Introduction

Controlling Carbon is the blog for the 2007 Innovation Studio at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Global warming is one of the most pressing issues of our time. There is deep consensus around the causes and implications of climate change. And in recent years significant work has been done to identify technical solutions to mitigate carbon emissions. But to date, design examination of these measures has been sorely lacking.

This year the Innovation Studio will focus on carbon mitigation at the scale necessary to stabilize worldwide emissions at 2005 levels. In so doing, the studio aspires to help shift the attention of the design disciplines to the immediate challenges that we face and communicate to a larger public the kinds of investment that need to be made now.

Since 1999 the Innovation Studio at RISD has been tackling the “big stuff” – the difficult environmental and infrastructure problems of our day. The studio uses interdisciplinary collaboration to rethink our fundamental assumptions about energy production, manufacturing, waste management and water to develop new models of ecologically sound infrastructures. Over the last eight years the studio’s subject matter has garnered wide ranging support including studio sponsorships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems (a National Science Foundation Initiative), the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council and many RISD departments. In addition the Studio relies on the active participation of policy makers, planners, community activists and businesspeople.