Woodworking Network: Half a century ago, on April 22, 1970, over 20 million Americans took to the streets in hundreds of cities around the country to protest the complete lack of interest (in) environmental conservation. Factories were free to pollute our air and water without any legal consequence. Oil spills were frequent and devastating environmental disasters.
2 comments:
It's crazy that the first earth day was 50 years ago and yet there are people that still believe that global warming isn't quite real and human-made. While the movement to protect our planet and stray away from materials and products that destroy our world has grown strong little real change has occurred. I watched a documentary yesterday that's part of the Netflix Docu-Series Abstract: The Art of Design which focuses on the work of Neri Oxman. Her work sits at the intersection between art, design, engineering, and science and focuses on seeking out problems and solving them in unexpected and almost unthinkable ways. What she and her lab team do at MIT is often referred to as Bio-Architecture. In all of her endeavors she attempts to approach doing natures work but better. For her structures she used biological compounds rather than plastics. Some of her most notable and relevant work is creating a biodegradable material as strong as concrete and printers that use molten glass. She's worked on creating 3D printable biodegradable material structures that silkworms can work on and thus create silk without being killed in their cocoons in normal silk processes. Sustainability is important and people like Neri and working to make it our future.
The amount of absurdity in the fact that we thought at one point in time that our actions had no effect on the planet that we rely on and inhabit is astonishing. As we have moved to greener products and gained a societal awareness of what is happening in the world around us, I am not surprised that we have found a way to incorporate woodworking into sustainable practices. I do not immediately see the woodworking industry as one that can impact our overall sustainability in a way for the better, because of the nature of the work, however this article challenges that belief. I really enjoyed the part at the end of the article that highlighted that we can keep the earth sustainable while also encouraging social justice and not breaking the bank. I think it is important to remember that any cost that may come along with sustainability and protecting the environment is worth it to ensure that we will have an Earth for our future selves and future generations.
Post a Comment