10 Signs that climate change is happening

1 - Global temperature trends estimated by four different research groups all show a warming of the Earth over the past century, with particularly rapid increases over the past few decades.

The groups are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, Britain’s Hadley Center and Climatic Research Unit (Univ. of East Anglia) and Japan’s meteorological agency.
Image: Michael Schlesinger / University of Illinois via DotEarth


2 - Since 1901, global average surface temperatures have risen at an average rate of 0.13ºF per decade. The United States has warmed at nearly twice the global rate since the 1970s.

Image: NOAA
Source: EPA

3 - The years between 1995 and 2006 rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature (since 1850).

Image: Wikipedia
Source: IPCC 2007

4 - Average Arctic temperatures have increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years

Image: Wikipedia
Source: IPCC 2007

5 - Since 1978, the Arctic Sea ice shrunk on average 2.7% per decade, with larger decreases in the summer of about 7.4%. Arctic summer sea ice has decreased by roughly 34% since 1979.

Source: IPCC 2007

6 - Since 1960, glaciers worldwide have lost more than 2,000 cubic miles of water, contributing to observed changes in sea level rise.

Source: EPA

7 - Three different studies show that ocean heat content (the amount of energy the ocean absorbs) has increased substantially since 1955. Ocean heat content not only determines sea surface temperature, but also affects sea level and currents.

Source: EPA

8 - Between 1993 and 2005 sea level rose, on average, 3mm (0.1 inches) per year, attributed to an increase in melting ice and thermal expansion as the ocean absorbs excess energy.

Image: NASA
Source: NASA

9 - Intensity of cyclones (hurricanes, tropical storms, and other intense rotating storm) has risen noticeably over the past 20 years. Six of the 10 most active years have occurred since the mid-1990s, likely caused by increasing sea surface temperatures.

Image: IPCC 2007
Source: EPA

10 - Satellite images show the three lowest minimum extents of Arctic Sea ice were reached in 2007, 2008 and 2009. The 2007 total reflected a loss of 490,000 square miles of sea ice—an area larger than Texas and California combined. The Arctic summer could be ice-free by mid-century, according to a study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.



Read more over at www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-global-warming-scientific-evidence-2011

Recycled Design brings light to the worlds poorest communities

This is a great video that shows how the solar bottle-bulbs are being used in the Philippines. Although not graphic design - this shows how lateral thinking and the use of available resources can be used to create something that is cost efficient, sustainable and improves peoples lives.

It's a simple solution that uses recycled materials and the refractive properties of water. Apparently this was designed and developed by students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).



If you're interested, here's a link to a high quality image that shows instructions to make your own!!

Green Packaging Design

Packaging is the one area where reduction of materials and a switch to more sustainable and recycled products is easy and cost effective.
This short video from Dell, the electronic manufacturer shows how they can re-design with sustainability in mind.

Dell embraces the three C's concept:

• Cube - making the packaging smaller
• Content - using sustainable or recycled materials
• Curb - making package disposal as easy as throwing it into the recycling bin for curb-side collection

Does your packaging embrace the three C's?



If you're interested about sustainable packaging design, check out the PUMA Shoebox Sustainable Packaging Redesign.

Soy based inks introduction video

Here's a quick video that gives you an introduction about soy based inks.  It gives a quick explanation of why petroleum based inks became popular, and how the move to a more sustainable ink is beneficial to the printing process as well as the environment.

This information is covered in more depth if you check out the sustainable graphic design quick guide to inks. There's also some great information about the de-inking process at the bottom of the quick guide to inks.

Sustainable Packaging Redesign fuseproject and PUMA

Here's a great video of how Yves Behar of fuseproject and PUMA re-designed the shoebox.

They spent 21 months | 2,000 ideas | 40+ prototypes

The result:

• 65% reduction in cardboard use
• using no tissue will save 8500 tons of paper and 1 million litres of water
• reduce CO2 by 10,000 tons
• 275 tons of plastic will also be saved

If you've read the sustainable designers quick guide to glues then you'll know that sometimes no-glue is best.

Check out fuseproject's neat no-glue design for the inside box:

To see more images follow this link over to fuseproject.com

Sustainability, Peak Oil & Graphic Design

As mentioned previously, peak oil is one of the three major factors that will affect our future.
Below is a great video animation that introduces the products of the oil industry and the concept of peak oil.

(this peak oil chart comes from a great infographic you can view here)

Notice how lots of the products we print, design and market are made with oil, powered by oil and transported with oil.
If you want to find out more, just do a google search on "peak oil" and you'll get heaps of info.
For information about what you can do to minimise the effect of peak oil then check out the other posts in this blog and the quick guides to paper, ink and glue - all available on the right hand panel.

Population growth and sustainability

This animation was created for MiND TV.  It's a great graphic example of how fast the worlds population has grown from 3 Billion in the 1960's to almost 7 billion today.  It explores how a growing world population affects food and water supplies and the ecological balance.

Some may argue with the projected statistics in this video, however the reality is that we, as the human race are more numerous than ever before.



Sustainability and sustainable practice in graphic design are an obvious step to reduce our impact on the environment.

The suggested first step in this video - reduce consumption and find sustainable solutions!

If you're motivated to make a change however small, then check out this post about the Design Can Change pledge.

Sustainability - a graphic designers perspective

Here is a great video of Eric Benson speaking at TEDx conference in 2010 and gives his perspective to sustainable graphic design.  As a graphic designer his awakening happened at seeing his own direct mail designs dumped in his own rubbish bin (trash can).  Eric now produces environmentally friendly print and packaging material and digital media. Check out the video of his talk below.

Here's a simple graphic of the direct mail life-cycle.  It's highly simplified - and really only shows the journey of the paper, not the ink or other consumables and it only ends in the bin rather than a landfill or incinerator.  Even so, notice that it's not really a "cycle" but a linear flow.  The thing that makes this linear flow possible is cheap energy to transport and process the trees into printed material.

In this video Eric raises some interesting questions and then points out the power we have as graphic designers to change the way we work and to make better decisions.



Eric asks the following questions:
What are the impacts of the objects that I create?
Why is sustainability important to graphic designers?

He gives us the following sobering facts:
Paper industry is the 4th largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
100 million trees are felled annually to produce junk mail.

and Eric points out the power we have as graphic designers:
Facilitate real change throughout the supply chain.
Make sustainable design what design IS not merely what it could be.
The more knowledge and tools, the easier it is to make better decisions that when added up can change the world.

For an introduction into the production of consumer goods check out this post about the story of stuff and sustainable graphic design.

Why have sustainable graphic design?

Graphic design is the skill of using text, graphics and colour to communicate a message.  Traditional mediums for graphic design are business cards, brochures, flyers, posters, billboards and signs.

A primary goal of graphic design is to enhance, advertise or market this message to a specific audience.
This is where graphic design runs into the real world of "stuff".

As graphic designers we are at the forefront of stuff production and marketing - and that makes sustainability very much our business.

Here is a great animated introduction into the Story of Stuff and a good place to start this blog.



We can take this as an invitation to see what we can do, as graphic designers, to find out more about the processes and end products of our design decisions.

Stay tuned as we venture into the world of sustainable graphic design.

If you want to find out more about the sustainable graphic design blog visit this page.