Since business as usual is not an option and since we just can’t surrender to the gloom, we must imagine positive ways of addressing our predicament. Scientist Tim Jackson offers this as part of a larger essay:
Which brings us back I suppose to Ronald Reagan’s stirring evocation of the unlimited power of human intelligence, imagination and wonder. My students, generally speaking, agree with that part of the former President’s finest lines. Why should they not? Our ingenuity is not just legendary, it’s evolutionary. There’s very good evidence to show that it is partly responsible for, and certainly complicit in our enormous ‘success’ as species. A success which looks anything other than that, of course, for most other species on the planet.
But why should we not turn that intelligence, imagination and wonder to new and exciting purposes? To improving the efficiency of material cycles. To reducing the cost of renewable energy still further. To developing technologies that work in harmony with natural ecosystems rather than against them. Or perhaps towards a greater sense of material sufficiency. Towards an economy of care and craft and creativity. Towards concern for others. Towards better stewardship of the planet.
That is a comforting and encompassing vision: care, craft, and creativity. How can landscape architecture and urban planning take that on?
