Reconceptualizing Infrastructure in the Anthropocene

摘要

A fundamental shift is afoot in the relationship between human and natural systems. It requires a new understanding of what we mean by infrastructure, and thus dramatic changes in the ways we educate the people who will build and manage that infrastructure. Similar shifts have occurred in the past, as when humanity transitioned from building based on empirical methods developed from trial-and-error experience, which was sufficient to construct the pyramids and European cathedrals, to the science-based formal engineering design methods and processes necessary for the electric grid and jet aircraft. But just as the empirical methods were inadequate to meet the challenges of nineteenth- and twentieth-century developments, today's methods are inadequate to meet the needs of the twenty-first century. Now that we have entered the Anthropocene period in which human activities affect natural systems such as climate, engineers face far more complex design challenges.