“Our job is to dream” 17 May 2005
11 comments Latest by Rik Abel
Designing the Future is an interview with William McDonough, a leading ecological architect who aims to eliminate waste and pollution. Sound hippie dippie? Well he’s already built buildings that generate more energy than they consume and factories whose waste water is clean enough to drink. Now he’s working with Fortune 500 companies and the government of China to “produce a world of abundance and good design.”
So growth is good? Yes, if you use nature as a model and mentor, if you use modern designs and chemicals that are safe. Growth is destructive if you use energy not from the sun and a system of chemicals that is toxic, so it’s anti-life.
Given that industry today fits your definition of anti-life, why aren’t you fighting for stricter environmental regulations? If coal plants release mercury — and mercury is a neurotoxin that damages children’s brains — then reducing the amount of mercury in emissions doesn’t stop that. It just says, “We’ll tell you at what rate you can dispense death.” Being less bad is not being good. Our idea is to make production so clean, there’s nothing bad left to regulate. This is extremely interesting to people of all political persuasions — those who love the environment and those who want commerce free of regulation.
11 comments (comments are closed)
Dan Boland 17 May 05
Interesting article, thanks for the link.
Adam Thody 17 May 05
That is incredible. Very inspiring!
It’s pretty common to see people with “green” ideas, but this guy is linking his ideas to commerce - the only thing people with real power really care about. I’m actually excited…
Andy Crouch 17 May 05
McDonough’s _Cradle to Cradle_ is one of the most inspiring books I’ve read in the past five years. There are aspects of his and Braungart’s work that are unproven, to say the least, and it’s interesting that this interview doesn’t touch on carbon emissions (arguably just as crucial as pollutants), but much of what he says is simultaneously common sense and revolutionary.
Darrel 17 May 05
Ecological Architect.
I like that.
Michael 17 May 05
That sounds really cool!
Ruy 17 May 05
I can’t help but point out that fossil fuels are pretty much solar batteries. (i.e. plants took in solar energy, got eaten by a whole slew of other junk, then they all died and made coal, oil, gas et al)
The main sources of enegery that aren’t from the sun are geothermal* and nuclear, both of which happen to be quite eco-friendly.
(* well, stricly speaking this too comes from the sun - it’s all left-over burning stuff from when earth was part of the sun…)
Rik Abel 18 May 05
A very cool thing about the Cradle To Cradle book is that it is itself an example of the ideas McDonagh expounds, being manufactured from recycled plastic rather than paper. This means that it is not only extremely durable, but also waterproof and thus great for reading in the bath. Which is nice. Thanks for the link!
Matt Turner 18 May 05
Yup, things are certainly changing, a web firm i do some work for have been working on a couple of big environmental websites lately (most notably www.ecosystemmarketplace.com).
Plus I met someone who works for some kind of environmental architecture company that specialised it wetlands…. at FlashForward!!
Rik Abel 18 May 05
A very cool thing about the Cradle To Cradle book is that it is itself an example of the ideas McDonagh expounds, being manufactured from recycled plastic rather than paper. This means that it is not only extremely durable, but also waterproof and thus great for reading in the bath. Which is nice. Thanks for the link!
Rik Abel 18 May 05
Oops, double post. Sorry. Oh no, I’m making it worse!!!