We need a new definition of infrastructure

Economists need a new definition of infrastructure, old and new. Old infrastructure — the freeways, bridges, tunnels and mass transit vehicles — are all dependent on cement, steel and lots of heavy equipment, all to build what progressives believe to be unsustainable and already obsolete. In addition, heavy construction materials like cement and steel are increasing in price and threatening to unleash a wave of inflation.

New infrastructure anticipates what the country will demand 10 years hence: a nationwide electrical grid to connect to a distributed network of millions of power generators, all carbon- free; universal and equal education and health care institutions; open and undisturbed land for wildlife, including large predators; urban design that accommodates small, insular communities that are built on a human scale; and finally, a worldwide internet that allows everyone to connect without destroying our one and only precious Earth.

It is time for America to step back from a bigger, faster, cheaper mode of consuming, building and producing. Producing for the future and dismantling the past can employ just as many workers as the interstate highway system did in the ’50s.

It is also about time to stop calculating GDP and other economic indicators using abstract calculations that pertain little to the real world, and start listening to the warning signs of Mother Nature, the melting ice, hot and cold spells, the storms and floods. If we continue daring Gaia, she has many more coronaviruses waiting on the tarmac.

EMIL LESTER Point Breeze