Guest speaker: Nathan Shedroff

Today in class, we had a guest speaker, Nathan Shedroff, a designer and a businessman. He emphasized that now in the 21st century, design, sustainability, and business cannot exist without each other. In fact, they cannot be successful without the understand of at least some of the sphere within each other. He also posed three important questions that we had to think about:

- What does a more sustainable world look like?
- What's a more meaningful world look like?
- What's a post-consumer world look like?

You can probably figure out some of these answers by comparing the different societies in Cuba, India, and Brazil.

What I got most from his lecture is his opinion on the term "green." Whenever we tell someone to be "green," they think of us as extremists who would hug trees. He suggested that we should refrain from using that term and try "sustainable" instead. Sometimes, when people think about being "sustainable," they think about not spending money on anything and being completely frugal. It's ironic that Cuba is the most sustainable country in the world, yet they are so poor. But Shedroff sheds a light that we don't have to be frugal to be sustainable. Curutiba, a city in Brazil has reformed their commuter system by having their underground train system on top of the ground. Now, most of the citizens commute by bus and it's very efficient.