Part I: Let's talk about the Future

Do the stories you tell yourself contribute to optimism or pessimism?

·      Pessimism. I didn’t think there was much I could do, as one person. Before this class I didn’t think much about the environment and what I could be doing to harm it. My family does recycling: glass, paper, plastic, but I never really thought to much about what else I could be contributing to our planet. My thoughts when first coming in to this was that people seem to make a big deal out of nothing. I kept telling myself these are just a bunch of tree hungering vegans who just need something to do. Honesty, that harsh. But I now think I’m the one that needs to be doing something. People like me are the one that need to be doing the most work because we are the ones that are causing the most harm. There is good news though, according to Tom Lombardo, author of Thinking Ahead: The Value of Future consciousness, our behavior toward the future can be altered through “relearning, education, and training.”

What might you need to change to enable you to envision a sustainable future?

·      I would need to change the way I view my home: Earth. I need to really look at all the things I do, on a daily basis, and see how much pollution I’m causing, how much waste I’m creating, and how much energy I’m using. I would really need to change my attitude also, because if everyone has the view that our world really isn’t at risk of overconsumption, depleted resources, and increasing waste then there is no overcoming these issues. According to Lombardo, psychotherapy focuses on helping people become open-minded about the future and positively increases their thoughts on the future.

What are the key tenets or characteristics that define your vision?

·      Much less consumption of water

·      Reuse, Up-cycle, or Recycle of products

·      Community involvement

·      Responsible product consumption

What are the mental modes (or beliefs) which will be required to create that future?

·      We don’t use that much water è water is sacred and we have to make it last

·      Recycling and up-cycling take too much effort è Recycling is worth it. I may not have time to up-cycle but I can donate my things to someone who has the time.

·      Why should I be involved when no one else is è My time here on earth is meant for so much more, I need to give back.

·      I don’t use that much è I use what I need only when I need it.

What would one have to believe to bring about your vision?

·      That on Earth we have a purpose. We are not here to take up space. The Lord wants us to give more than we receive, or take. We have to start believing that our time here is valuable and we must not waste it.

What are some habitual beliefs (the stories we tell ourselves) which may present barriers to your vision?

·      We tell ourselves that we are just one person on a planet with millions, what good can one person do? According to Kim and Oki, authors of Visioneering: an essential framework in sustainability science, as visioneers we are responsible for leading people to a sustainable future by seeing a better future (visoneering) and also living one. We need to give up thinking that we are one person in a sea of many. We live in a society that likes to follow, meaning when we follow one thing others join and together we are a big sea. We follow trends in fashion, food, entertainment, and we are willing to follow what others follow. It’s a confusing circle of followers, but as followers we will follow pretty much anything that benefits us. We need to teach, educate, and train consumers about the effects our actions are having on our planet and hope in turn they will follow us down the long road of sustainability.

How might you communicate and engage others in your vision that will compel them to follow?

·      Just like with anything else consumers want you to be real with them. They don’t want lies, or confusing words they don’t understand, consumers just want what is real and simplistic. We need to come up with a way to relay the information we know in a simplistic form. Kim and Oki express that there are factors that contribute to the reasons people don’t live out sustainability in their lives. Most don’t have an “understanding of the behavior of complex systems, sufficient capacity to preform the actions and changes needed, and political willingness to implement changes. When I am a consumer consuming products I use to not care about the information you had to “sell” to me about the environment because I couldn’t understand it. I don’t want to mess with something I don’t understand, besides it has no interest to me if I don’t know what you’re talking about. Some people simply do not know what to do to live a sustainable life. And other think the government doesn’t care enough to enforce rules and regulations so why should they care?

Conclusion

·      By 2050 I don’t expect to see a dramatic change. This world is large and it takes many years for messages and trends to catch on, but as a group we can inform people about the actions we need to take to make sure our “home” is reaching toward sustainability. We have to start thinking about our children and grandchildren and how this planet might end up if we don’t take care of it. I know for me my attitude towards the future will become better, and that’s a start. If we can start there and work our way to living sustainability I think we will turnout just fine. 

Don't Be Fooled

As a consumer I’m sure you’ve been noticing the recent changes in advertising: the going green bandwagon; the eco-friendly packaging; even the constant reminder of the impact your every move makes on our planet. Have you stopped to honestly take a look at these current advertisements or claims? There may be a few KEY things you’re missing when looking at these “eco-friendly” ads or claims.

            According to The Greenwash Guide and Eco-Promising it’s important to remember a few things. First, according to The Greenwash Guide, it’s important to remember that the ad or claim shouldn’t have a lot of words you don't understand. Salts Organic Clothing has a claim on their website about having the same values we do when it comes to our clothing, we want organic: so do they, we want to express our love for nature: so do they, but what is interesting to me is that they never say what it is they DO to actually help our planet or make their clothing organic. How are they truly helping the environment with the clothing they sell? The Greenwash Guide also states that when purchasing a product that states they are sustainable you need to make sure their entire company is sustainable. What’s the point of having a environmentally sustainable product if the rest of their company is destroying the planet. A website called “Better Paper” states that Aveda does their part not only with their products, but also through their manufacturing and packaging their products. Here is an ad that shows what Aveda is doing to keep a sustainable company as well as showing they know what their consumers want with each product they purchase, which is important according to Eco-Promising.

On more important thing to remember, according to Eco-Promising, is if the claim or ad you are reviewing seems a bit off it probably is. If something about it seems untrue or unbelievable it probably is.

Please do some research especially if it’s a company to who you are loyal. See if they are active in sustainable organizations or promote the effort in reducing our carbon footprint. I don’t think all “sustainable” advertising is bad. Some are truly honestly trying to improve they way we live on this beautiful planet. Some unfortunately are just doing it for themselves, for the company’s reputation. If you’re serious about saving the planet find and be loyal to companies who are also. 

This is a really good commercial, from Super Bowl 2010, I found that relates to our topics of discussion! Something fun to watch...

Let's Make Cotton Sustainable

There are numerous aspects of cotton cultivation and the impact they have on the environment. After the readings this week and the Cotton, Inc. videos I’ve come to the conclusion that currently cotton cultivation is not sustainable, but there are ways and new 

technologies being introduced that will potentially make cultivating cotton sustainable.

First, there are different types of cultivation for cotton and they all have their environmental impacts. Conventional cultivation is used heavily in farming of cotton. In developing countries most are small family operated farms and include a mixed cropping system (multiple crops grown as well as cotton). Downfall on conventional systems is that most crops are not picked by hand resulting in higher wages and more used machinery making it less environmentally friendly. Organic cultivation is only a small percentage of cultivating cotton. It uses synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and genetically modified organisms, which are popular in China and the United States.  The downfall to organic cultivation is the growing must be certified and it’s hard to start using pre-grown-on land because of the contaminated soil. So new land must cleared resulting in deforestation, but can become unsustainable if soil is not suitable for long-term annual farming resulting in loss of land much faster. The last type of cultivation is IMP (Integrated Pest Management) which “‘focuses on the long- term prevention of pests or their damage through a combination of techniques such as biological control, habitat manipulation, modification of cultural practices, and use of resistant varieties’” (Kooistra & Termorshuizen, 2006). This all results in keeping reducing risks to health of humans and manages the pest population during the growth of cotton.  The downfall to IMP cultivation is there needs to be trained professional and this results in higher costs. There is another cultivation process mentioned in the reading and also brought up in a video called “Protecting and preserving soil with today’s cotton-growing techniques” is conservation tillage. This process involves no tilling of the land which in return keeps the water during rainfall better, prevents erosion, and prevents weeds from forming. There were no negatives mentioned. 

In conclusion, currently cotton is not all that sustainable, however there are ways associations are trying to inform farmers ways to becoming more sustainable. Currently, according to Cotton Inc. website video, Cotton Inc. is turning recycled jeans into home insulation! That’s ingenious. In my opinion more recycling like this should be implemented. This doesn’t involve the cultivation of cotton, but is a great way to decrease apparel ending up in landfills and waste sites. The way we can improve cotton cultivation will continue to be researched and tweaked, but until then why not recycle or upcycle cotton to allow a longer life of the fiber? 

Who is to say what is right...?

Today, I was strongly urged to switch from synthetic materials in my designs to natural ones. As I was asked to do this from one of my colleagues I remembered a chapter I had once read in Sustainable fashions and textiles, design journeys and decided to sit down and think if it is actually better to use natural materials rather than synthetic ones.

As I recall, before reading this chapter, I thought all organic, natural, non-manmade products were the right thing and there was no other alternative. However, after going through the chapter it was revealed to me that synthetic materials would save our planet. Now that she has brought this topic to my attention again I have put some thought into a major issue in our industry. What is the right material to use in our products in the apparel industry?

The chapter written by Karen Fletcher gives information about what is good about natural and synthetic fibers and what is not so good about those fibers. In my opinion, after thinking about both options, we might consider using both materials.

Cotton uses a lot of water and a hefty amount of pesticides to make (we know this by now…), but an alternative suggested to reduce water usage was low-water use cotton. The idea of low-water use cotton is as it is in parts of Africa and India. Here they rely mostly on rain to “feed” their cotton. However, as it was stated in the chapter, this produces less quality cotton. Drip irrigation is another alternative. In this type of irrigation piping is put underground after the ground is worked and then water is fed to the roots of the plants eliminating overwatering and in return reducing how much water is actually used during the phase of growing cotton. However, sprinklers are mostly used because it’s cheaper to run and you can fertilize through irrigation. However, this does have a much higher initial cost but drip irrigation has a high overall cost due to the laying of pipe after every time the ground is worked. We can stick to using conventional cotton by reducing water and chemical usage.

In the chapter most natural fibers use more water than those of synthetics. This makes sense. Synthetics are a good alternative not only for their reduce water usage but also because their chemicals can sometimes be left out or substituted for other less harsh chemicals.

Because natural and synthetic fibers both have pros and cons it really comes down to the designers opinion. I think I will continue to use synthetics, but maybe think more about which natural fibers could be used in substitute of environmentally harmful synthetics.