Imagine designing a whole new world...

In one of the most thought-provoking and engaging speeches at Design Indaba last week, Friday, 23 February 2007, futurist, writer and design activist Alex Steffan urged reflection on our immediate futures.

“I’m here today to speak to you about something important to all of us: The Future. We have inherited a broken future. And the worst thing is… it’s already here.”

Global climate change affects our daily lives, Steffan said in a sobering presentation. In our lifetimes we will see the demise of polar bears, the melting of the polar caps, and the Alps denuded of snow, as humans push nature past its limits in many other ways. Quoting from the WWF Living Planet report, Steffan said it was estimated that since the 1970s, the human race has destroyed one-third of all terrestrial ecosystems on our planet. Humanity’s ecological footprint is now 25% greater every year – we’re in overload…

A Baywatch world

There are billions living in poverty, which they will not accept any longer, knowing the affluence that exists elsewhere in the world. Steffan explains: “This is the generation that has grown up with Baywatch, which disturbs me, but apparently it is the most watched TV programme on the planet! There is no village on this planet that doesn’t have some idea, as a result, of first world affluence.”

Unfortunately, human need and environmental decline feed each other. In Rwanda, the recent genocide was worse where food was the scarcest, Steffan points out.

Steffan has a dire warning for the rest of us: “We will all be involved in a growing number of conflicts over resources and energy if we continue down the path we are on… the consequences are not only predictable, they are predicted, a catastrophic collision of reality… ‘a global Somalia’.

“When you put it all together, you know we are headed for a future that is unthinkable and when you put the evidence on the table, it is clear that the debate is over. The question is what are we doing about it?”

The redesign has just begun

Steffan says it is time for us to deliver passionate, inspired, bighearted solutions to the problems. We need a new perspective and we have to think differently about things going forward as the world in which we grew up in no longer exists.

We need to demand a future that is not only impractical, but almost impossible, Steffan entreats:

• Imagine and design new models of one planet prosperity.
  
• Include every person everywhere.
  
• Spread the tools to share design and innovation everywhere.
  
• Rebuild our entire material civilisation in the next three decades.

Steffan, involved in a world-changing movement (www.worldchanging.com), shares some of the solutions to these dire problems:

1. Know your back story and share with your friends: We need to get used to thinking about the stories of objects – where did they come from, who made them, what’s in them, what materials were used, is it biodegradable? “All of us want to live good lives and be affluent without the guilt, but it requires us to show the ‘back story’ of the stuff in our lives. That it’s not a horrible story. Because some of those stories are truly horrible, ie, like six year olds who are sewing your shirts.” Knowing and showing the back story of your food can be pleasurable. Local eating is a big thing and important and helpful..

2. Bodies: understanding the chemistry around us. There are things in our bodies we don’t want there, like fire retardants etc, so knowing what is toxic and what isn’t, is important. Imagine everything you buy coming with a nutritional label, a label that answers questions on where it came from and how it was made? The most culturally influential people in the word are connected and wired together. We share things we like and we talk about things that outrage us. The speed with which info can be shared is melting walls.

3. Transparency is the battle cry of the new century: if you try keep people in the dark, they will find a way to sunlight you. This matters because it points to a larger trend. It is almost impossible for anyone to keep a secret these days. Truths will be outed. To everyone irresponsible with our trust - the future will eventually find you out!

4. Learning to mobilise citizens to be activists: teach people to live in a more responsible way as it is unprecedented the way in which the public can expose and punish those who do wrong.

5. Huge challenge for design: “If we get innovative enough, we have the capacity to design a life that is beautiful and sustainable. But, if we are going to change deeply enough and quickly enough, we need to be extraordinarily creative to get there and give people what they really want. We need to figure out a way to dematerialise all the extraneous stuff that stands between us and the experiences we want.”
   

How you build things really matters, says Steffan. “Designing things better is getting much easier. Imagine we got on the ball and redesigned everything around us to include no toxins and to be recyclable. Essentially we have to redo the whole planet…”

Change the world innovations

Steffan highlighted various social innovations that have made a difference to our world:

• Car sharing is taking off in some American cities, accessed via cell and swipe cards. People who share cars are more efficient drivers and get rid of their own cards, thereby saving fuel and emissions. There are tool sharing schemes too.
  
• The UK Government found that putting electricity meters inside houses resulted in energy saving.
  
• There is a genetically engineered landmine flower – where the flower turns from white to red in the presence of the nitrogen exuded by landmines.
  
• Pot on pot refrigerator (outside pot filled with sand while internal pot keeps perishables cooler for longer).
  
• Using wet cloths to pull water out of mists, ie, a discovery made in Namibia.
  
• The life straw which filters dirty water when people in rural areas don’t have fresh sources of water.
  
• The merry-go-round water pump being used in rural areas with children at play as the inexhaustible source of energy!
  
• The SA water drum roll project, which made a water drum with a hole like a donut in the middle, allowing a rope to be passed through so that people living far from water could transport their water easier by pulling the drum along.

“The models we are creating will be replicated. A bright green future can be enjoyed by all. We are unleashing the creativity of people who we have to often assumed to be helpless – let’s think of them as partners.

“We should be thinking of how to build a society that is unimaginable, that is bright, green and fair. But we can only build that society if we can imagine, and by moving towards it,” Steffan urges.