I recently made a pecha kucha, I tried not to follow a theme but by the end of my project I found that I had actually formed a theme of environment. My research into each of the 20 pictures mostly focused on how each picture relates to and exists within our environment.
Part of this project was to also put the pictures together in Adobe Premiere Pro as a slide show for our presentation to the studio. An extra part of this was adding in a timer – 20 seconds per slide. The link for my video is below:
Tiger
There are more captive tigers in the US than there are wild tigers in the rest of the world. There are around 5000 captive tigers in America compared with the 3,900 in the wild around the world. Most of the remaining wild tigers live in India but their numbers are continuing to drop due to deforestation.
Deforestation
Habitat destruction like deforestation reduced tigers to 3% of their historical area. The picture on the screen at the moment was taken in India and regards a drought they’re actually headed into due to deforestation.
Climate Change
This is all largely linked to climate change which has reduced wildlife habitats like that of tigers. Climate change is something almost everyone will know about, it’s a crisis that we all face and I found an interesting way of assessing the impact that we as designers have on the climate.
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
Climate change has caused us as a species to be far more thoughtful about our environment which over recent decades has led to the EIA. It assesses the impact on the environment of a plan, policy or actual projects before any proposed action. Although there are still risks to our environment which are often overlooked.
Space Debris
Something which is very rarely considered when talking about our environment and which is usually underappreciated is space debris. There are 100’s of millions of pieces of debris in orbit and if there were ever a significant collision in orbit, we may no longer be able to use satellites or even send new ones up there.
Gravity (Movie)
One of the only productions I’ve ever seen which accurately presents how big this issue of space debris actually is. In the movie, within hours nearly every satellite in orbit has become part of a massive debris cloud circling the earth. In reality this would end civilization as we know it.
Asteroids
Unlike movies about space debris there are plenty of movies about asteroids, like this one we recently landed on and actually took a sample of. Asteroids like this are often glorified in movies but in reality we have never had to deal with a potential asteroid.
Arizona crater
This is a very old reminder of the destructive power of an asteroid impact, located in Arizona. It’s over a mile in diameter and 171m deep, it’s 50,000 years old and still highly visible. We know it’s an asteroid impact due to high levels of iridium in the surface around the crater.
Iridium
One of the rarest metals on earth, found in the earth due to asteroid impacts like the previous slide. It’s so rare there are only 2 parts per billion of pure iridium in the earth’s crust. Iridium sounds like something out of a sci fi movie but it actually has some interesting uses.
Fountain pens
Since Iridium is such a hard metal and is so resistant to corrosion it’ often used to tip fountain pens. When buying high end fountain pens the choice of nib is often between gold and iridium. It’s interesting how materials come together to form products such as fountain pens, something as expensive as Iridium compared with like Shellac for example.
Shellac
This is shellac, it’s a resin secreted by a Lac bug and is commonly used in ink but has many current uses. It’s basically considered a natural plastic and a bio-adhesive. Although the Lac bug is actually considered a pest in many places. Like in China where they feed on Ber trees.
Ber Trees
Ber trees or jujube trees are found all over India and other parts of Asia, it is an economically important tree for a lot of dry regions as it can withstand long periods of drought. In recent decades it has become even more so important as the fatty acids of its seed oil meet all the international standards for biodiesel.
Biodiesel
Biodiesel can be made from so many different things, which is why it is such a great alternative to other fossil fuels. Pretty much any organic material can be turned into biodiesel in some way. Recently one of these materials identified as a source of biodiesel is actually alligator fat.
Alligators
Every year the alligator meat industry disposes of an estimated 7000 tones of alligator fat. I didn’t realize how big the Alligator industry is, considering it’s such a dangerous animal. In fact alligators jaw muscles only really work one way, because of this an alligators jaw can be held shut by just a couple wraps of duct tape.
Duct tape
Duct tape has been around for more than 100 years now. It’s one of those universal materials that can fix most small problems. Duct tape is so versatile that it was actually taken to the moon in several of the Apollo missions and even used to improvise a dust guard on the wheels of the LRV
Lunar Roving Vehicle
This is a wheel of the LRV, you can see the guard covering the wheel and lining the guard are several strips of duct tape. The LRV in videos looks really fun to drive but also really difficult. There are 3 LRV’s on the moon at the moment and only 12 people have ever used them.
Mariana Trench
In contrast only 3 people have ever been to the lowest point in the ocean – the Mariana trench. Arguably it’s actually harder to reach this spot than it is to reach the moon. It’s actually so deep that it was actually marked as a spot for radioactive waste disposal.
Ocean Disposal of radioactive waste
This is a map of just some of the places where radioactive waste has been disposed of over the last 70 years. It was decided not to dispose of waste in the Mariana trench but it is obvious now that we should never have disposed of it in the ocean in the first place.
Great Barrier Reef
The great Barrier reef has largely been destroyed today due to our impact on the ocean. Disposing of our waste in the ocean combined with ocean warming has led to the death of much of this great coral reef, just like so many other animals and species on the earth.
Tiger
The tiger for example, it’s habitat has been reduced by 95% of its historical range. This has reduced the number of wild tigers so much that there are now more tigers in captivity in America than there are wild in the rest of the world.
