Page 22 - Design for Environment A Guide to Sustainable Product Development

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The challenge is to build a new economy and to
do it at wartime speed before we miss so many
of Nature’s deadlines that the economic system
begins to unravel. —lester brown [1]

A Sense of Urgency
Human prosperity and environmental integrity are closely inter-
twined because the fulfillment of basic human needs—food, cloth-
ing, materials, energy—ultimately depends upon the availa bility of
natural resources. Since the dawn of homo sapiens, we have recog-
nized this fact, and in most ancient cultures nature was re spected
and revered. Yet, over the last several hundred years, during a period
of dramatic industrialization, innovation, and global expansion, we
humans have not only taken the natural environment for granted,
but we have literally plundered and abused nature to serve our grow-
ing appetites. With no natural enemies, we conquered the planet,
only to realize that we may be our own worst enemy.
Thankfully, over the last fifty-odd years, we gradually rediscov-
ered the importance of protecting vital resources, such as soil, air,
water, trees, and other organisms. What began as a fringe movement
in the 1960s has evolved into a mainstream concern, as economists
and politicians have gradually recognized that we are de pleting fossil
fuel resources and pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at
an alarming rate. Yet even today, many people do not understand the
magnitude of these problems and tend to trivialize the solutions.

Environmental awareness has become chic and is em braced by celeb-
rities and brand marketers, while our major industrial systems con-
tinue to operate as before, with superficial changes. The good news is
that we are no longer in denial, but the bad news is that we can’t seem
to break our old habits.
Perhaps we need another wake-up call. Global warming is only one
of many disturbing trends identified by the scientific com mu nity—

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