Proj 3

We are a technology and object obsessed generation. We may not all be rushing out to purchase the new Apple Watch or self-balancing-Segway-like electronic scooter, but most of us do at least own iPhone's and lap tops and have clothes from generic stores that source their products from sweatshops. On average we look at our phone screens every seven minutes yet we never question the ethical side of how our phone came to be. It is in our arsinal to use our devices to look up these facts but instead we chose use them to stalk the Kardashian family. We are never explicitly told the truth behind the ethics of Apple, or any other major brand that uses sweat shop labor to create their products, therefor we never bother to actively seek the truth ourselves.

We aren't told that "Because women make up 85 to 90% of sweatshop workers, some employers force them to take birth control and routine pregnancy tests to avoid supporting maternity leave or providing appropriate health benefits." or "In developing countries, an estimated 168 million children ages 5 to 14 are forced to work."

I will be looking the western worlds lack of remorse when it comes to unsustainable and unethical design and question whether the neglect of accountability for our consumerist actions is a form of sociological behavior. I also plan to focus on how we can use new age design to pull ourselves out of this environmental wasteland as we are the generation that is accountable for the actions of our ancestors past.

One source I have been looking at focuses on the history of industrial pollution and how we begun to think it was okay to pollute the earth the way we do currently. The article states that "Earlier, industries were small factories that produced smoke as the main pollutant. However, since the number of factories were limited and worked only a certain number of hours a day, the levels of pollution did not grow significantly." (Kukreja) Now with our modern motto being "more is more" factories have both multiplied and upscaled significantly whilst continuing to dump their waste in the same manner as when they were smaller. Thus, greatly polluting our planet.


Kukreja, R. Industrial Pollution. conserve-energy-future.com.
Link:
http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-effects-of-industrial-pollution.php
(This website had very little information about the dates and time of the article releases.)