This week I read the Yes market article: “Does the Market Work Better Than Government at Transitioning Sustainability”. This article informs the reader of different approaches in environmental economics. Over the years the United States Protection Agency has put the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act into effect to ensure protect our environment. Something I found interesting in the article was the mentioning of cap-and- trade. Cap-and-trade is a market based approach to controlling pollution that allows corporations or national governments to trade emissions allowances under an overall cap, or limit, on those emissions. I also found it interesting when the author mentioned that the United States actually could afford to do something about climate change but that doesn’t necessarily mean we should. The reason we shouldn’t is because we need to get the rest of the world on board with taking action on climate change. Without the help of other countries large amounts of harmful emissions would still be put into the air.

                  After looking through the wicked problems website I decided to read the section about participatory design.Participatory design involves giving simple objects and artifacts to non-designers, and working with them to visualize a new design. The author says that by eliminating the workers from the process of designing for the workers, a nonparticipatory designer has robbed those individuals their humanity. 

                  This past week we learned about the transformational research method. I believe that using current state is a good method to identify future indicators of what needs to be done to reach our sustainable goal.

                  I researched the Newman’s food and beverage company and was very inspired by the company’s ideals. I had no idea the Newman brand gave 100% of their profits to charity and felt inspired after learning this. In 1982 Paul Newman decided he was going to donate all of his profit from this company to charities and it has been that way ever since. The Newman Foundation focuses on supporting philanthropies, providing educational grants, and supplying nutrition to people in underdeveloped areas. After learning about all of the good this brand gives to the world it makes me want to start buying more of their products. If I were to choose a problem and decide how to alleviate it I would choose the issue of providing healthy food in poorer areas. The way I would alleviate this issue would be to set up food donation stations in easy accessible locations in every city and build markets that would supply this food in poorer areas for free.