Sometimes I feel that I’ve just had it with sad, depressing, pessimistic stories about our bleak, polluted, globally warmed, techno-dystopic future. Sure, I’m responsible for writing and editing some of those stories, but at the end of the day, I want to read some stories about the ways in which our future will be strange, wonderful, and better than the past.
Occasionally I’d just like to suspend my cynical journalistic side for a minute, and think about what it is that got me excited about science and technology in the first place. So I created an email list for sending out occasional links to stories that fit that mold.
The future is going to be awesome — not least of which because our kids will be in it.
On the futurescope list, I’ll share the occasional reminder about why and how that is.
To kick things off, here’s a story by Wired.com’s Brandon Keim about five people who are thinking about ways of building more sustainable alternatives to today’s pollution-ridden cities. The story comes from New York’s recent World Science Festival, a celebration of big ideas and big brains that was aimed at popularizing and publicizing hot science topics.
The five people Brandon mentions were onstage for a presentation on “Sustainable Cities.”
- Peter Head of design firm Arup talked about a “model city” being built in Dongtan, China.
- Dickson Despommier talked about “vertical farming” — skyscrapers full of food-growing gardens.
- Macarthur “genius” grant winner Major Carter talked about her campaign to green the Bronx and create a green roofing company.
- Mitchell Joachim spoke about his “City Car” project and something called “Peristaltic Cities.” He also showed slides of major cities setting sail for the North Pole, like something out of “The Golden Compass,” I guess.
- Blaine Brownell, a materials scientist, “gave a Willy Wonka-esque demostration of sustainable building products: spherical solar cells, flexible solar cells, zero-energy wallboard, luminescent gravel, kinetic glass, self-healing plastic, structural textiles, air- scrubbing paint and self-cleaning glass.”
All I can say is: Wow! Wish I was there.
Join the conversation on futurescope.
