Alice

In general I’m interested in alternative methods of energy production, in solutions that recognize the link between the environment and the need for social equity and respect for basic human rights and dignity, and in looking at problems and solutions with local context in mind.

I first got interested in sustainability through a very simple workshop on solar ovens; that encounter lead to reading on the internet about stories of people bringing solar cookers to share with people in areas where wood is scarce, then to topics of green building, green materials, organic and sustainable agriculture, and practices for fair commerce and trade.

I'm concerned with the consumption levels that my first world lifestyle taxes on global resources and yet I'm aware that guilt without solutions leads to paralysis. My firsthand experience has been that lasting change has taken time for me to implement and often that it has been an iterative process.

My stake in this class is a search for solutions and approaches that are grounded in a deeper understanding of our current environmental problems as extensions of larger societal questions in addition to scientific data and design approaches. I hope to offer my love of research to the mix and I am very excited by a collective ITP effort proposed by Andrew.

What annoys me most about this? Paralyzing guilt, disempowerment and disengagement through blame, and moral elitism. I believe social critique to be a powerful and valid enterprise, but done so without empathy and understanding can have a debilitating influence -problematic and even harmful to change.

I think that guilt is one of the most counterproductive forces for creating new solutions. To empower and to invite people to become a part of a solution is a generative alternative to negation. I have personally experienced the sense of hopelessness or overwhelming helplessness that new awareness of complex problems can bring, but I also see that we, I, each of us have a potential to make an impact through our actions. It does take all of us working together – I don’t believe we have the luxury to exclude when we are facing such large and complex problems.

Project I'd like to concentrate on: ITP Useful Reuse Recipe Book -- devise design challenges based on readily available materials from our everyday Floor 4 ecosystem, so as a community we can begin to repurpose useful recipes and ideas for recycling that *may be* more immediate and visible than going to landfills and the recycling plant (which to an extent are mental abstractions). Ideas such as 'project box' made out of take out containers come to mind off the top of my head. Hopefully with the collective Creativity of ITP we can find less obvious but equally pragmatic/imaginative. The first step would involve a pretty good taxonomy of the ITP ecosystem. The hope is to find modular -easily re-usable solutions to everyday/project needs so that the community will begin to look at trash as useful materials.