A couple of days ago somebody wrote something very wise: http://www.openthefuture.com/2008/04/the_earth_will_be_just_fine_th.html
"The grand myth of environmentalism is that it's all about saving the Earth. It's not. The Earth will be just fine. Environmentalism is all about saving ourselves." What environmentalists are "fighting" for is the survival of the human civilisation, at least an arbitrarily defined part of it. And with regards to educating consumers - assuming that people can make a goal out of "saving the environment" is assuming that the user of a word processor has got a goal of defining styles. People's goals are to live/love/work/play/communicate/whatever, just as the goal of a Joe X. Typist is to make a line of text look bigger, and the easiest way may be to increase the font size rather than finding to applying a "heading" style. People still get along pretty well with sloppy word processing (or coding) practices, partly because we've devised ways to minimise the cost by offloading the work somewhere else - does outsourcing ring a bell? We've managed to do the same in the food chain by the way, see below: http://www.psfk.com/2008/05/local-food-processed-in-china.html Until one of those things drastically backfires, we're going to continue along the same lines. Cheers, Alex On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 6:40 PM, pauric <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I have serious reservations that the proposed 'behavioral shaping' can > result in what is ultimately needed: a better educated consumer. > > Most of the suggested solutions on the linked site: > http://tinyurl.com/5sws5e follow that same thinking. They're either > new features or add-on products continuing the churn in consumer pass > through. It is hard to fault product like the Watson: > http://tinyurl.com/6myoed though I find it ironic the proposed > solution is a device that uses energy to display how much energy you > are using, never mind the oil, copper, heavy metals etc that were > needed to make it. Will it encourage people to switch off items like > they're 42" flat screen? yes.. but does it solve the hard fact that > we're living well beyond a 3 Earth footprint? People will still buy > the more energy efficient 64" HD with bluray etc etc screen when it > becomes cheap enough. > > It irks me when the term 'green' is used to imply a system is somehow > better for the environment. More often than not the term is a > marketing gimmick indicating the new version is, at face value, > slightly less bad than the previous and so if you care about the > environment you should upgrade and dump the old one in the bin. > > Take the example of the Power Saving feature in any operating system. > Its generally thought of as a 'green' option.. resulting in less power > consumption. However, this encourages the user to leave the machine > in standby mode.. consuming more power than is needed. > > You will never see car manufacturers promote the virtues of walking as > a way to reduce how much you have to spend at the pump... how does > that help sell cars? We're conditioned to thinking that by buying a > Prius we're somehow saving the planet. The introduction of hybrid > SUV's on the market in the US is indicative of the magnitude of the > paradigm shift in consumer thinking needed. > > Einstein "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking > we used when we created them.". Lets be realistic here, we cannot > 'design' our way out of this problem. > > Maybe I'm a little too cynical but the linked site seems to propose > how to make the best of a bad job... how to create new products that > are marginally less bad that the previous version... and in some cases > the proposal simply adds to the problem - consumption of resources. > > I would suggest that if a designer truly feels like saving the > environment.. get a job as an educator. > http://tinyurl.com/36oca8 > > The world needs less 'stuff'... not new systems that consume > decreasing resources at a slower rate... that still leaves us in a > zero sum game... albeit a slightly longer one. > > //rant off > > On a slightly lighter note, watch Saving the Planet by George Carlin > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
