Design for the New World
Ever since humans began walking upright, we have intervened in our surroundings. We have shaped tools, formed the environment, and developed structures, systems and organizations of all dimensions and levels of abstraction. Historically speak ing, one can see human activity as a gigantic design machine, producing still greater numbers of objects and human-made environments: from the millions of anonymous gadgets that fill our daily lives to pathbreaking innovations – toothbrushes and shopping malls, smartphones and kitchen machines, space stations and the internet. But the design machine has also left an enormous footprint on the surface of the planet – a footprint that, according to the latest research, is greater than the impact of all other living things. Measured by mass, there is more plastic on Earth than all land animals and marine creatures combined, and human-made materials now outweigh the entire biomass of the planet.2 If one were to make an asset list for humanity, it would no doubt include our capacity to imagine what our surroundings could be like and then realize this vision, either individually or together. It is this capacity that has given us everything from flint axes through settlement to spaceships and the strategies of multinational companies. But as a species, we have yet to fully grasp the consequences of our actions, and it currently seems impossible for humanity to set a course towards a more sustainable life on Earth, despite our scientific insight into the noxious effects of our activities.
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