Architecture and Fashion take the stage to increase awareness about the urgency of climate-system-disruption – but is it enough?
Michael Pawlyn, AIA told Dezeen Magazine:
“We urgently need to look at means to be regenerative”
Pawlyn believes the solution is regenerative design – the development of restorative and renewable systems where output is always greater than input, beneficial for humans and other species.
“We urgently need to look at means to be regenerative, which is to get into a positive cycle in which everything we do we’re trying to have a positive impact – in terms of restoring ecosystems, taking carbon out of the atmosphere, regarding communities and so on,” he told Dezeen.
However, architecture is currently stuck in the “outdated mitigation paradigm” where, at best, studios are striving for architecture that does no additional harm to the environment and only sustains its own existence.
An excellent example of Pawlyn’s observations of an outdated mitigation paradigm can, unfortunately, be seen in what has always been considered another area of leading-edge design: FASHION.
The Paris Fashion Week 2020 coincided with the United Nations first-ever Climate Action Summit in New York, and everyone was watching whether brands’ big talk would be put into action. The Most Talked About Moments focused on ZERO waste. The most regenerative action is a plan to plant the trees used on stage. The growth in awareness about Climate-Systems-Disruption is helpful but we can all agree that this is far too little.
Enter Greta Thunberg who charged the UN Climate Summit with a stark, “How dare you? … to look away and come here and say you’re doing enough.”
Her outrage is completely justified. It is backed up with scientific study and directly observable changes in our environment. Weather patterns resulting from climate disruption are impacting people’s lives and life on our planet today. From fires to flooding, from drought to snow-drifts we see impacts all around us.
To meet the presently occurring climate-systems-disruption, we are called to enact broad systemic change. A transformative response to the converging ecological, economic, and social crises we are facing has been as regenerative practice. The idea of or “Regeneration” may be new to you. But a 2018 blog by Daniel Wahl brings together an outline of this emerging field through time. This blog captures the history of how Regenerative Practice has been developing – for quite some time.
THE CAUTION IS THIS: Regenerative Practice as coached by Regenesis Group is recognized by Wahl and many others as “The Advanced Course” to regeneration. As such, it is often discouraged as heavy lifting. Folks, it is time that we have a serious response to climate-systems-disruption! The one link in this blog that should be opened, introduces us to the world as a complex place, it urges us to stop dumbing ourselves down and it shows us the path forward to real-regeneration.