ing”) solutions [ 4]. We are proposing to augment efforts to include design for digital interactivity that helps prepare and adapt to the potential effects of global warming and climate change.

[ 6] DiSalvo, C., Sengers, P., and Brynjarsdóttir, H. “Navigating the Terrain of Sustainable HCI.” Interactions 17, 4 (2010): 22–25.

September + October 2010

[ 7] See Bonanni, L., Hockenberry, M., Zwarg, D., Csikszentmihalyi, C., and Ishii, H. “Small Business Applications of Sourcemap: A Web Tool for Sustainable Design and Supply Chain Transparency.” In Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI ’ 10. (2010): 937–946; as well as StepGreen ( http://www.stepgreen. org/). Dan Rosenberg and Daniela Busse from SAP are building dashboards to track carbon based on the considerable scale and reach of SAP soft ware installations [private conversation]; http:// www.sap.com/usa/ solutions/executiveview/ sustainability/ [ 8] Fry T. Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics, and New Practice. Oxford: Berg Publishing, 2009.

Hope for the Best; Prepare for the Worst

How does one deal with these possibilities? It would be possible to despair on the grounds that it may be too late for efforts to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions—and to do nothing as a consequence of despair. Alternatively, the logic of Figure 1 may work—“hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.” This logic is complicated in this case, because the choices we make now about how much effort to direct toward either reducing greenhouse gas emissions or preparing for and adapting to the potential effects of global warming have implications for the possible outcomes. The difficult choices this chart represents may be mitigated somewhat by the possibility that adopting lifestyles that reduce greenhouse gas emissions may overlap somewhat with preparing for and adapting to the potential effects of global warming, by helping us understand how to sustain ourselves on fewer resources in a post–tipping point world, which likely offers fewer resources.

Much of what has been written in HCI about sustainability relates to designing digital interactivity to change the behaviors that lead to unsustainable lifestyles—lifestyles that produce the greenhouse gases that almost indisputably lead to anthropogenically induced climate change. From the logic of “hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” it is clear that at least some if not many of us need to also consider the degree to which some of our efforts need to be directed toward designing digital interactivity to prepare for and adapt to the potential effects of global warming and climate change. We are proposing the middle course of Figure 1; that is, we are not proposing to abandon efforts to use digital interactivity to promote behaviors that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or muster public support for technological solutions. Lovelock provides an analysis of the viability of various technological (“geoengineer-

Sustainable interaction Design Much has been written about sustainable interaction design; there is much left to do and to write. In the previous issue of interactions, as well as in a well-received paper at CHI 2010, DiSalvo, Sengers, and Brynjarsdóttir identify several genres of work along these lines based on a thorough study of what has been written to date, raising important questions about the future paths for this work— especially questions of faith in technology as usual [ 6]. There are some substantial projects, too numerous to inventory here—examples include software for showing the source of constituent elements of products for small-business owners, data mining by SAP to track carbon as if it were a commodity, and software targeted at letting individuals understand and take steps to lessen their carbon footprints [ 7]. As a more general account of sustainable design, Tony Fry’s notions of redirective practice, acts of elimination, and development of sustainment [ 8] are keys to understanding sustainability not just as a matter of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but more important, as a matter of adopting lifestyles that rely on fewer and more natural uses of resources. As such, Fry’s notions and the degree to which efforts in sustainable interaction design target-wise use of resources are likely as germane to a post–tipping point world as to a world at risk of reaching a tipping point.

interactions

the Potential Role of HCi in a Post– tipping Point World With scientific dispassion, Lovelock claims it is possible to think of the culling of the global human population as a matter of natural course, even if