I have read the original post and the responses following it. You make and bring up good points, and while I believe it is important to move towards a "sustainable" future it isn't necessarily going to begin in the realm of design. Currently I don't believe people, including designers and society as a whole, know what it would mean for something to be sustainable. Sustainability and eco-friendly are not the same animal. There are negative repercussions to basically anything humans make . We can make things less harmful but to truly be sustainable would require large leap in science as well as other fields of study that understand nature and its vast diversities.
To begin down the right path would require a new way of thinking and for society to re-analyze the way we live. As designers we have a huge responsibility to help lead the way. The entire concept of design is basically the creation of trash or garbage. All things end up being thrown away, unless of course there is large value placed in the product by the user in which the product transforms into something greater. If we eliminate the concept of even referring to things as trash and help people realize the potential of the materials used to create the product, it would open up a new outlook on consumption. Don't just rethink how things are made rethink if design is even what society needs. It could be a good time to quit designing and rethink how we could be doing things.
