Basic Common Sense: Further Radical Ecological Thought Experiments

These short thought experiments address the things that are causing stress and damage to our urban civilization, from sex and restrooms to unfinished science writing. From religion and diet to population limits and wilderness reservation. From our problems with logic to making healthy images of our place in the planet (and universe). From fetal economics to ecological economics. From clueless or dangerous design to global ecological design. There are many more experiments that we can make to try to outline good actions and their connections and long-term consequences–we have not been very successful at this, because our thinking has been shallow, narrow and tightly focused on entertainment or trivial matters. The planet outside is unravelling and wobbling. We must outline a new economics and politics to balance all of civilization, and its domestic landscapes and animals, with the larger, still fundamentally wild planet that supports us, and our fabulous, imaginative virtual worlds and sophisticated technologies.

Alan Wittbecker is Senior Ecologist with SynGeo ArchiGraph. He is the author of several articles and books, including 'Redesigning the Planet.'