Reality: Building a Post-Carbon Civilization

The pattern language approach allows the solutions to large scale problems to evolve from small scale solutions of local impacts. Thus, the design and construction of livable and beautiful buildings, gardens, and neighborhoods, is always understood both in the local context of the project, as well as in the context of more global issues. Each individual project, while solving a particular local problem, can thus contribute to the emergence of a larger and more coherent whole, and a new positive Reality. There is little doubt that one of the largest challenge facing humanity in this century is to build a post-carbon civilization: an economy that is not based on exponential growth depleting the world’s resources, and yet is able to support human life with dignity. This enormous task cannot be achieved top-down, nor can it be built from the bottom-up only – it has to combine both approaches. How can the pattern language approach help us to confront this challenges?