| April 2007 Issue 11 |
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BOOK REVIEW
Design for a Liquid Future
A Review of
World Changing: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century
by Osurk Blish
“Remember, remember the 5th of November…” Vernor said, as we wandered down Gastown in Vancouver. It was
November 5th, 2006, and I tried to remember November 5th of 2005. V and I dodged 600-year-old bag ladies pushing
shopping carts full of cans and needles. We’d spent the afternoon smoking hash in the Pan Pacific hot tubs
overlooking coal harbour, and now we scoured cobblestone streets in search of something called Workspace. Alex
Steffen would be doing a talk about the Worldchanging book later that night. We located the place, and ducked in out of
the rain and indigent.
We discovered that Workspace is a high concept, design-oriented, and dot commie friendly; a wide-open series of
conference rooms that can be accessed for a monthly fee like a gym membership. It’s honeycombed with laptops,
conference boards, and even a cappuccino bar complete with hot barista. I traced wet footsteps across the hardwood
floor over to where Steffen was being interviewed by some journalist.
So what’s all this Worldchanging stuff about?
Worldchanging.com is an environmentalism website that’s become a small phenomenon because of its,
unapologetically, intelligent and life-oriented approach to solving problems and designing better futures. The site’s
contributors have organized an almost 600 page book called Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21rst Century, and
now they were on tour pushing it and the universe it implies.
“We need a new model,” writes Steffen in the book “that allows unprecedented prosperity on a sustainable basis. We
need a new model that will let everyone on the planet to get rich and stay rich, while healing the planet’s ecosystems.”
Having had quite a bit of experience with Environmental groups, I was ecstatic to discover a small, success-friendly
subculture that wasn’t twisted with the pleasure-hating sickness of the old-skool Liberals. The Worldchanging guys
seemed to understand that Environmentalism must include the aesthetic and the human if it’s going to work, or in
their terminology, “We need a future that is bright, green, free, and tough.”
Enter the Worldchanging bible.
It features a forward by Al Gore and launches into hundreds of pages organized into sections like “cities,” “politics,”
“community,” and so forth. The book is at once a good read and an obvious textbook that should be in every classroom
in the world. This is a book of philosophy as much as it is a how-to manual. How else would you describe a sofa
sculpted from the very dirt and grass it sits on? How else would you describe kitchen tiles made from recycled glass
or how to make your own pedal-powered air compressor? This book is equally low tech and high tech, art and techno,
politics and practical joke. Make your own vinyl LP wax bowl and rooftop garden. If the consequences of failing this
transition weren’t so serious, I’d think this was all a joke.
All the manuals that tell me how to write a book review say I should outline any shortcomings I can find, but I can’t see
any shortcomings with this project except maybe the number of trees that must have died in order to make it. This is a
perfect book; no kidding around, this is a goddamned masterpiece. (Note: since writing this [review] Mr. Steffen has
assured me they actually killed no trees to print the book: it's 100% post-consumer recycled paper, made with wind
power.)
At Workspace, back in Gastown, Steffen summarized the world-picture his group was trying to generate for me when
he said something like before we can build a positive future, we need to be able to first imagine such a future, and I
realized I liked his style. Even if it were nothing more than a vision for the future, it would still be a magical text in my
opinion. I respect the attitude and excellent work of these people and I encourage you to pick up this book.
Book image from Amazon.
Biography
Osurk Blish lives in a hunting lodge built by Archibald Fraser on the shore of Loch Ness, Scotland. He was recently an
extra in a made for television movie about the Great War.
Design for a Liquid Future
A Review of
World Changing: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century
by Osurk Blish
“Remember, remember the 5th of November…” Vernor said, as we wandered down Gastown in Vancouver. It was
November 5th, 2006, and I tried to remember November 5th of 2005. V and I dodged 600-year-old bag ladies pushing
shopping carts full of cans and needles. We’d spent the afternoon smoking hash in the Pan Pacific hot tubs
overlooking coal harbour, and now we scoured cobblestone streets in search of something called Workspace. Alex
Steffen would be doing a talk about the Worldchanging book later that night. We located the place, and ducked in out of
the rain and indigent.
We discovered that Workspace is a high concept, design-oriented, and dot commie friendly; a wide-open series of
conference rooms that can be accessed for a monthly fee like a gym membership. It’s honeycombed with laptops,
conference boards, and even a cappuccino bar complete with hot barista. I traced wet footsteps across the hardwood
floor over to where Steffen was being interviewed by some journalist.
So what’s all this Worldchanging stuff about?
Worldchanging.com is an environmentalism website that’s become a small phenomenon because of its,
unapologetically, intelligent and life-oriented approach to solving problems and designing better futures. The site’s
contributors have organized an almost 600 page book called Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21rst Century, and
now they were on tour pushing it and the universe it implies.
“We need a new model,” writes Steffen in the book “that allows unprecedented prosperity on a sustainable basis. We
need a new model that will let everyone on the planet to get rich and stay rich, while healing the planet’s ecosystems.”
Having had quite a bit of experience with Environmental groups, I was ecstatic to discover a small, success-friendly
subculture that wasn’t twisted with the pleasure-hating sickness of the old-skool Liberals. The Worldchanging guys
seemed to understand that Environmentalism must include the aesthetic and the human if it’s going to work, or in
their terminology, “We need a future that is bright, green, free, and tough.”
Enter the Worldchanging bible.
It features a forward by Al Gore and launches into hundreds of pages organized into sections like “cities,” “politics,”
“community,” and so forth. The book is at once a good read and an obvious textbook that should be in every classroom
in the world. This is a book of philosophy as much as it is a how-to manual. How else would you describe a sofa
sculpted from the very dirt and grass it sits on? How else would you describe kitchen tiles made from recycled glass
or how to make your own pedal-powered air compressor? This book is equally low tech and high tech, art and techno,
politics and practical joke. Make your own vinyl LP wax bowl and rooftop garden. If the consequences of failing this
transition weren’t so serious, I’d think this was all a joke.
All the manuals that tell me how to write a book review say I should outline any shortcomings I can find, but I can’t see
any shortcomings with this project except maybe the number of trees that must have died in order to make it. This is a
perfect book; no kidding around, this is a goddamned masterpiece. (Note: since writing this [review] Mr. Steffen has
assured me they actually killed no trees to print the book: it's 100% post-consumer recycled paper, made with wind
power.)
At Workspace, back in Gastown, Steffen summarized the world-picture his group was trying to generate for me when
he said something like before we can build a positive future, we need to be able to first imagine such a future, and I
realized I liked his style. Even if it were nothing more than a vision for the future, it would still be a magical text in my
opinion. I respect the attitude and excellent work of these people and I encourage you to pick up this book.
Book image from Amazon.
Biography
Osurk Blish lives in a hunting lodge built by Archibald Fraser on the shore of Loch Ness, Scotland. He was recently an
extra in a made for television movie about the Great War.
