Video Reflection : The 11th Hour

The 11th Hour is pretty much a wake up call for us to be more conscious about our environment and everything negative that happens to it, that they will all eventually come back to haunt us. The link between us and the environment is something that alot of people haven't figured out yet. People don't realize that these natural disasters - flood, food poisoning, world hunger, global warming -- all these are the impact of human actions. The destruction of the environment - cutting of trees illegally, dumping chemical substances, the dumpings of chemical substances into the river, all these helps cause the natural disasters which in turn take out lives - thinking about it again, it's like karmic retribution.

People interviewed in this documentary in one segment want us to just sit back and think - about the impacts of our actions, about why are we not responding, and what are the forces that are blocking change. The problem is not global warming, and other natural disasters that occurred, it's more about how we think and act. 

I think a big component of this documentary which is very relatable to designers is the consumerism aspect of it - about how we can make a product efficient enough to reduce consumerism. As one segment describes, we, as people living in developed countries are very selfish, we always buy new things that are offered on shelves, no matter how unneccessary they are for us just for our own satisfaction. The ones that get the negative impact of how we think and act are people who are living in the underdeveloped countries, in which we dumped our chemical waste in, and the ones which trees we logged just so that we're able to make products.

Watching this documentary, as designers it motivates me more to create products that are more environmentally friendly and push myself more to think about consumerisms and how my designs can reduce that. As one member of the ecosystem, it also helps me to think more about the environment and act upon it, because based on the harm we've inflicted upon the mother nature - it's either now or never.