Content uploaded by Dolores Wilber
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Dolores Wilber on Mar 17, 2020
Content may be subject to copyright.
Jacques’s research as making false claims: for example, CTT
“feminists” who condemn women with a pejorative use of
“victim” if they protest against the health threats of eco-
logically damaging political practices; and founders of the
Wise Use movement who drop names like Patrick Moore
~founder of Greenpeace!and CORE ~Congress of Racial
Equality!without clarifying that such names have moved
far from their original purpose, letting the public think
that Moore speaks for concerned environmental scientists,
and that CORE still engages in civil rights activities. All the
while hiding that Moore has become a staunch antienvi-
ronmental skeptic since founding Greenpeace, or that CORE
is now lead by Roy Innis, who has moved the group away
from its founding principles and now advocates for orga-
nizations such as the NRA ~National Rifle Association!and
Exxon Mobile.
Jacques is as forthcoming about Industria’s effects and threats
as he is with his description of Industria. He uses a discus-
sion of the work by C.S. Holling and L.H. Gunderson on the
concept of environmental collapse to illustrate the claims of
environmental concerns, which see modern use of natural
resources as unsustainable to the point of causing environ-
mental damage that will ultimately lead to the collapse of
current human civilization. These claims have been discred-
ited by environmental skeptics with labels such as “dooms-
day” or “junk” science, and Jacques uses Industria to reveal
the skeptics’ motives for minimizing environmental threats
at the expense of those who are marginalized. He also com-
piles the evidence for why we should look beyond the skep-
tical accusations that environmental research is nothing but
junk science by using historical examples of when past
civilizations failed to consider environmental warnings. This
discussion has a popular appeal that feels similar to the
documentary An Inconvenient Truth ~2006!in the way it
pools together data directly from the scientific research
community to deliver it as unfiltered as possible to the
reader, without environmental skepticism’s false claims of
confusion that serve to mystify and muddy conclusions.We
are made aware that while politicians claim that there is
disagreement among scientists about the presence of envi-
ronmental dangers caused by current human activity, in
reality there is no such conflict and political claims of dis-
agreement exist only to confuse the public and perpetuate
an anthropocentric relationship with natural resources.
Jacques ends the book by specifying strategies that could
work effectively against Industria. The final chapter is a
strong reconstruction of what the previous five chapters
deconstruct, leaving the reader with tangible options for
action usually missing from social critiques. This ending
feels like a Hegelian synthesis product, with environmental
concern as thesis, the environmental skepticism counter-
movement as antithesis, and chapter 6as the synthesis of
the conflict that can move us past sociopolitical paralysis
toward meaningful change in both the human-environment
relationship and human-human relationships . . . a posi-
tive ending for an otherwise unsettling look at current
environmental politics.
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make
Things. William McDonough and Michael Braungart.
2002. North Point Press, New York. 208 pp. $27.50 paper-
back ~978-0-86547-587-8!
doi:10.1017/S1466046609990494
Reviewed by Dolores Wilber, Associate Professor, Depart-
ment of Art, Media and Design, DePaul University,
Chicago, IL 60614;~e-mail!dwilber@depaul.edu.
If you are reading this, you probably know something
about Cradle to Cradle ~C2C!, published way back in 2002
and still one of the anchor books on design as life cycle in
all matters, human and environmental, providing a man-
ifesto for ecological awareness and practice from beginning
to end to beginning again. An architect and a chemist, the
authors McDonough and Braungart, aim to eliminate en-
tirely the reality of waste, with one chapter entitled “Waste
Equals Food.” As an example of itself, the book is printed
on a material manufactured from plastic resins and inor-
ganic fillers, designed to look and feel like tree-felling paper
while being anything but. The book can be recycled in any
system that collects polypropylene, the material in most
yogurt containers. This example provides the core argu-
ment of the text: products must be designed and manu-
factured to be used, recycled, and used again without
sacrificing material or aesthetic quality, not only not harm-
ing the environment, but, rather, contributing to it.
I use this book in a class, “Issues in Environmental De-
sign,” developed as a interdisciplinary class for Environ-
mental Studies and Art and Design students at DePaul
University. As an educator, designer, and artist, this subject
is the nexus of my own contemporary creative practice.
The first time the class was offered, we could have filled it
twice over, given the student interest and enthusiasm for
the course content. It drew students not just from the core
subject programs, but also from Marketing, Sociology, and
Business.
92 Environmental Practice 12 (1) March 2010
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1466046609990494
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. DePaul University Libraries, on 17 Mar 2020 at 14:39:51, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.
One of my goals for the class was to develop an under-
standing and response to the issues that would provide an
emotional resonance, a sense of personal responsibility
and, frankly, animation among the students. As a designer,
I wanted to know more about how to “brand” the subject
in a way that would provide an activated young citizenship,
provide hope, a sense of optimism, and willful responsi-
bility. I was disturbed by my experience that students found
developing and designing “green” projects as rather dull
and plodding, predictable, untrustworthy, and probably
ineffective. So their responses to this book provided part of
the incubator for clues on how to ignite ecological initia-
tives and consciousness.
Initially, many students recoiled a bit, finding the intro-
duction “This Book Is Not a Tree” and the first chapter “A
Question of Design” apocalyptic and overly dramatic. For
instance, here’s what the authors have to say about the
negative consequences of the Industrial Revolution. It is
. . . “a system of production that
•puts billions of pounds of toxic material into the air,
water, and soil every year
•produces some materials so dangerous they will require
constant vigilance by future generations
•results in gigantic amounts of waste
•puts valuable materials in holes all over the planet, where
they can never be retrieved
•requires thousands of complex regulations—not to keep
people and natural systems safe, but rather to keep them
from being poisoned too quickly
•measures productivity by how few people are working
•creates prosperity by digging up or cutting down natural
resources and then burying or burning them
•erodes the diversity of species and cultural practices.”
~p. 18!
And, “If the Industrial Revolution had a motto . . . it would
be ‘if brute force doesn’t work, you’re not using enough of
it.’”
One student expressed anger at what he viewed as the
authors’ attempts to make him uncomfortable or scared,
and another felt discouraged at the sobering contents, won-
dering whether there was any hope or point to trying to
change a system so overwhelmingly flawed.
The second chapter is entitled “Why Being ‘Less Bad’ Is No
Good” and that too was considered all or nothing, judged
by student response, and, in fact, that is the argument. It’s
not good enough to just be “less bad.” The authors advo-
cate that we need to restructure our thinking, our design-
ing, and our policies to intentionally plan for sustainable
living and products. Reduce, reuse, recycle—and regulate—
are the solutions—as well as an eco-efficient and “eco-
effective” design practice.
It is chapter 3, on “Eco-Effectiveness,” where practical ex-
amples are provided that won over the majority of student
readers to the authors’ message.
A couple of student comments:
What I really liked about Cradle to Cradle was that it was easy
to read, talked about interesting ideas, and, most importantly,
it wasn’t preachy. Also, I was very impressed that it didn’t just
state problem after problem, but actual solutions that have
been or could easily be enacted to fix the problems.
One solution has stuck with me for some time. I have told
many other people about the idea and I really think it could
work. Electronics are made with planned obsolescence; they
are made to break. Then we dispose of them however, and they
usually don’t get recycled properly. The heavy metals in the
electronics are sometimes thrown into landfills where they
contaminate the ground and water. McDonough and Braun-
gart proposed a smart idea for this problem. Instead of buying
the latest TV or iPod, we would rent it. After two years or so,
the company would take the old product, which could then be
recycled and parts of it could be reused, and give the consumer
a new electronic. It would be cost effective for the producer of
the product because they would save money by reusing mate-
rials from the old product. And,at the same time, the consumer
would have a nice, shiny new toy to enjoy. This practice would
force companies to make products that could be easily recycled
so they would save money and time. I think this idea is so great,
and they mentioned other uses for this novel idea ~such as cars,
carpet, and washing machines!.—Liz Razionale
And another . . .
I liked the part about the different soaps. How to make soap
more available for the different types of water it would be
going into. I liked the idea of making them into capsules, to
avoid wasting water. Or the idea about making washing ma-
chines into a new design that recycles the detergent from the
previous load. I knew that there was a lot of water in the
detergent, so the idea of waterless detergent was a good idea
to avoid all the wasted resources, but I did not know that the
washing machines only used a small portion of the detergent
during the washing cycle.—Rachel Markel
And...
I’m not an environmental science major, so I really didn’t
know a lot about environmental thinking prior to this class.
The one idea that I was constantly beat over the head with @by
Book Review 93
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1466046609990494
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. DePaul University Libraries, on 17 Mar 2020 at 14:39:51, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.
the readings in the class#was stop driving so much, stop
consuming so much, stop doing so much. So that’s what I did.
I rode my bike around and I recycled as much as I could. I felt
like I was helping, and I felt that if everyone, every company,
every country reduced its consumption. The world would be
a better place.—Adam Rosenquist
Authors McDonough and Braungart advocate smart design
and convincingly argue that poor design is the product of
our perpetual society of waste, and waste is a product of
bad design. So the environmental branding message that
consumers are bad, are materialistic and greedy, that we
must do with “less” or with “none” is leavened with the
message that designers must design better, with life-cycle
cradle-to-cradle considerations. This is a great message.
One student comment spoke simply and from the heart
about the basic challenge facing us as we aim to promote
not only the survival, but also the potential of our planet,
making use of the proposals that visionary souls like Mc-
Donough and Braungart have put forward:
I think awareness is most important surrounding the issues of
sustainability. The fact that our own peers will misplace a
piece of trash in a recycling bin, or place a blatantly recyclable
plastic bottle in a trash can, illustrates that we as a society
aren’t fully educated, or simply don’t care.—Will DeBruyn
Many thanks to the students from the Fall 2009 class of Issues
in Environmental Studies at DePaul University for their in-
sights and reflections on the ideas expressed in this article.
94 Environmental Practice 12 (1) March 2010
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1466046609990494
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. DePaul University Libraries, on 17 Mar 2020 at 14:39:51, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.
