Code and Concrete

 

  What an expected 6’ sea rise looks like

The earth has invested trillions and trillions of dollars in still-standing buildings, operational technology and infrastructure, most of which is outmoded, inefficient, insufficient or which simply does not work remotely as intended. Humanity’s ability to survive climate change, pandemics, and continued population growth could use a total ground-up rebuilding, which obviously will never happen. In the words of Devin Liddell, a futurist who consults for some of the world’s largest corporations, writing for FastCompany.com April 7th: 

“[Our] modern world is advanced through the highways, railways, airports, and seaports that facilitate the movement of people and goods at a global scale. But that advancing world tends to outgrow or evolve the utility of its infrastructure. Bridges built in one decade need more lanes in the next, airports require fewer parking spaces for cars and more places for rideshare pickups, and ports already contending with offshore backups of cargo ships are further slowed by trucks stuck in traffic. Put bluntly: The infrastructure we have in one era isn’t the infrastructure we’ll need in the next.

“Consider the troika of transformative changes that our current infrastructure will struggle to support. First, our cities are becoming bigger and bigger, with 70% of the human population anticipated to live in them by 2050, so our infrastructure will need to scale in big ways. Second, many of our cities are facing serious threats due to climate change, given that more than 90% of all urban areas are coastal, a condition that will demand infrastructure that’s adaptive and resilient. Third, infrastructure isn’t just physical anymore; technologies, including artificial intelligence and augmented reality, are blurring the distinctions between the physical and the digital and beginning to merge them together, and our infrastructure will need to operate within this new reality.” With all the new infrastructure legislation, we are still $4 trillion short on what we need today in just the United States.

In its recent report on infrastructure, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the United States a grade of C-, noting: “There is a water main break every two minutes and an estimated 6 billion gallons of treated water lost each day in the U.S., enough to fill over 9,000 swimming pools… Growing wear and tear on our nation's roads have left 43% of our public roadways in poor or mediocre condition, a number that has remained stagnant over the past several years… There are 30,000 miles of inventoried levees across the U.S., and an additional 10,000 miles of levees whose location and condition are unknown… There are more than 617,000 bridges across the United States. Currently, 42% of all bridges are at least 50 years old, and 46,154, or 7.5% of the nation’s bridges, are considered structurally deficient, meaning they are in ‘poor’ condition.” The changes we need require entirely new approaches, many defying how we have built our world to date.

Liddell answers that the necessary solutions are not just physical changes, new cars or environmentally friendly concrete: “Physical infrastructure tends toward rigidity. For example, many traffic jams are directional; highways are bumper to bumper in one direction at the beginning of the day and then again at the end of the day, with the lanes in the opposite direction clear because they can’t flex dynamically. Digital technologies help subvert that rigidity. The slow and inefficient intersection we have now with stoplights and traditional vehicles is transformed when the vehicles are connected and autonomous and their movements are managed by computers.

“Digital technologies are already integrating into our transportation infrastructure, albeit in a layered approach. Biometrics and robotics are now commonplace inside airports, and personalized wayfinding is likely in the near term. Public transit agencies shifted to cashless payment systems a long time ago, and transportation departments have already started using drones to monitor highway traffic. This trend will continue, but with infrastructure designed from the start to incorporate all the capabilities that digital technologies offer.

“What might this new digitally native infrastructure look like? ‘Pop-up’ airports that use augmented reality to replicate navigational markings on temporary 3D-printed runways, and computer vision systems for managing tower operations remotely. That kind of impermanent, virtually managed airport is necessary if we’re to meet the demand for air travel in just the next few decades—especially since passenger volumes cycle seasonally and spike for specific events like the Super Bowl and spring break. Similarly, we’ll need ferry terminals that are capable of switching between different kinds of sailings, from ferries with lots of onboard vehicles to others with walk-on passengers transferring to waiting rideshare vehicles. That kind of smart terminal will be required to account for how autonomous and shared vehicles evolve our relationships with cars.” You will note that very little of what Liddell suggests is really on our agenda.

We have instead prioritized tax cuts and a system that really only taxes revenue and not wealth (a huge benefit for the rich and a much bigger burden for everyone else), huge military spending based on a shrewd military-industrial complex with bases and military contractors in most congressional districts… operating on a “cost plus” procurement system regardless of true military needs… and a dramatic underfunding of quality education, research and infrastructure. We have too many states and a blockheaded Congressional bloc more concerned with “culture wars,” eliminating long-established abortion and voting rights and suborning democracy-killing conspiracy theories. 

Instead, teachers, professors, physicians and scientists, those most needed to survive into the future, are denigrated as “out of touch elites” whose ambit needs to be curtailed and their findings replaced with popular but vacuous political rantings. Picture the obvious long-term ramifications of this inanity. Seriously. We must be more than the Earth’s greatest nation of kicking cans down the road… to where? Remember, nature and the laws of physics are impervious to attempted political repeal.

I’m Peter Dekom, and each American needs to take a long hard look at what America really needs, what Zelensky’s Ukraine is truly fighting for, and face that one, pervasive and essential… reality… and stare it in its harsh face.