The 11th Hour

Task: “Reflect on the catastrophic effects of environmental neglect and abuse. How should industrial designers reshape their activities in order to avoid large-scale ecological problems in the future and to restore the natural balance?”

There’s a shocking truth to all of the facts and figures that The 11^th Hour exposes that no one would like to confront. It’s disgusting to think that we overlook these problems. I agree with the documentary when it suggests that the earth is infected and that we humans are the infection. Natural disasters like hurricanes and floods, “...are not the problem, the problem is the way we are thinking. The problem is fundamentally a cultural problem.” It could be said that were responsible for causing the destruction we see done by these catastrophic disasters through the way we live our lives and overlook the effects done to the environment.

Global warming, climate change and greenhouse effect are terms we are continually confronted with. We face the greatest challenge ahead as we not only have to deal with events to come, but we also have to attempt to repair the damage done by our predecessors. The role of designers today is to restore some balance and look to the future to see what can be done to fix society’s lack of understanding.

There is a lack of respect for the environment and the reality is that most people won’t walk away from watching this documentary and do a complete 360 and begin living their lives eco-friendly. We overlook these things because our priorities don’t always involve the environment. It’s up to the designers to change the way consumers think and use products in an effort to educate them the importance of being more environmentally conscious. “Our planet is seamless,” and perhaps by fitting good design seamlessly into the consumer’s day to day activities and using sustainable manufacturing processes, the waste produced by these products could be minimised and consumer’s would be none the wiser. Or finding ways to prolong the life of products could be beneficial in the future.

I believe that there is much hope in society that the natural balance of things can be restored, however, the truth of the matter is that earth has reached a point where restoring what was sustainable can no longer be achieved. There is great truth that, “We’ve lost the beauty of the world and we make up for it with attempting to conquer the world or own the world, possess the world.” Today, the damage done to earth is irreversible and to an extent in which all the efforts in reducing further damage is only a start to something much larger and can be seen as an unreachable goal. Modern design has changed to adapt towards sustainable design in an effort to reduce waste. But is this all this effort a little too late? Nevertheless there is hope in society; I just think that hope may be futile. We can do what we can now to achieve better results than in the past and hopefully educate people to stop destroying the earth.