May292012

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Infrastructure is a major issue of out time, stretching across towns, cities, states, regions, and countries. Our current methodology of building and maintaining it is too expensive, too inflexible, and too ecologically damaging. If we hope to solve the numerous problems we face with energy, water, transportation, healthcare, and urbanized areas, we must completely reinvent our infrastructure. An alternative to the conventional approach to public infrastructure work is emerging: Ecomimicry. Rather than attempting to make the energy grid smarter or appliances more efficient, ecomimicry aims to eliminate the need for energy all together.  It asks questions like “Why don’t birds use heating oil?” and “Why don’t buffalo build coal plants?” At first these questions may seem silly– but their answers point us toward a way of thinking that outsmarts the accepted practices of dealing with infrastructural systems. We begin to imagine that de-engineering our world could be an option for improving our lifestyles, safety, and financial systems. Metropolis

Infrastructure is a major issue of out time, stretching across towns, cities, states, regions, and countries. Our current methodology of building and maintaining it is too expensive, too inflexible, and too ecologically damaging. If we hope to solve the numerous problems we face with energy, water, transportation, healthcare, and urbanized areas, we must completely reinvent our infrastructure. An alternative to the conventional approach to public infrastructure work is emerging: Ecomimicry.

Rather than attempting to make the energy grid smarter or appliances more efficient, ecomimicry aims to eliminate the need for energy all together.  It asks questions like “Why don’t birds use heating oil?” and “Why don’t buffalo build coal plants?” At first these questions may seem silly– but their answers point us toward a way of thinking that outsmarts the accepted practices of dealing with infrastructural systems. We begin to imagine that de-engineering our world could be an option for improving our lifestyles, safety, and financial systems.

Metropolis

Tags: /infrastructure /ecology /ecoliteracy