02: Oil storms
Research notes on tech, ecology, design futures, and design. This month: how gentle can a phase-shift be?
The idea: Climate accountability
In his July 2023 TED talk, called ‘What the fossil fuel industry doesn’t want you to know’, Al Gore delivers a searing takedown of oil and gas companies. “I think it's time to say, wait a minute, do you take us for fools?” he says of the brazen lobbying techniques and gaslighting being used to delay climate action. “The fossil fuel industry has captured this process and is slowing it down. And we need to do something about it.” He notably stops short of blaming individual employees (“they didn’t cause this”) - but others may not, particularly as ecocide laws solidify.
September 15-17 saw global protests organised by Global Fight To End Fossil Fuels, who advocate for a speedy phase-out that is “fair, fast, forever”. While some people argue that fossil fuel companies are equipped with the skills and resources we need to transition away from their products, others argue that the corporations that fuelled the problem (and worked very hard to stop it being addressed decades ago) cannot - and morally should not - be rewarded to now provide clean energy infrastructure.
Instead, they could face increasing litigation - among other forms of public shaming. California is suing five oil companies and a group that spread disinformation on their behalf, for “decades of deception, cover-up and billions of dollars in harm done”.
In 2012, US environmentalist Bill McKibben proposed that we name hurricanes after the fossil fuel companies whose products are making them more frequent and more extreme. This summer, former Weather Channel meteorologist Guy Walton put the idea into practice, naming two heatwaves Amoco and BP. Walton describes it as “a naming and shaming thing”, adding that “people need to be riled up. If it causes consternation, so be it.”
A similar approach is at work in purposefully frustration-inducing activism from campaigners including The Tyre Extinguishers, guerrilla activists who deflate SUV tyres and leave a lentil inside the valve cap for the vehicle’s owner to find, plus information on why their car is so polluting. This provides what supporters might call “useful friction”, forcing people to think about the climate crisis and their part in it, but can also be seen as creating “alienating anger” that puts people off from supporting climate action.
There will be more to come — not only in the form of activism, but in regulation. In extended producer responsibility laws (EPR), the producer must bear the environmental costs associated with a product throughout its life cycle. EPR currently applies mainly to packaging, and it’s at early stages even there, but it’s likely to extend in scope to consumer products across the board in time, making companies accountable for climate impact through the full use of their product, and its end-of-life.
Some brands are working far ahead in terms of taking responsibility for their impact. Norwegian furniture brand Minus produces carbon-negative wooden furniture, which it sells on a subscription model and then converts to biochar, which can be used to sequester carbon in soil, at the furniture’s end-of-life. The company aims to operate with a “100-year perspective”.
If subsidies for high-emission products are phased out and taxes for damage are brought in, climate accountability will be reflected in prices and profitability as well as deflated tyres — and we will see many more businesses taking the longer view.
📄 Research notes
In Beijing, the X Museum Triennial 2023 exhibition Home is Where The Haunt Is explores “generative kinship—the latest ecosystem formed by new technology and the relational existence of organisms”
Queer Nature at London's Kew Gardens celebrates the diversity of plants and fungi. “While they don’t have sexes in the way that we might recognise them, each fungus has a mating type which needs to be compatible. In some species of fungi, there can be thousands of different mating types”
In Sydney, a brilliant-sounding Rafael Lozano-Hemmer exhibition on generative AI, interactive tech, and the unseen data-harvesting that enables both those things. “We let interaction generate the conditions for change”
Superflux’s Action Speaks Summit brings 30 examples of “actionable hope” to NY Climate Week, including waste-sorting robots by SSAB AB and Native community-led renewable energy systems by Seneca Solar
Cruise will launch wheelchair-accessible driverless vehicles in 2024. Autonomous mobility has always had massive potential for people with disabilities — now some of that potential could be realised
One of the ideas that fascinates me is designing end-of-life for not only a product but a product type. Single-use vapes are an example of a product that shouldn’t have been made in the first place, and they are starting to (slowly) be phased out
Supermarkets in Germany and the Netherlands experimented this summer with re-pricing food to show its real cost, in environmental degradation and health impact
Negotiators have created a “zero draft” of the global plastics treaty that 175 countries voted for in 2022, due to be in place in 2024. Its proposals include mandatory plastics reduction targets for countries, a phase-out of microplastics and single-use items, and targets for reuse, repair and repurposing
MR/XR hardware continues to develop fast. Google and Samsung are working together on Project Moohan, an Apple Vision Pro challenger (Meta is partnering with LG to do something similar)
Multisensory modalities have long been one of the most interesting areas of tech research. Now, Youtube is testing a new feature where you hum to search for a song
💻 My work
Futures Forecasting: Joining The Dots on synthesis, narrative and the relationships between trends
Futures Forecasting: The Power of Language on how the words and phrases we choose shape our worldview and expose our values
🍄 Interesting products
The first products by Normal Phenomena of Life, “the world’s first biodesign-native lifestyle brand and innovation catalyst” by Faber Futures and Ginkgo Bioworks, include a bacterially-dyed jacket and algae prints
Dolce & Gabbana collaborated with Sky Glass on the Carretto Siciliano, a beautiful handpainted TV (the remote!)
Barava by Johnny Betz is a hanging lava lamp that can sync its movements to songs via app, for high-vibe interiors
Grouphug's window-mounted solar charger is also a great educational aid for children learning about renewable energy
Micro-scale mushroom producer Smallhold's mushroom kits
🎧 Listening
Alan Dye, Apple’s VP Human Interface Design, on the brilliant Design Matters podcast talking UX, crafting the Apple Watch, and the possibilities of the Vision Pro
“I hold this to be true: there’s an amount of change you can create yourself, and then there’s an amount you can create by being a catalyst” — Dale Vince, Ecotricity founder and renewable energy innovator, on broadcaster James O’Brien’s podcast Full Disclosure