Dissasembly and Redesign

Video Reflection 2

An Inconvenient Truth is a powerful video that has changed our society in many ways. This documentary has challenged the way that ordinary people view the world, and has the opened the eyes of many to see that their actions actually have a large impact on the environment around them.

We have reached a point where our human consumption and level of destruction to earth has far exceeded the earth’s ability to replenish and regrow. Our natural planet is no longer able to compensate for our demanding lifestyle. Evidence of this are presented in the documentary with convincing data, measurements and predictions to do with carbon dioxide, pollution and global warming. People have to remember that the earth’s resources are limited, and there is only so much we can take from it without giving anything back.

The documentary talks about global warming and the earth’s environment not as a political responsibility, but as a moral responsibility. I think this is important, as it is individuals themselves that need to implement changes and reduce their own impact or ‘carbon footprint.’ The government cannot do this for us.

As Industrial Designers, our actions have considerably more impact than the average person because our concepts and designs have the potential to be used on much larger scales. It is therefore important for us to design products in a way that does not have a detrimental cost to the environment. This could be done by considering our material choice, the amount of material that is needed, and if there is any way to minimise the amount of material required without compensating the strength or structure of the product. We could think about using recycled material, or using the material in a way that it can be recycled after the product has been consumed or reached the end of its life. Another approach might be to design a product that also encourages others to recycle or be more environmentally aware, and we should also consider the source of energy for products that need to be powered by an external source. Can we use solar energy instead of electricity, or electricity instead of gas?

Designer should constantly be thinking about how can we make our products more environmentally friendly or use cleaner energy. This documentary just solidifies something that we have known for years, but have failed to acknowledge. We have no excuse to ignore it anymore.