To the editor:

Peter Russell’s book “Waking Up In Time” asks, “How intelligent is a species that understands it is destroying the ecosystem crucial to its existence, and continues to destroy it?”

It is 2006, just a few years before the end of “peak oil.” Is this the time to build new concrete highways or rather to invest in a thoroughfare or right of way that may serve new population centers rather than bisecting existing development patterns and destroying a harmonious local wildlife area?

Peter Russell: “The way we see life, the way we see ourselves, and what we think is important, these are our attitudes and values.” The biologist Richard Dawkins calls these thought patterns “memes.” The ideas that we have about fashion, the values that we hold about right and wrong, the beliefs we have about work and leisure, the value we put on money, these are all memes.

Some memes are useful. Ideas about how to raise children in a loving manner and reduce the incidence of childhood trauma are very valuable and can improve the long-term quality of life in a profound way. Others have been useful at an earlier time but have been left “switched on” and infected our clear thinking about what is appropriate now.

A meme that says new and more highways are inherently good is outdated. Highways are part of the problem in growing a healthy community, not the solution. Such memes are like viruses – they spread from one person to another and can make the society sick.

Sven Alstrom,

Lawrence