Designing a better built environment
My passion is research and design. I love talking with people and learning about them—their hopes, dreams, fears, and motivations. You can learn so much once you decide to listen.
I also love design. I love thinking about how something will work. Going through different scenarios and finding a solution that works for the majority of people.
In my day job I do this online.
But I think this role is sorely needed now in cities across the world. Technology has become an integral part of our lives, and I think ensuring we're creating cities for people and the environment is our responsibility.
Thinking about people's motivations, and designing in a way that helps people make the right choice would do so much to improve the world we live in.
Humans have collectively driven thousands of species to extinction. Scientists estimate that we drive between .01% and .1% of species to extinction every year. Scientists still aren't sure how many species are in the world, but if there are only 2 million different species, that means we're killing between 200 and 2,000 species every year. We have polluted our air, water, and soil through extractive and dangerous processes in order to make our lives easier.
Think about the impact we've had. We've raised global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to an average 407 particles per million (ppm). That's higher than any point in the last 800,000 years.
Collectively we've had such a devastating impact that we are killing the only home we have.
Now imagine that we used that power for something else.
What if we used this type of power and impact to create sustainable energy that wasn't extractive? What if we used our understanding of science for conservation? What if we used our knowledge to rebuild and rethink how we create our cities; and instead mirrored our natural environments (like making all buildings living, green buildings)? We clearly have the power to make an impact. Let's use it for something better.