Forecaster calls the coronavirus "an amazing grace for the planet"

[Bayard]

A design trends forecaster calls the coronavirus “an amazing grace for the planet”

Climate Consciousness
Every decision counts.

“I think we should be very grateful for the virus because it might be the reason we survive as a species.”

Dutch trends forecaster Li Edelkoort has a provocative outlook on Covid-19, the deadly coronavirus strain that has upended manufacturing cycles, travel plans, and conference schedules around the world. Speaking at Design Indaba, a conference in Cape Town last week, the celebrated 69-year old design industry advisor pictured Covid-19 as a sobering force that will temper our consumerist appetites and jet-setting habits.

Edelkoort, who in recent years has become a fashion sustainability crusader, believes we can emerge from the health crisis as more conscientious humans. “We need to find new values—values of simple experience, of friendship,” she told Quartz. “It might just turn the world around for the better.”

“The virus will slow down everything,” Edelkoort notes. “We will see an arrest in the making of consumer goods. That is terrible and wonderful because we need to stop producing at such a pace. We need to change our behavior to save the environment. It’s almost as if the virus is an amazing grace for the planet.”

Having been a consultant to global brands like Armani, Hyundai, and Google, in a career spanning more than 45 years, Edelkoort is attuned to how travel restrictions affect businesses. Then, of course, there is the crucial role China plays in the supply chain for companies around the world. “People will try to do things via Skype, but that seldom works,” she explains. “We are already two months behind, which means summer-themed goods won’t be delivered or will arrive too late to be sold.”

But after the coronavirus, utopia looms, Edelkoort suggests. Indeed, Covid-19 could open new avenues for innovation, akin to how the bubonic plague ushered in an era of labor reforms and improvements in medicine in the Middle Ages. Being confined to our own towns or cities could foster a revival of cottage industries and an appreciation for locally made goods, she says. “There are so many possibilities,” Edelkoort says. “I’m strangely looking forward to it.”

https://qz.com/1812670/a-design-trends-forecaster-calls-the-coronavirus-an-amazing-grace-for-the-planet/

[customerserviceguy]

1. "...fashion sustainability crusader..."

There's three words I never thought I'd see together.

[Native]

3. well, it sure beats "Boomer Remover"

I've read that's trending among some "Millennials"

[klook]

5. Charming. (nt)

[eleny]

12. Sustainable fashion - Wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_fashion

Sustainable fashion is a movement and process of fostering change to fashion products and the fashion system towards greater ecological integrity and social justice.

[customerserviceguy]

17. Putting the words

together in that order does make it a bit easier to interpret. And I thought people were trying to get away from use of the word "crusader" because of how it makes Islamic people feel.

Maybe this is just bad writing.

[eleny]

18. I love to watch any and all fashion type tv shows

It's silly because I'm a jeans and tee shirt girl. Anyhow, I never heard the phrase "sustainable fashion". So I took the opportunity to see if it was more than some blather. Well, knock me over with a feather.

[customerserviceguy]

19. To me

the whole fashion industry is antithetical to the notion of "reduce, reuse, recycle". Fashion tells people that they are nothing unless they buy new crap, and tries to make others feel cheap or gauche for wearing something "so last season" ago.

Many, if not most, Americans have closets full of clothing that is perfectly good, but the fashion industry tries to get them to buy even more. Maybe this crisis will cause people to look at mindless consumerism in a whole new light.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. Mother Nature's bioweapon to thin the herd eh? that sounds like a movie

[JesterCS]

4. I've heard this from multiple people

That's it's a huge conspiracy to kill off older people. I laugh, but then I also wonder lol

[Mariana]

11. If the goal was to kill off older people, whoever did it should be fired.

Most of the old people who contract it survive.

[DonCoquixote]

6. what people like this ignore

is that it will be impossible at worst, difficult at best, to develop empathy when you cannot talk to people.

[Brainfodder]

7. Killing off the weak is amazing grace?

[gratuitous]

8. Some folks are calling this a sabbath break

Certainly humans - particularly in the United States - seem incapable of really, truly taking a break from everything. I don't remember when it happened, but apparently there was some vote taken where we all signed on to become goal driven achievement oriented Type A personalities. Everyone has to be going full tilt non-stop or face the dread prospect of falling behind. We've seen the damage in other people's lives (and perhaps our own). Health suffers, relationships deteriorate, work gets shoddy because there's no chance to step back and think things through. But lift your foot off the pedal at all, and you're some mooch looking for a handout.

We used to know how to relax. We used to build that into our society. Somewhere along the line, though, downtime became a dirty word, an obscenity. After a lifetime of work, folks who retire to live on a pension or social security are derided as moochers even when they've earned that time off.

There may be a lesson to be learned here. And it took a global pandemic with all the attendant sickness, misery and death to shove it in our faces.

[yonder]

9. Excellent.

It IS way past time for bigger, faster and louder to be throttled back.

[Duppers]

15. "derided as moochers"

Last edited Tue Mar 17, 2020, 02:09 AM - Edit history (1)

Only by the younger generations, then only the dumbassed RWer ones who somehow feel we are taking something from them.

The main thing the older generation bears horrible guilt for is not taking better care of our planet.

[Ron Green]

10. If not a cure for consumer capitalism, then maybe a corrective.

Simple living, community wealth building and a steady-state economy: I’d sacrifice my own life to bring that to the world.

[Duppers]

14. Way too impractical and idealistic.

Sorry, I think it's simply too unrealistic; the world is just too complicated.

Besides, most of us aren't rich enough to have "jet-setting" habits. If we have extra money, we save it for rainy days or to improve our housing. Young millennials do not seem to have such values, perhaps because they are less optimistic about the future and therefore live more in and for the moment. The ones I know don't even care about buying homes! (Perhaps I'm just jealous, but I disapprove.)

Guess I'm just an old curmudgeon/ skeptic.

Does Edelkoort not have any loved ones he fears losing?

The only silver lining I see in this most horrible plague is the fact it will rid us of the disgusting, self-serving narcissist soiling our WH and plundering our nation's values.