I had a difficult time this week coming up with an idea to discuss involving design activism, but when I came to the topic about the ‘under-consumer’ in Contemporary Expressions: Design Activism, 2000 Onward the idea of educating that part of the population became something I knew I needed to talk about. My family has always been avid hunters of the land. Every deer season our freezer is stocked with meat, every summer stocked with fish. When March hits and the rainfall has been good we always hunt for mushrooms (if you’ve never had a wild mushroom you’re missing out). I’m Native American on both my mom and my dad’s side so living off of the land has always been in our bloodline. It makes me so sad to see that there are people literally starving in our own country when two doors down you know a mother is telling her child he doesn’t have to finish his plate. In
My idea for this week about educating consumers, over or under, about using what is free. FREE. There are many people who are educated in wildlife and plant-life who could easily spend a few hours a week getting a community together and educating them what is good about nature. Telling them what plants are safe to eat, how to grow their own crops, how to trap animals, and then how to dress that animal. There could be a session where they are taught how to build shelter in desperate times of need. Contemporary Expressions: Design Activism, 2000 Onward states that sustainability is “learning to live well but consuming less.” Here we will see that each communities will benefit from consuming less by living off what is in nature an also living well because everything is natural; no harmful chemicals, no unethical sweatshops.
Of course I’m not saying we don’t need to consume, but the ‘under-consumers’ will consume the same just ACTUAL necessities, instead of using their welfare money to buy coke and junk food. By educating the ‘under-consumer’ to consume pots, knifes, rope, etc. they will eventually be living better than the ‘over-consumers’. Another benefit of living off the land is the fact that the waste and carcasses will go directly back into nature continuing the biological nutrients cycle.
The most important thing I have learned this entire semester of blogging is the amount of consumption we use on a daily basis. I catch myself actually going through what I think my be the products lifecycle and basing my consuming off of that, I look for labels of ethical manufacturing on products, or I catch myself watching consumers in a public setting and thinking about how they have no idea how much they are harming our environment and what a few simple changes could do to eliminate their habits of unsustainability. While I learned a lot from the extensive reading in this course I also learned a lot about where I can stay connected to our environment and how its evolving into a more sustainable place. I wish I would have retained more information through the readings as I admit it was had to understand what I was reading at times. I wish the reading were aimed toward an audience that had limited knowledge about sustainability. Overall I feel like I took a lot from this course.
