We need to fix what’s hurting or endangering people NOW.

But there’s peril in fixing yesterday’s systems and thinking that’s enough. If we stop when the old pipes or roads are back to normal, tomorrow’s systems don’t get built and our natural infrastructure languishes. As a result we fail to meet the big challenge of our time, which is preserving the planet and taking humanity to the next level.

Fortunately we don’t have to choose between fixing the conventional infrastructure and building the new futuristic infrastructure; or between either of those and protecting our natural infrastructure.

With creativity and good planning, we can do more than one thing at a time, and we can do it without breaking the bank. The key is overlap and integration.

Multiphase infrastructure projects

For most upgrades or replacements of conventional infrastructure, we can incorporate environmental and futuristic features without undue cost or difficulty. In fact, ambitious projects needn’t cost more and could cost less.

Thanks to the economies of multiphase planning, multiple priorities, individually expensive, may be realized simultaneously. And other social benefits may also blossom.

For example:

Instead of just refurbishing the streets and parking spaces in our cities, refurbish them with self-driving vehicles and green features in mind. Don’t overbuild highways and streets. When shared, self-driving vehicles will require much less road space and almost no parking space. For the same investment, some streets could be re-built as pedestrian malls, urban-agriculture gardens, or cultural venues. The air would be fresher and less carbon would be released.

With shared self-driving cars, communities may get greener as traffic thins, with many impacts on infrastructure.

Another example:

Instead of expanding industrial farming, with its heavy environmental footprint, promote more urban agriculture for a greater supply of fresh, nutritious local food; and freshen the air at the same time.

Another example:

Most towns and cities have lots of places where plants can grow. Good, but why not multiply the benefit by making those plants edible? In Todmorden, England, Pam Warhurst and her neighbors did just that, and transformed the community socially as well as economically. See her TED Talk on how they pulled it off:

How we can eat our landscapes, filmed May, 2012

Another example:

Go ahead and create millions of jobs for those who like manual work, but do it with emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, in mind. Realize that most of today’s jobs are candidates for automation; and simultaneously experiment with new ways of engaging and compensating people. For example, since millions already do “human” tasks such as parenting, eldercare, and community service for no pay, why not try paying some of them for it? We might learn a lot from a few test projects. Maybe the hot new “occupation” of the future is nurturing — of other people and the environment. See this video on one attempt:

In Switzerland, June 2016, voters rejected a proposal to introduce a guaranteed basic income for all. In this BBC video, recorded before the vote, demonstrators made the case for rethinking compensation in light of automation. The idea is gaining traction in Europe and the U.S.

Another example:

Instead of just rebuilding flood water control systems, also plant greenery that utilizes some of that unwanted water. Spend less overall for better flood control, while adding beauty and fresher air.

Another example:

When replacing anything old or building anything brand-new, forget conventional practices and design. Go 100% sustainable and forward-looking from the get-go. Apple’s new solar-powered headquarters is a model of sustainability:

A model of sustainability, Apple’s new solar-powered headquarters, in Cupertino, California, will accommodate 20,000. Drone video from Sexton Videography

Another example:

Instead of just beefing up infrastructure to fight forest fires, which are on the increase thanks to climate change, come at the problem from a new, multiphase point of view. Look for a way to manage fires along with other environmental problems. A Berkeley, California, startup (All Power Labs) has in fact done this. Their multiphase solution could avert the worst impact of fires through a process that sequesters carbon while turning biomass into usable electricity and heat. The solution amounts to positive, preemptive burning (savings billions in cleanup costs) while reducing atmospheric carbon, generating clean energy, and keeping residents safer.

A raging wildfire spread into downtown Gatlinburg, Tenn., on Nov. 28 and 29, 2016. Onlookers and residents captured images of the flames and smoke-filled skies as police issued evacuation orders. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

But upgrading conventional infrastructure, even while pursuing green and future-facing goals, may not be enough. A MAJOR project or so may be required. To get our juices flowing, we need oceans to cross and mountains to climb.

What GREAT, GRAND projects should we consider?

What bold and beautiful new things we might create NOW — while fixing traditional infrastructure as part of the mix?

Suitable projects should match and scale and pizzazz of past projects like Hoover Dam, the coast-to-coast rail and highway systems, electrification of the nation, going to the moon, and connecting people through the Internet.

Here are five candidates:

1.Establish the Universal Internet. Only about 40% of the world is now connected. Finish the project. Connect everyone, even the poorest and least documented in the U.S., Africa, everywhere. And do it in a way that bonds, educates, empowers, and motivates all of humanity while controlling those who would do harm.

2. Save the planet by beating the Paris climate-change goals. Do it by a rapid shift to renewables, in a way that benefits people of all ages and walks of life; and compensates potential losers, like coal and oil industry workers.

3. Implement AI as a public utility. Intelligent control is fast being added to industrial processes, consumer devices, and public infrastructure such as air and traffic control systems. Individual citizens need to know more about it and have easy access to its power. Let’s make sure artificial intelligence, including human intelligence augmentation, is an affordable, easy-to-use resource available to everyone.

Microsoft’s entry into the budding digital assistant market. Though interfaces such as this, will artificial intelligence start becoming the “public utility” envisioned by John McCarthy, the “father” of AI?

4. Replace money with super-money. Implement a totally electronic system of value exchange, based on the “blockchain” technology of Bitcoin. This would happen in two steps: first, make international currency exchange instantaneous (yen to dollars, pesos to pounds); and second, skip the old currencies and use the blockchain bits only. This would speed everything up, allow people to receive compensation for more things, streamline society in all dimensions. Once implemented and mature, a super-money system could prevent currency crises such as the current ones in India and Venezuela. It could also conjoin informal and formal economies, and support alternatives to cumbersome, inequitable taxation.

Creating an internet of value: 4 ways blockchain technology will change the world

5. Establish a space colony. It could be a settlement on the moon or Mars, or an orbital space community. Why should this be a priority? To save earth and make it thrive, we may need to go beyond it. We are explorers and trail-blazers. There’s nothing like a new frontier to inspire us and bring out our best. Developers, many of them children, are at work on this now, as illustrated by the following National Geographic post: