Computer simulations and virtual realities such as Linden Lab's SecondLife – a 3D virtual world - have presented an opportunity for creation of virtual projects before actual undertakings in the physical world.   The Smarter Earth Institute founded Meft to showcase solutions that it has researched and/or developed.  Meft will also serve as a backbone of a book of solutions provisionally titled “Schema2020 - A Way Out” that will be published in 2010.

In SecondLife, Meft can be located by searching for “SmarterEarth” or teleporting to http://slurl.com/secondlife/SmarterEarth/128/128/35.  The museum consists of the main building and of various separate project sites on sky decks. Teleporter will transport you to the sites of different projects. 

All photographs of the 3D graphics featured on this site about The Smarter Earth Institute's projects have been taken in Meft in SecondLife. The contents of Meft are in a continuous development and evolution, please come back frequently to see the updates.

SmarterEarth now has an associated private sim, SmarterSpace. Doranice Pastorelli (FR), a major financial contributer to SmarterEarth has her residence there, but welcomes visitors and has allowed us to use some of her prims for a space tower and other exhibits. In addition the sim has been terrain formed to complement the SmarterEasrth sim.

Visitor information

The Smarter Earth Institute's garden at Meft represents an idealised generic garden in naturalistic style dated to the period 1750 to 1850. Vegetation and terrain has been selected to suggest an area of Europe near the French-Swiss border. There are a few anachronisms. Try to spot them. The theme is generally preindustrial, just after the French Government had invested in navigable Canals and the Duke of Bridgewater had been inspired to emulate them, from his coalmines to his customers. The intent is to show what the Earth could be like before we became dependent on cheap fuels and an economic system designed to optimise their use. The Earth then had a population of about 600 million, a little under 10% of what we have today. While much of that population led a fairly brutish and short existence, with modern technology, medical knowledge  and a population density reduced to sustainable levels, most of Earth could easily be restored to this condition.

The corollary is that if we do not reduce our populations to sustainable levels and develop short term transitional sources for energy as well as dramatically reducing our ecological dependency and footprint before the end of cheap fuel in some 8 to 12 years from now (acording to figures released in 2008 by the US International Energy Agency), our populations will be dramatically reduced through war and the Earth may eventually recover but human populations probably will not. The Museum of Earth Friendly Technologies attempts to address how we could adapt while reducing our population levels.

When visiting it is definitely worthwhile to visit the boat landing and take a boat tour around SmarterSpace and then through SmarterEarth, up the canal and around the sim. After that walk from the boat landing across the bridge, through the meadows and up into the forest. From there, a walk along the shore leads to a small set of waterfalls and a Zen Garden. Return from there to the formal garden, explore the maze where some of Random Calliope's treasures can be found and proceed from there to the ballroom in the interpretation of Boulleé's Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton. Be sure to visit the grotto under the ballroom as well as the Star Dance above it.

From there an exploration of the Museum of Earth Friendly Technologies beckons the visitor.