The 11th Hour

Today was my first day back at university after the Christmas holidays. We’ve not yet been given the brief to our next project but we’ve been told that it will be on the subject of sustainable living. 

As an introduction to this environmental project we watched the film, ‘The 11^th Hour’ which was written, produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio. I was quite surprised to see him in this film and didn’t realise he encourages and lives a “green” lifestyle. He is an active environmentalist, his condo in New York is LEED gold rated and he drives a hybrid prius (not a fuel guzzling range rover like many other celebrities).

‘The 11^th Hour’ was one of the scarier films I have seen about the environment. It may have been what was said or just that it was said more strongly than I had heard before. I don’t think I realised how fast we need to make a change in the way we live. If the harm we are all causing to our planet continues the way it is the world won’t be able to cope anymore, we may be gone sooner than most people think. I think people need to be made more aware of what is happening and what it is we need to do to help, we could begin this by informing children in schools. I believe we could make these changes and make a difference but I don’t think this will work if not everyone is involved.  In the film Bruce Mau compared people to pixels in a mosaic, showing that if each individual contributes we can build an image of a sustainable future, together we can change the bigger picture.

As designers we should be thinking of ways to make it easier for people to live a more sustainable life, designing things that people want and making them far less harmful to the environment or thinking up new ways to produce energy.  (A design I noticed in the film which I found quite clever was a dance floor in a dance club which produces the energy for the club the more people dance on it.)

I’m still a young designer that doesn’t know a great deal about the problems we are facing but I’m hoping this next project along with the information and awareness I’m gaining at uni will help me contribute what I can, now and in the future...