Blog 1 – Reflection on “Nature” by Kate Fletcher

At the beginning of Better Lives unit I felt a little bit lost. I was confused by the structure of the units and also by all the emotions that I was feeling from the lectures. Somehow, each discourse gave me the possibility of extending my knowledges, and made me reflect differently about certain topics. In fact, I chose to analyse Nature lecture by Kate Fletcher.In Kate Fletcher’s lectures, she wanted to explain how we are responsible for the actions that we take in our everyday life and for the connection of ecological systems – of nature – to daily life. Although, there is a disconnection that we don’t see. We have to gain knowledge about what changes that need to be made. She also made me reflect about how human see themselves at the center of everything and, often not realising how it is important to look around and understand that we are here thanks to nature. There are too many human activities and at moment we are living on a planet that is crumbling  because of us. There are many limits of what we can do and what we can’t do, limits that I started to explore. As Kate Fletcher argues, Nature is the fundament that enabler the fashion system . Therefore, us as students we should be able to realise our potential and to change our future and the impact on the environment.

Kate Fletcher gave us a piece of research that was made in 2008 in the stock Home Resilience Center, which called planetary boundaries explaining landmark studies; this made us reflect about the challenges that we had to face. The scientists created a list of nine boundaries which were important for us in order to find a good balance and live in a safe planet. They also explain the transgression of three boundaries, which are the rate of human interference in the nitrogen cycles, climate change and the rate of biodiversity loss. We are facing a period of uncertainly and instability. “We are burning the library of life” she said. It’s true; this me feel so bad. We must know how fast our actions consequences are. The fashion industry is one of the major polluting industries in the world. The natural world is a constant source of inspiration for textile and fashion designers. This can be joyous, desirable, but it all too easy to forget the huge damage the fashion industry inflicts on nature. It is heartbreaking when I think that we are destroying our planet with our hands and we are not gonna have a second one to live on. Let’s find solutions, let’s stop fashion pollution, slow down consumption and slow down production. Let’s find connection and let’s be aware of how big and fast our actions are.