scale of the matter is in fact only a discursive method of power and self national interest to infuse the “choice” of the individual to be self controlling. The very fact that the individual has been informed to have the choice to not use the plastic bag is a form of self-control, which is to establish the safeness of the nation state under the discursive “interest” of the global environment.

Whilst it could be said that the global community has been driven to its limit and that it is in a state of no exit, in reality it is but the concept of the global community which is in a state of no exit. There never was or is a global community, its supposed members soon welcoming a revert back into an open nationalistic thinking.

Bibliography:

M. Foucault (1980) Power/Knowledge

D. Harvey (2004) Neo-Liberalism and the Restoration of Class Power, Program in Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center

Artificial Natural

Nature is an important part of our world, but only when convenient.

As a society, it seems we tend to look out for ourselves first and consider others, especially concerning nature and animals, later. Rats are often used for testing new products and chemicals without knowing what could happen to them. Most would see this as acceptable because the outcome of what may happen is unknown. They are only rats. It is considered unethical to test the product on a human without knowing what could happen. Most would argue that the product is better tested on a rat than on a human.

An essay that appeared in New Internationalist Magazine in 1996 discusses Carolyn Merchant’s book The Death of Nature. Merchant’s book presents an argument that the Scientific Revolution of 1500-1700 resulted in a major change in the perception of the earth and science and of the role of women in society.

The article goes on to state, “If people believe the Earth to be a living organism, a nurturing mother, then they will not want to mine into her entrails or cut down her forests. If, however, the planet is a lifeless machine, then it becomes acceptable to reshape it in the pursuit of profit.” We tend to look at the Earth and nature as a living organism only when it does not
interfere with us as humans.

The current outbreak of Bird Flu is an example of how humans put themselves before nature. Due to a current outbreak at a poultry farm in Norfolk, the farm may be forced to lay off nearly 500 workers. This is the typical news surrounding the bird flu: people being laid off, people that have gotten the disease from infected poultry, and the when and what will happen should the virus cross into a human bearing form. Typically, little is said about the tragedy or the devastation of the birds that have obtained the disease.

This is not an argument that birds dieing from bird flu should be headline news over hundreds of people losing their jobs from bird flu. It’s an example of how we put ourselves above nature when in a tough situation. We tend to think of nature and the Earth as living things only when convenient and the place of humans is stable.

The Guardian
New Internationalist, Sept 1996

Mother Earth can I have ... everything?

We tend to think of our earth and nature in terms of it being a female. Mother earth, mother nature and seemingly that would imply a sort of respect towards it, but just as we have a relationship with our own human mothers which tends to be a surface of respect and love we often find ourselves going behind her back to accomplish things she would not approve of. In my adolescence it was smoking and in that of industrious society it is plundering resources, both actions have consequences which at the time she but not we are aware of, or if we are choose to ignore. The mother earth label was already around in the 15 to 16 hundreds when women had little or no power in society. Modern science was being pioneered by Francis Bacon who did nothing to dispel this notion and in fact actively transferred it onto the earth. ‘Sensitive to the same social transformations that had already begun to reduce women to psychic and reproductive resources, Bacon developed the power of language as political instrument in reducing female nature to a resource for economic production.[1] Yes she is large, yes she is great and yes she is finite, the last being something we find it hard to come to terms with. When we are children it is inconceivable to imagine that your parents could ever not be there anymore, the same attitude would posses Bacon in the infancy of modern science. Now we have advanced in our thinking like when we grow up and we begin to realize that actually they are in fact destructible. The life casting ‘Dead Dad’ by Ron Mueck especially when displayed next to ‘Mask’ gives us that sense of awe in life and mortality in death that we are beginning to see in mother earth. I would say that now as a society we are ending our troublesome teens where we rebelled against our parents and are nearing the dawning of our adulthood when we are being forced into a world of consequence where we must take charge of our lives. As teens we seek independence, sometimes rejecting our families, the parallel in seen in how, ‘Modern societies tend to overlook the fact that humans too, are part of nature.[2] Through science and invention we have removed ourselves from nature so much so that we find it hard to even see how we need it in the first place. This attitude is being challenged now as Global Warming is threatening us and so society is moving into a time where we are conscious of the consequences of our actions. Our relationship with mother earth is shifting from expectation of her providing for us into that wonderful stage of friendship and understanding between parent and child where we recognize that she too has needs and it is our job to help her as she helped us before.

[1] The Death of Nature
[2] Contesting Earths Future



Bibliography:

Merchant. C (1980) ‘The death of nature: women, ecology and the scientific revolution,’ Wildwood House Ltd, London.

Zimmerman, M, E (1994) ‘Contesting Earth’s future,’ University of California Press Ltd, California, USA

Papanek. V ((1995) ‘The Green Imperative,’ Thames and Hudson, London.

Wann. D (1996) ‘Deep Design: pathways to a livable future,’ Island Press, Washington, USA.