The Smartest Guys in the Room | Nov 7th at 3:53pm
Watching Alex Steffen and Richard Saul Wurman perform is an experience. They are both accomplished, talented raconteurs and they know it.
Alex Steffen doesn’t talk about carbon anymore. He doesn’t bother telling a roomful of architects and planners about density or insulation. He has gone beyond that and expects that we all have as well.
After we have insulated all of our houses and rebuilt our cities, we are going to have to start thinking about the hard stuff.
About how we make things so that we can take them apart. About green chemistry. How we are going to have the kind of transparency that lets us know if we are buying blood diamonds or rainforest wood. About how we have think about our patterns of consumption, shared goods and lasting quality.
And, we have to learn what makes us happy.
Alex’s curiosity and intelligence are reflected in Worldchanging, which continues to be the smartest and most sophisticated discussion of the issues that face us.
Richard Saul Wurman describes himself as a stupid man. “I am not very smart, and my ignorance is terrific. I embrace my stupidity. I am also very curious. I have written 81 books that are the journey of the tango between my curiosity and my stupidity.”
That is why he is doing something as stupid as the 19.20.21 project, ” a multi-year multimedia initiative to collect, organize and better understand population’s effect regarding urban and business planning”
Both are visionaries who are looking far beyond the obvious. Alex Steffen sees the big picture and can riff about anything affecting our planet. Richard Saul Wurman? He is already on another planet.
I feel sorry for James Higgins, who had to follow these acts.
Lloyd Alter has been an architect, developer, inventor, and builder of prefab housing. He now writes for TreeHugger and Planet Green, is an Associate Professor at Ryerson University teaching sustainable design, and has written for Azure and Ontario Nature magazines.
