Green — notes
As part of my #weeknotechallenge I have decided to challenge myself to doing a different style of weeknotes every week.
Today is weeknote #39
The many other weeknotes in the challenge are linked below, i hope that even one of them will inspire someone to write or do something differently with their weeknotes/blog in future.
‘Traditional’ Weeknotes , Gif-Notes , Sketch-Notes, Shanty-Notes, Week-quotes, Animal Crossing — Notes , Poster — Notes, Haiku — notes, Achievement — notes, Hanami — notes, Meme — notes, Retro — notes, Comic — notes, Story — notes, Slang — notes, Tweet — notes, Blog — notes, Hansai — notes,Show & Tell — notes, Taskmaster — notes, Lyrical — notes, Rap — notes, Wellbeing — notes,Football — notes, Superhero — notes,Hot or Not — notes, Olympic — notes, Lesson — notes,Hamilton — notes,Poké — notes,Limerick — notes,Lil’ — notes,Emoji — notes,Bin it off — notes,Festival — notes,Mental health — notes, Idk what this is called but it looked cool on YouTube- notes,Guy Fawkes — notes
I’m really starting to feel empowered with these now, i feel like i have got into a rhythm and I’m really developing my skills around different formats and communication types.
This week i am talking all about Climate Change. You can take an educated guess about why that is a subject this week!
It’s been really hard to write this and pitch it correctly, it’s supposed to be interesting and thought provoking but not preachy. This challenge is good for me because it helps me to develop communications skills but hope this is presented in a way that works for you.
Any feedback on how this comes across would be appreciated so i can learn and develop :)
The Climate Challenge
As you hopefully are already aware. COP26 — the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference — and the most important summit on climate change in a generation has been going on recently and really it setting the stage for the future of our planet. Scary typing it out like that…
If you have been living under a rock for the past few years
or you dont really keep up with it all you might be wondering…
What is actually going on?
Climate is the average weather in a place over many years. Climate change is a shift in those average conditions.
The rapid climate change we are now seeing is caused by humans using oil, gas and coal for their homes, factories and transport.
When these fossil fuels burn, they release greenhouse gases — mostly carbon dioxide (CO2). These gases trap the Sun’s heat and cause the planet’s temperature to rise.
The world is now about 1.2C warmer than it was in the 19th Century — and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen by 50%.
Climate change has different effects in different areas of the world. Some places will warm more than others, some will receive more rainfall and others will face more droughts.
If temperature rise cannot be kept within 1.5C:
- The UK and Europe will be vulnerable to flooding caused by extreme rainfall
- Countries in the Middle East will experience extreme heatwaves and farmland could turn to desert
- Island nations in the Pacific region could disappear under rising seas
- Many African nations are likely to suffer droughts and food shortages
- Drought conditions are likely in the western US, while other areas will see more intense storms
- Australia is likely to suffer extremes of heat and drought
In summary…
What does this have to do with digital and design?
When working in design the areas you look at are making something more efficient and putting users first
Roughly 80% of the environmental impact of today’s products, services and infrastructures is determined at the design level.This can be anything form fashion design,home design,service design or IT design.45% of emissions comes from producing the products we use everyday.
This shows us that to get to net zero and beyond digital and design can — and must — help us fundamentally redesign/change the way we live our lives. As well as the people we must also put the planet at the heart of what we do.
But Digital is not just about technology…
Digital is a way of thinking and working. It’s about changing the way we work and how we collaborate and communicate with each other. It’s a skill that we must learn, practice, and continually develop.
The way we like to describe it in the team is People, Tech, Data and Culture.
That is a direct quote from one of my previous weeknotes if you wanted to checkout more about Digital and the team:
So yeah, digital isn’t just about tech but it’s still a part of it. So, what does this have to do with climate change?
As much as we love making the most of modern technology, today it is accountable for 4% of the worldwide carbon emissions. That is more then all non-military flights combined.
Creating/designing new software, services, or websites are at the forefront of enabling things that are physical to become more virtual,helping to cut down on physical waste like paper and bring more into the ‘Digital space’
But…
It can be sometimes easy to forget or hard to grasp that all of the things in this ‘Digital space’ have a carbon footprint. The internet for example, powered but loads of services, uses a enormous amount of power. The speed of technology also means that people want the latest ‘toys’ ranging from virtual reality headsets to robots to whatever you can think of.
So, what can we do?
Just because technology and design are part of the problem doesn’t mean it can’t be part of the solution…
If you look at this image it’s the Rethink stage that design and digital really come into play:
We need to start rethinking our choices at the earliest stage. Climate change should be embedded in all decision making instead of something that can often be tacked on or side-lined.
Rethinking our choices
There were some really interesting topics that came out of my research for this weeknote and the Design for Planet webinars i attended.
I mentioned technology’s effect on climate change in a broader scale but looking at some of the specifics can flag things that you might not have even thought about. I certainly hadn’t!
- If you block music streaming in your organisation it will produce digital waste encouraging people to use YouTube video streams for the purpose of music listening.
- For web design, using dark mode, compressing images, reducing heavy UI elements, reducing like sharing buttons and multiple pop-ups. Even small steps like reducing the number of videos used or reducing the quality to minimise file size streams are all steps to reduce ‘digital waste’.
Putting things into perspective, a simple webpage load emits 6.8 grams of CO2 emissions or 1 email with a large attachment produces up to 50 grams compared to an average paper letter’s 29 grams.
C02:
· A physical letter: 29g
· An email: 4g
· An email with large attachment: 50g
Digital has a very important role in helping us to reduce our harmful habits. Devices to monitor water consumption, make farming and travel more sustainable are great examples.
Things such as going ‘paperless’ were used for financial savings and to become more modern and ‘digital’ but now it seems more like a necessity.
Someone that spoke at Designforplanet talked about how need to rethink and rebuild instead of adding on to what already exists. This is a lot like work in the Digital Team.Instead of trying to make a faster horse, you might make a car.
There is a model that has been developed showcasing how everyone needs to be sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible
Its fancy name is the circular economy (see below)
Dorset Council
From an overall Dorset Council perspective. In March this year we were awarded £19m of grant funding to help reduce our carbon footprint. This was a huge boost in our drive towards becoming carbon zero by 2040.
Now hot off the press, a works programme has been put in place to focus on making the building we own greener and cleaner. This will work to bring financial and C02 savings across the council and is a key part of our ongoing work on climate change.
This is a great first step among (hopefully) many others.
In summary…
I know sometimes i can feel a little bit like
but there is still time to create change.
It does make you think that maybe sometimes you are throwing small stones in a big pond. I have been thinking that all this week and when writing this.
But we should stop thinking ‘recycling this one baked bean tin won’t matter’. It’s time we stopped excusing ourselves with ‘it won’t make a difference’.”
One quote that stood out to me from one of the webinars was:
There’s no big, there’s no small… everything matters.
Everyone has a part to play in this journey. It might be a sudden shift or lots of small changes but as long as we are going in the right direction, we are still making progress.
Let’s not just be user focused let’s be planet focused.
Think that’s it from me this week, a little more on the serious side but its important to talk about!
Think im going to give myself a break and do soemthing a bit more light- hearted next week.
See you next week,
Sam out.
Resources : (here are some of the people/articles that inspired me)
