Cornish, Ratcliffe, Krawczyk and other futurists understand the necessity for a flexible, understandable, applicable plan for the long-term survivability of the human race. Flexible is a keyword here: as Cornish explains in chapter 5, there are events and acts that are unexpected or seemingly trivial that can leave significant consequences. So far, many of our readings have focused on both private governmental requests-for-proposals, mandates and other such edicts that, while do focus on major problems for the future, are very broad and vague in their explanations or requests. That is not to say that no great ideas have been put forth, but many are generally in a pilot or testing phase, or else too broad to be replicated sufficiently across areas.
I digress to ask, then: what might we have now that might be a gamechanger, a curveball, an unexpected or seemingly inconsequential event or concept that might majorly influence how we develop our water and waste systems? What might have we overlooked in our quest to look at the heart of the problem? What may have been discarded or forgotten that might nevertheless make an impact?
