Poor Air Quality | Designing Interventions
CMU Transition Design, Spring 2019[Issue]
Poor Air Quality in Pittsburgh[Team Resilience]
Ema Karavdic
David Jianxiao Ge
Maple Runmiao Shi
Marysol Ortega Pallanez
Michelle Ming-Chieh Chou
During this final assignment, we began by comparing and contrasting the Spatio-Temporal Matrix and our Future Vision 2050 from assignments 3 and 4 to come up with concepts for system interventions that could lead to the resolution of our wicked problem, poor air quality in Pittsburgh.
The projects have elements of current initiatives existing in Pittsburgh, such as community gardens, research and development labs, and Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) systems, among others. Our aim was to build upon these existing platforms, finding connections among them and identifying how the different efforts have the potential of becoming stepping stones towards a transition pathway for the realization of our future vision.
Our three interventions summarize as follows. A Government Greenforce, a transdisciplinary partnership hosted by the government to generate and implement a green agenda formed by an expert resident program, a transformation of the city’s infrastructure and transportation, and renewable energy R&D and innovation hubs. A Healthy Community Network comprised by community gardens hosting seasonal foods and medicinal herbs, paired with wellness centers, focused on prevention and maintenance of wellbeing of the environment, including humans. Finally, we have Visualizing Environmental Impact, as the name says, a visualization platform that would allow people to see their carbon footprint through their consumption habits and will provide suggestions on decision making and acting processes for the satisfaction of needs.
Our intent with these interventions was to also address connected wicked problems to poor air quality in Pittsburgh, such as the Decline of Pollinators, Lack of Access to Healthy Food, the Opioid Crisis, and Elderly Isolation among others.
Design Intervention 1: Government Greenforce
Level of scale: City
Pittsburgh City Government sets up a new interdisciplinary Greenforce that focus on overall green strategies and implementations. The focus areas include (1) Expert Residency Program (2) City Infrastructure and Transportation (3) Renewable Energy Research & Development (R&D) (4) Innovation Hubs. Greenforce has the vision to make Pittsburgh a leading green city, which could be a model for the rest of the world and change the identity of Pittsburgh from a smoky city to an outdoor-friendly community.
1. Expert Residency Program. This 2-year-long program invites community members, scientists, researchers, and designers to work as expert advisors to advance policy-making and implementation. This would allow academic, industry, and community experts to contribute their expertise to city-wide development for the place they call home.
2. City Infrastructure and Transportation. The Greenforce will also work on improving the city infrastructure and transportation system. The public transportation ecosystem will be replanned considering the topography and powered by alternative green energy. In addition, the ecosystem will include safe-riding bike lanes and bridges in addition to walkways to encourage human-powered transportation in and for a clean environment.
Some of the sources of inspiration for this part of the design intervention:
3. Renewable Energy R&D and Innovation Hubs. The initiative will also incentivize research and development into renewable energy. One of the avenues to do so is by supporting green start-ups to build innovation hubs in Pittsburgh. The hubs will be a way to provide comprehensive career opportunities for top talents in the field from all over the world to come and stay, contributing to the advancement of Pittsburgh “green vision”, becoming a leading green city, a model for the rest of the world.
How does this project connect and amplify our other interventions?
Connection to the Healthy Community Network (project 2). Government funding support and the creation of infrastructure paves the road for further green developments such as the healthy community network. Given that there is a dedicated workforce behind sustainable ideation, this means that it is more likely that projects will continue to push the boundaries for sustainability in all parts of society.
Connection to Visualizing Environmental Impact (project 3). The Government Greenforce would encourage household activities that are sustainable by making it more accessible to make the shift in purchasing behaviors. This could include subsidies for solar panels (impacts spending on electricity) or construction of bike lanes (decreasing spending on fuel).
Which of the present day fears/concerns or hopes/aspirations does the project address?
Fears/Concerns
The government usually refers to technological solutions as the panacea but does not have a clear understanding of the capacities of technology. The expert residency program will bring experts’ knowledge from various disciplines to decision making, considering not only technological solutions per se but empowering alternative solutions with realistic technological aspects only when it is suitable.
Government and citizens have no real consensus and awareness on the long-term effects of poor air quality. People usually only react to single manifestations of an issue that affect them directly after the fact, instead of taking proactive actions for prevention. The new government unit of greenforce will formalize the problem and highlight related issues both in terms of causes and effects. Once citizens see the new implementations/changes and experience being able to live healthier, we envision it to be an awakening call and encourage everyone to make their own proactive efforts.
It has been a while that Pittsburgh’s economic structure and development are stable but stagnant. Lacking long-term career opportunities results in uncompetitiveness of attracting and retaining talent. The investment in renewable energy R&D and innovation hubs will change the scene. Talent and the prosperous cutting-edge development will rejuvenate Pittsburgh economic growth.
Current high subsidy for fossil fuel encourages people to keep using polluting fuels for manufacture and domestic use. The Greenforce focus on a green vision creates an opportunity for subsidizing policies, and the extensive R&D of renewable energy will make renewable energy more economical and accessible. Eventually, it could encourage more adoption of greener energy.
Hopes/Aspirations
In the last decades, a trend related to the investment in green energy, such as electrical, solar, wind and etc, has been developing as a way to replace fossil fuel. Therefore, the goal of having renewable energy R&D will not only benefit Pittsburgh. We will be able to “export” knowledge, expertise, and products nationwide and worldwide.
In recent years people have been willing to adopt different transportation choices and changing habits, such as ride-sharing. Hence, the transformation of the transportation system and infrastructure has great potential to reinforce people’s awareness and willingness to move away from the car culture and car ownership models.
There are currently a considerable amount of grassroots local efforts tackling poor air quality running in parallel to governmental efforts. The Greenforce will bring everyone who has the passion and expertise together to contribute to policy-making and industrial development. Fragmented efforts will become together and become interconnected.
What are the barriers and challenges in implementing the project? What new resources, skills, technologies, policies or changes in infrastructure will it require?
The biggest challenge is to build up a brand-new separate government unit, i.e., the Greenforce. Firstly, it will take a great number of negotiation skills and efforts to reorganize government departments, reunite fragmented units, raise funds, and change the policy-making procedure to make the Greenforce able to step in and influence decisions according to the “green vision.”
Secondly, in order to build the interdisciplinary team, we would need to plan the structure of the Greenforce and make sure there will be diversity of representatives from a variety of domains. Promoting the new government unit and its vision, and recruiting talent will require a considerable effort. Thirdly, changing the mindset of fellow governors and residents to support green-focused changes will take long-term ongoing efforts. It would be crucial to voice out opinions and facts, to visualize the current damage to the environment and the effects if we continue a trajectory of environmental damage, and to be transparent in terms of the utilization of resources and the accomplishments of the Greenforce overtime.
What under-utilized social resources might be leveraged to aid in implementing the project?
The voices from people being directly impacted, such as the sectors of the population currently facing the effects of poor air quality suffering of inflammatory and respiratory diseases, being affected in their neurological health, having chronic psychosocial stress and susceptibility to physiologic effects. In addition, health issues reinforced socio-economic inequality. Shedding light on how poor air quality has been devastating people’s wellbeing, quality of life, and prosperity of the city for centuries could be a leverage point to get the project going.
Another potentiality comes with the changing of mindset of current generations worldwide, in which larger groups of people are caring about environmental protection, and its relationship with personal and collective wellbeing.
One of the unique qualities of Pittsburgh, originally related and propelled by the technological advancement of the steel industry, is the abundance of research facilities, professionals and researchers from academia in the city. They can become a leading force by contributing their expertise into designing an expert program to boost change.
The current-existing grassroots efforts are fragmented. Being able to bring them together and support to upscale their impact could contribute a lot to this big plan. Organizations concerning air quality national-wide might support Pittsburgh government in leading the innovation and create a role model for other cities to follow.
How will it shift attitudes & beliefs connected to the problem that might lead to new social norms?
The government’s efforts in upgrading the infrastructure create better and safer transportation environment, which could lead to citizens adopting public transportation, biking, and walking. The overall efforts in creating a healthier city would encourage outdoor activities and nurture exercising habits and interpersonal interactions with fellow Yinzers. It could eventually change the identity of Pittsburgh from an industrial smoky city to an outdoor-focus prosperous place, encouraging more tourist visits.
In addition, Yinzers being able to see the change and experience living healthier first-hand would reinforce the changing mindset, and getting them on board to take more proactive efforts and actions. Furthermore, Pittsburgh itself and people here could become powerful influencers to call for change in other cities and countries.
In what ways can it positively impact/resolve other complex problems? In what ways will it help restore local and regional social and environmental systems?
The establishment of a municipal Greenforce could also tackle the Decline of Pollinators, by providing institutional support to current efforts done by the different neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, as well as bringing environmental issues to the forefront of the government’s agenda. By focusing on restoration and maintenance of local biodiversity, the city can set the conditions for actors such as the pollinators to thrive.
Regarding some of the more tangible aspects of this intervention that would lead to a human-scale type of city (i.e. infrastructural changes in roads to make them more bicycle and walk friendly), will promote an outdoor type of life, with fewer pollutants, and a slower pace of life. Providing activities for leisure time and feeling closer to nature will lead to renewed lifestyles, setting up the right conditions for a reconfiguration of norms and beliefs that will allow regaining trust in the community to tackle issues like Elderly Isolation and more holistic approach to issues like the Opioid Crisis.
Design Intervention 2: Healthy Community Network
Level of scale: Neighborhood
This intervention is two-fold, from one end we have a community garden hosting seasonal foods and medicinal herbs, from the other end we are envisioning a wellness center. These two components will feed each other consolidating our vision of Yinzers being one with the environment. The first stage of creating a Healthy Community Network will be establishing a community garden, including shared plots of land, where people will gather together to grow fresh vegetables, fruit, and medicinal herbs. It will not only push for more green space to improve air quality but also become a place for neighborhood bonding and activities. One of the activities we see unfolding is medicinal herb workshops, in which participant will learn how to take care of these kinds of plants as well as getting to know their utilization in the prevention of illness and maintenance of wellbeing. Additionally, the gardens will be a form of community-supported agriculture, which would improve access to healthy food that is not as carbon intensive. This way the community gardens offer a platform to educate people and create collective solidarity.
With the development and expansion of these community gardens, the second stage will be to establish Wellness Centers. A Wellness Center is focused on prevention and maintenance of wellbeing of the environment, including humans. Anyone can make appointments for both their own health or the health of the environment in one totally self-sustained place. The focus is on prevention, relying heavily on the natural remedies already growing in the community gardens and empowering people with the right tools to monitor health, moving away from palliative medicine.
How does this project connect and amplify others?
Connection to Government Greenforce (project 1). This project amplifies the Government Greenforce by reinterpreting the relationship people have with the environment thereby getting support and action from the bottom up as well as top down. By starting with community gardens, a mindset shift can begin to occur. This can either put pressure on the government to create a new sustainability office like the Government Greenforce or make it easier for the government to spend local taxpayer money in such a way.
Connection to Visualizing Environmental Impact (project 3). Spending time in the community garden and harvesting produce for yourself and the community can reduce the amount of food that needs to be purchased in traditional grocery stores. This also means a reduction in the amount of carbon produced in the transportation of food and encourages seasonal eating habits. Furthermore, educational activities can help future generations develop new consumption norms and transform how leisure time is used. This could also play a role in reducing the carbon impact that daily activities have on the environment.
Which of the present day fears/concerns or hopes/aspirations does the project address?
Fears/Concerns:
The negative health impact of poor air quality is becoming increasingly evident through the rise of respiratory diseases such as asthma. Community gardens will clean the air and produce healthy food while promoting a healthy lifestyle through farming activities. The wellness center will also provide treatment for patients affected by air pollution, including both body and environmental therapy.
Due to the strong historical ties to heavy industry, citizens feel a strong sense of identity as the “Steelers”. As a result, they are more tolerant of the byproducts of heavy industry, which causes the indifference towards air pollution by communities at large. Community gardens will reawaken people’s awareness of the importance of human and environmental health, and also be a place for neighborhood activities to create solidarity and advocate a more healthy lifestyle through community farming. The Wellness Center acts as a new channel for citizens to care about environmental health and can play an important role in symbolizing the health of Pittsburgh’s environment.
A general lack of education in sustainability and environmental protection and inequality obstruct people from understanding the nature of the poor air quality problem. Community gardens provide a great educational opportunity for all residents. People would not only acquire agricultural knowledge and understand the importance of environmental health through hands-on farming activities but also participate in a variety of events such as learning about the employment of alternative medicinal approaches through the use of herbal remedies for treating illnesses and also for prevention.
A number of areas in Pittsburgh (such as Sharpsburg, Millvale, Hazelwood/Glennwood, Eden Park, Pitcairn, Wilkinsburg, the West End, Tarentum, Carnegie, East Pittsburgh, and Turtle Creek/Newtown to name a few) lack access to healthy food due to being in a food desert or a transit desert. Community gardens will join the distribution of healthy produce to communities through the existing CSA system (Community-Supported Agriculture). Residents can get healthy food in a variety of ways, including volunteering in the community garden, donating to the garden, etc.
Hopes/Aspirations:
People’s mindsets towards both human health and environmental health have slowly begun to shift and citizens have a much clearer understanding of the role they should play in the environment. The community garden provides a platform for people to directly participate in environmental wellness. In the same vein, the community wellness center also provides a supervising and feedback channel for citizens concerned about environmental health.
Given the current state of fragmented government action and increased awareness by the community, grassroots activities have become more prevalent. The health community network will empower these grassroots activities by creating ties among them and maximize their efforts of bottom-up transformations through the cooperation of organizations and the sharing of spaces.
The diversity of Pittsburgh’s physical attributes contributes to diverse kind of grassroots activities, providing diverse opportunities for developing the green network. Community gardens may have different forms of existence in different urban spaces, such as the greenhouse, vertical garden, roof gardens, etc, supporting different types of activities.
What are the barriers and challenges in implementing the project? What new resources, skills, technologies, policies or changes in infrastructure will it require?
The project funds and acquisition of land will become the biggest barriers and challenges for the project. On top of that, in order to build a healthy community network, the leadership and collaboration between government and community are crucial. The government should encourage the development of community gardens through the implementation of green policies. For example, they can give access to the city-owned vacant land, provide start-up capital in the form of grants or funds, provide tax incentives to make it less expensive to implement, and even set up a special agency to provide agricultural training and support developing community garden and Wellness Center in Pittsburgh.
Improvements in green transportation infrastructure such as public transport and electric vehicles are also needed to expand the healthy community network, distribute the healthy food and spread its influence.
What under-utilized social resources might be leveraged to aid in implementing the project?
Pittsburgh’s topography is a mixture of rivers, hills, and valleys, making 40 percent of the city unsuitable for development. With the improvements in public and shared transportation infrastructure, these vacant lands could potentially be the potential sites for community gardens and Wellness Centers, creating a well-connected healthy network.
The current existing grassroots efforts are fragmented. Being able to bring them together would support the scaling of their impact, contributing to the expansion of the healthy network and community.
How will it shift attitudes & beliefs connected to the problem that might lead to new social norms?
The community gardens and wellness centers are focused on prevention and maintenance of wellbeing of the environment as a whole. Anyone can contribute to community gardens, get healthy food through community-supported agriculture, and gain knowledge about sustainable development. At the same time, community Wellness Centers allow people to make appointments for personal health or environmental health. It will transform people’s attitudes from the reduction of air pollution to prevention of it. In the meantime, through the adoption of the mantra we are one with the environment, citizens would understand that if the ecosystem is healthy, they are healthy too.
In what ways can it positively impact/resolve other complex problems? In what ways will it help restore local and regional social and environmental systems?
By establishing community gardens around the city with a wide variety of plants, including medicinal herbs, and endemic species, this intervention becomes a way replenishing elements in the food system of pollinators. Having a focus on seasonal foods, this intervention has the potential of directly impacting the Decline of Pollinators, acknowledging them as a vital actor in our community gardens’ success and subsistence. Additionally, pollinators would also benefit in terms of their quality of life, since our wellness centers will not only target humans but the environment as a whole. Being pollinators one of the most sensitive populations to poor air quality, focusing on their wellbeing would be a way to gauge the environment’s health.
Similarly, this intervention touches on Lack of Access to Healthy Food. The existence of community gardens in the neighborhood provides a source of food that is decentralized as well as becoming the meeting point for community members and a way to define their sense of belonging and strengthen their identity as a collective.
In terms of the connections with Elderly Isolation, community gardens are commonly driven by volunteers. Hence, we see this intervention as an opportunity to provide the elderly with a space to either learn and or share their expertise in different areas, from agriculture to the use of herbal medicine. In this manner, they could become the guardians of these shared spaces.
Finally, the wellness centers relate to the Opioid Crisis by providing an alternative to healthcare that focuses on prevention rather than amelioration. In partnership with our community gardens, the wellness centers provide forms of managing pain that is natural, becoming the first entry point for healthcare.
Design Intervention 3: Visualizing Environmental Impact
Level of scale: Household
During our secondary research, we have identified the problem of poor air quality in Pittsburgh as being invisible. Therefore, the main objective of this intervention is to reshape people’s mindset and behavior by making issues with air quality visible and understandable to the public.
The first aspect of the project will be a platform — an add-on of sorts — embedded in the existing digital system at cashiers, banks, payment, and financial management applications. Payment systems will then allow people opt-in and donate to an environmental cause of their choice when they make purchases. Additionally, people will be able to visualize their environmental impact at the cash register, total monthly bank statements, or monthly report on financial software.
Through the collection of data by the platform, in which people can see their impact on the environment, negatively and positively, the system will use machine learning and data analytics tools to generate trend reports and visualization, allowing people to reflect upon their consumption behavior, as well as providing advice on alternative ways to fulfill their needs that can be more environmentally friendly. As a result, people will be able to make purchasing decisions from a sustainable perspective.
As other green infrastructures are developed (from the “Green Force” project), citizens are provided choices and practices are promoted to live a sustainable lifestyle with an integral satisfaction of their needs. As people engage with eco-friendly modes of transportation such as riding electric bikes, walking, or using public transit, their commitment with these practices is acknowledged by the generation of green points, a reward system provided by the government and the industry for citizens who perform green activities with the new green infrastructures. For example, the reward can be a discount for buying goods from community gardens (from the “Healthy Community Network” project) or other green goods providers.
How does this project connect and amplify others?
Connection with Government Greenforce (project 1). In order to implement this intervention, the support of government and flexibility of regulatory frameworks is crucial. The process of embedding a totally new credit system based on creating more sustainable consumption amplifies the work of the Government Greenforce, making sustainability actionable in everyday activities where citizens spend money. This would complement some of the more high-level work that the Greenforce would do, showing progress at multiple levels.
Connection with Healthy Community Network (project 2). The implementation of this project means the creation of a totally new credit system. It can connect and amplify the Healthy Community Network by including in the new system, making participation in such community projects a way to get credits to spend on the Qualcard. Additionally, purchasing goods and services from a sustainable source like the Wellness Center has less impact on the Qualcard credits and encourages people to pursue more sustainable consumption habits.
Which of the present day fears/concerns or hopes/aspirations does the project address?
Fears/Concerns
Individualism is the dominant mindset and ideology in the current society. As a result, people intuitively underestimate the power of collective efforts and focus on individual needs without considering the impact on others and the environment. This concept allows them to visualize their impact and provide ways to be able to manage it.
The invisibility of the problem as well as the steps to solving it. As much as people do not perceive the problem as pressing, people often times do not know how to act upon it or what are small attainable actions they can do in the immediate future to both ameliorate and prevent it. Making those options readily available allows people to start taking action now, gain awareness about the issue, and start a continuous conversation around it.
People today expect and rely on the government, private industry and research facilities rather than individual efforts to facilitate changes for the environment. By empowering people with information and actions for change, this project allows people to make small, everyday changes to their behavior to make it more sustainable. They can track themselves over time with just the visualization and eventually, move from reactive to proactive behaviors by actively getting involved in the community.
Hopes/Aspirations
Viewing humans has part of the environment instead of the dominator. People have long been taking natural resources for granted, consider human as the owner of the planet and superior to all other life forms. This anthropocentric view still exists today and in fact, our society is operating under the fossil fuel-based global economy. Through visualizing their impact to the environment (stage 1), and the Qualcard (stage 4), in which people need to give back what they take from the ecosystem, people will reconsider their relationship with the environment.
Seeing technology not as a magic solution but as a tool for human action. The wide application of machine learning and data visualization in the project will be able to give suggestions to people to make more sustainable decisions in their lives, but ultimately, it is us humans who need to make the decisions and take the actions necessary to improve air quality and prevent air pollution. It is a change of mindset from creating machines/technology that clean the mess we make, versus utilizing technology to help us have sustainable habits.
Understanding that air quality problem and other wicked problems require constant actions over time. The small, constant contributions in the project allow people to connect to the impact of their past behaviors and see a path forward through suggestions for future behaviors. This would expand people’s perspective beyond their life span, being able to think retrospectively and act towards the betterment of the environment for future generations.
What are the barriers and challenges in implementing the project? What new resources, skills, technologies, policies or changes in infrastructure will it require?
Barriers/Challenges:
One of the greatest challenges is to establish collaboration among financial platforms (Banks, Payments Apps, Stock Apps) to adopt such a add-on platform. Financial platforms are constantly competing for customers and the desire to dominate the market. Given the restrictions of a market driven by capitalism, it might be difficult to move away from the existing profit-driven models and collaborate to develop a new financial system for the future of the planet.
This intervention assumes that a considerable amount of people would choose to live “greener” if the information was easily available. When this intervention is implemented, one of the challenges might be the assessment of the long-term effectiveness of these visualizations, and how to maintain the trend going, beyond the initial adoption, so goes from the initial excitement to be the first steps towards a transformation of mindset and behavior.
New Resources, skills, technologies, policies or changes:
There are two technologies critical to the implementation of the project: machine learning and cloud computing capabilities. Our project requires the afore listed technologies to manage and analyze the large numbers of raw data sets generated by people’s buying behaviors and create reliable, personalized suggestions that evolve over time.
Due to the increased concern for security, we consider it very important for the government to enact stronger policies and regulations to ensure the security of people’s financial data. While endeavoring in the transition to a more sustainable future, the basic rights and interests of the public should be secured.
Finally, a fairly fundamental change would need to take place to develop a new points-based system based tied to individual impact on the environment. This would require a slow build up to change the existing mindsets of individuals in society.
What under-utilized social resources might be leveraged to aid in implementing the project?
Primarily, the public itself is one of the most under-utilized social resources. People currently do not feel that they have the power to trigger change and that it is usually initiated by persons in positions of power, technology, events and social movements out of their control. Under this misconception, people do not see their own individual power and the power of collective efforts, underestimating their own potential in propelling changes.
Another underutilized resource is interaction and information design that allows people to coherently understand the data being produced. Although machine learning and data mining transform raw data to statistical or mathematical results, these results are abstruse to the general public. Visualizing and contextualizing the information would grant people the ability to add meaning to the results of processed raw data processed.
Finally, the power of social influence is also underutilized, including mediums such as social media that permeates several aspects of our lives. They are valuable in exposing issues, promoting uptake of green initiatives and making the process of transitioning to more sustainable behaviors more understandable and transparent to the public. With better access to examples of people engaging in a sustainable behavior, sustainable consumption becomes more tangible. As a result, people will be more willing to participate in green activities with a high level of knowledge and trust.
How will it shift attitudes & beliefs connected to the problem that might lead to new social norms?
Through the visualization of previously invisible purchasing behaviors and tendencies, the project will encourage people to critically assess their habits and lifestyle over time. This could lead to a shift in the way that people purchase goods and spend on services for the fulfillment of needs.
By using the green points system, people will start to view themselves as a component of the environment instead of the owner. The project will also facilitate the reconception of the value of goods not only as having economic, social, or cultural values, but also environmental values. The focus of consumptions behavior will be shifted to include the consideration of the environmental impact and not exclusively about satisfying human subsistence.
In what ways can it positively impact/resolve other complex problems? In what ways will it help restore local and regional social and environmental systems?
One of the ways we saw this intervention unfolding, was to have the rounding payment system as a stepping stone for funding community gardens and reforestation programs in the city. Thus, positively impacting other wicked problems such as the Decline of Pollinators, by having not only more community gardens but increasing the number of trees in Pittsburgh. Also, the environmental causes that people can support are not relegated to air quality exclusively. Thus, individuals could support other causes such as building bee-friendly shelters in which they can subsist by their own means.
In terms of visualization, these systems can allow people to gain awareness not only on their environmental impact but in actionable steps to decrease it, linking then with Lack of Access to Healthy Food. For certain sectors of the population, the lack of access is related to a mindset of convenience and choice. In our intervention, in addition to offering a visualization of your current environmental impact, we were thinking of providing visualizations of people investing the same amount of money but obtaining more nutritious foods with less amount of environmental impact, with the potential of allowing people to manipulate the variables to fit their specific goals or needs, but always having the environmental awareness as a north star. This way, we would make visible choices that might not be the most prevalent nowadays.
