JOHN THORPE
SUSTAINABILITY OFF-GRID
Sustainability John provided an insightful talk about what it means to live ‘off-grid’. Throughout the presentation he raised questions about what off-grid might mean to different people. Is this going camping and charging up batteries before you go? Is this relying entirely on the environment around you, be it solar, water or wind? Is this being entirely self-sufficient down to the products you use, can you use products that have been made on the grid? It made me think a lot more about context and how different people consider life off-grid. John touched on considering the supply chain in products. An image of a car that had been taken apart was used to make this point, highlighting hundreds of individual parts all made from different materials and all coming from different places. How are these individual parts made and how are they transported? How are the machines used to make the parts and the trucks used to transport them made? Where did these parts come from to make these? etc. I just found this point interesting when you consider how common cars are. The scale gets worse when you consider an even more common product, a mobile phone. Where does it end? How far do you have to go to go entirely off-grid? Is reliance on the system to create the products that you use on grid. Is it even possible?
John’s views on being very anti plastic are very clear. They should not be used unless absolutely necessary, and I would say I definitely agree. The disastrous affects they have on the planet are undisputable. We have become stuck in a society where everything must be done in the cheapest and easiest way resulting in mass produced plastic products and packaging. John raised the point that almost every item you see in a shop is packaged in plastic. Does this need to be? The answer is obviously no but it has its benefits. But at what cost? When you start to think about the sheer amount of waste generated from this alone it feels very daunting. As someone who works in a supermarket, I see how much of this plastic makes its way onto the shelves. I also see the amount of plastic waste that it gets delivered to us in that we must remove. I imagine it’s likely an endless cycle of this working up through the supply chain. To consider that’s one store out of hundreds of that specific company and that’s one company out of hundreds in this country and that’s one country out of the whole world it just all becomes a bit much. I feel like I have a very pessimistic view on this. What can we do about this problem when corporations and government are the ones who decide the rules?
Going forward with my degree and hopefully career in product design I feel inclined to consider the use of plastics more carefully. Plastic is undeniably a useful and diverse material. With advancements in technology maybe it doesn’t always have to be so terrible. It’s a material that should be kept for essential purposes such as medical applications or products that are designed to help people rather than just another thing to make someone money. The sad reality is the material is here to stay and we are powerless, destined to use it if we go down this career path. The best we can do is try to use it in a more sustainable way.
D&T RESEARCH
This sustainability topic leads quite well into the entire reason for my topic of choice. Air travel. I love travelling and visiting different places. Inevitably this means I end up taking a few flights each year. I always feel a bit guilty about doing this as I know how harmful it is to the environment. There is really no other alternative that is as efficient and now that we’ve got it, I don’t see a world where we are able to take it away from people. In such a connected world, it’s inevitable air travel is here to stay. I want to investigate the true damage this is causing the environment to give a quick summary on why we need to think about making a drastic change.
I think this issue is best summarised by this link here which is really worth a look:
https://ourworldindata.org/global-aviation-emissions#:~:text=Well%2C%20if%20demand%20has%20quadrupled,that%20was%20around%201%20billion.
This article features an interactable set of graphs that show different statistics relating to aviation over the years from the 1990-2021. It really shows the terrifying scale at how this industry has increased. It is almost out of control.
Unfortunately CO2 isn’t even the entire story. This illustration that I found illustrates the range of issues that aviation creates. While CO2 emissions are the main problem there are also more harmful by-products in the contrails such as soot, nitrous gases, sulphate as well as other particles.
Another problem that almost seems surprising to me is the water vapours in the contrails. Exhaust from the engines is made up of around 30% water vapour that freezes creating contrails. In summary these contrails linger and trap infrared rays that actually produces a warming effect that is three times that of CO2.
In summary, no matter how many graphs and stats you look at it is clear to see we need change, and we need it fast. I could bore you with a million facts and figures, but they all point to the same issues time and time again and I feel my research is better focused on the solutions that are forward looking.
USEFUL LINKS
ARTICLE SUMMARISING THE RANGE OF ISSUES AIR TRAVEL CAUSES
https://www.transportenvironment.org/challenges/planes/airplane-pollution/
ARTICLE DETAILING THE OTHER ISSUES OUTWITH CO2
https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-the-growth-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-commercial-aviation