Saul Griffith Discusses Starting From the Global Warming Finish Line (Video)

saul griffith at compostmodern slide photo
Saul Griffith shows off a highly detailed graph of his carbon footprint during 2007.

Saul Griffith is an incredible thinker, and we at TreeHugger are quite the fan. So we were excited to see him speak at Compostmodern this weekend. Griffith spoke on how designers can start from their goal for climate change, and design products and solutions based on that goal. Click through to watch a video on how to pick your end target when it comes to global warming, as well as a hilarious slide that checks on designers' sense of humor.

He goes on to talk about the radical action that has to happen NOW for that goal to be reached. Kind of daunting...kind of depressing. Makes you want even more to work towards sustainability because it's the right thing to do, since "hope" doesn't feel very viable. But, doing the right thing is still necessary.

One of the best points Griffith brought up is probably the simplest - designers need to make energy consumption visible. An example was putting a carbon footprint fact label on products the same as a nutrition facts label, so consumers can make choices for lower footprint items the same way we go for low calorie items. Now that, is something I'd love to see happen.

Oh, and about that slide...

saul griffith design slide photo