All these corporate reports say they want zero carbon. Well that is ridiculous, because you are not telling us what you are, you are telling us what you are not.

Here's where redesign begins in earnest, where we stop trying to be less bad and we start figuring out how to be good.

Designing renders visible our hopes and dreams. It is the first signal of human intentions.

Designers are inherently optimistic people who try to make the world a better place

And to use something as elegant as a tree? Imagine this design assignment: Design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, makes complex sugars and foods, changes colors with the seasons, and self-replicates. and then why don't we knock that down and write on it?

You don't filter smokestacks or water. Instead, you put the filter in your head and design the problem out of existence.

Our concept of eco-effectiveness means working on the right things - on the right products and services and systems - instead of making the wrong things less bad. Once you are doing the right things, then doing them "right," with the help of efficiency among other tools, makes perfect sense.