I found this cool website while doing research for my final project
http://www.exponentialevolution.com/GuideToSustainability.html

I found it quite informative compared to what I already knew. For someone just starting this class I think this would help a lot. I particularly liked this quote "It is common for a new dome to reach a "critical mass" during construction, shift slightly, and lift any attached scaffolding from the ground" That sounds so cool that I want to go build one myself. Can you imagine what Space Mountain did then it was being built? Sooo cool!!

I came across this article the other day about how Vermont Colleges are aiming to be carbon neutral. I thought that this idea was great, but I wasn't sure how practical and easy it would be to make this switch. In the article I read, it spoke specifically about Green Mountain College. They will change their entire heating system that will be completed in January of 2010. They will change their current heating system, which is currently burning 260,000 gallons of number six oil per year. This heating system accounts for the 71% of the campus greenhouse gas emissions. With the new system which will be heated with wood pellets, they will use 4,900 lbs of wood chips to heat their campus. All the wood chips will come from a local source and will produced in an environmentally friendly way. The project will cost roughly 3.6 million dollars, which the college has recieved through grants and loans, but it will end up saving them $250,000 in heating costs per year. Hopefully this plan is successful and it sparks other colleges in Vermont to do the same. I had heard that all campuses were going to try to be carbon neutral, but this article was the only one I found that had a serious plan about how they were going to make it happen.

Today I read an article in the wall street journal about bailing out the electric car companies instead of the three American car manufactures this is a great idea that I’m all for I believe that if we are going to put money into the automotive department then it should be in alternative forms of transportation. As stated in class why should we bail a business that isn’t successful? I guess some believe that it is because we need to keep the American economy going. Well rather than adding fuel to the fire, and giving away more money that we don’t have, why can’t we take the fifteen billion dollars to start up a more efficient American car company? Why not model our cars like the pries and actually work on getting a stable alternative form of transportation up and running personally I like electric cars because they seem to cut down on air pollution. But the debate seems to be like the old chicken and the egg problem. People are unwilling to buy an electric car because there aren’t any electric charging stations and there aren’t any electric charging stations because people aren’t buying the electric cars. Why can’t we find a way to fix this problem?

Article: "Honesty About Ethanol"

I read an article that raises some interesting points that I haven’t heard before on the topic of ethanol. The main question is if there should be a increase in the production of ethanol from 7 to 36 billion gallons. There are a couple factors that need to be considered with this increase in ethanol and corn production that goes with it. The benefits of ethanol have been that it burns much cleaner than gas making it what has been thought to be carbon neutral. It also has the benefit of creating jobs and refineries in the United States and helping with the dependency on foreign oil.
There are studies still being conducted showing that ethanol might not be as environmentally friendly as we thought. The main problem is that we haven come up with an equation factoring in the carbon created by turning food to fuel in the Corn Belt. There will need to be much more land needed to be tilled and cleared for increased production of corn. Also other places in the world will have to start farming on what is now untouched land to make up for the loss of corn production for food. We could be creating more carbon in a worldly scale if the increase in land and the methods of harvesting and refining ethanol are all taken into consideration. The article mentions how hard it is to get real answers from the media concerning anything that consider with the Bush administration and foreign oil production. The government could be using ethanol as an excuse to cut and clear more rainforrests or other protected lands for profit. I have heard that there are much more efficient crops to harvest for biofuel such as wheatgrass. Maybe one of them could be an answer to the over farming and production of corn and the harm it has on the environment.

Endless Battle

last year in the United States there was over five million tires purchased. Less than three million can be accounted for. Today, United States only recycles ten percent of their tires. fifty percent are land filled, and the other forty percent are incinerated for electricity. The State of Vermont has on average, two hundred thousand tires stock piled each day. These humongous tire piles we have in California, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are a disgrace. In august of 99, there was a massive fire at a Ohio tire recycling facility. They had roughly twenty million tires in mountain form. Arson's set one of the piles ablaze as a joke, the fire spread to several other piles. The fire lasted five days, it burned five million tires. The harmful gasses and deep black smoke was released into our atmosphere. Reporters claim that the smoke was carried by the wind to nearly sixty miles away. The total clean up cost was more than thirty million dollars and endless effects on our country, good and bad. Had our government taken a stronger stand on landfill safety, this would have never happened. Not only does stockpiling pose as a fire hazard, it also pose as a disease breading ground. Recycling tires make for a profitable industry. I my eyes there should be a real controlled recycling facility in every state and stockpiling should be bane.

The book Cradle to Cradle is a bit difficult to get through. However, I found the last part of the book to be full of information that I had never heard of before. I found it comforting to see a giant corporation like (Ford motor corporation) finally take action and responsibility for environmental degradation that they have inflicted on an area through years of operation. Instead of abandoning the site this company has chosen to find alternative ways of cleanup. By doing this they have opened up new jobs in different fields of expertise. They are also allowing their employees to voice their own personal opinion and ideas on the matter of making the factory more suitable for the environment in which it exists. Collaboration of many is the way the Ford motor company has had success in the early stages of the so called "Green Revolution." The process that they have gone through has revitalized their factory" The Rouge" the biggest manufacturing plant in the world. I cannot imagine walking away from this facility only to find a new area and start all over again. Leaving behind an area not even suitable for indigenous flora and fauna. As I mentioned before this company has not abandoned this site like many companies do over and over again. Not just in the continental United States either. This happens on the global level. I find the problem to be disturbing as I am sure it is to most people.I feel the lack of knowledge is part of the problem. Information like this seems to get swept under the mat and disregarded as unimportant. It's not enticing news such as, an earthquake in China, or the presidential campaign, or the divorce between Madonna and her former husband. The fact is it really is important. Some of it may be ground breaking in the seemingly endless pursuit of sustainability. What if the public were to find out about these innovations that Ford has come up with to return the factory site back to the way it was before there was a River Rouge factory? Is it possible that more information to the public may sway the way they think and how they conduct their daily life to move closer to sustainability and embrace the Green Revolution? I think if this had made headline news the movement toward renewable and clean energy sources would be instilled in everyones mind. This might even bring noticeable awareness to the federal government so they would act on it and do something about it rather then offer up the same ideas to put a band aid fix on old technology. I agree with many of the ideas in this book. I honestly feel that these innovations should be easier for the public to notice them. Instead of a small section of the news paper that may be located in the back maybe it could take up a large section on the front page. bottom line quick easy access to the information because I had no idea what Ford has done to this point until I read this book.

Not so Cradle-to-Cradle

Cradle-to-Cradle has been, by far, the hardest environmental book I have read since I started getting interested in the topic a couple years ago.  This is kind of strange because I had chosen one of the Authors for a presentation, thinking this might be one of my favorite books.  Before even starting the book itself, I had started my research on William McDonough.  The man is very smart, with really creative ideas for sustainable architecture.  However, when starting the research, I didn't really see his ideas as too "out there" to understand.  This book, though, really kind of turns me off to moving toward sustainability and doing things to help the environment.  In just the beginning of the book, I felt as though the authors were attacking everything I have done to try to help out. Though I understand some of the things we have been doing aren't necessarily right, I still believe it is better than just sitting around doing nothing.  It is difficult to even really talk about this book, because its just frustrating to me. The authors make very good points about why being less bad is no good, but the way they try to get that message across just doesn't work for me.  It makes me wonder if other people reading this book might think we are doomed as well.  

The authors really bash those for recycling, in my opinion, and it makes me feel guilty for doing it now.  I don't think that is a good method of trying to help the environment, because many people might just feel that we have done so little and its not worth it to even try that little bit.  There are some major things we need to focus on, such as the topic of efficiency as the authors pointed out.  I got the impression that efficiency is almost a bad thing, but I believe we are just confused, more so, about what efficiency should really mean.  

Cradle-to-Cradle is a great in the sense that it is able to point out what we still really need to work on how to be more sustainable, but I just can't agree with the ways they try to convey their message.  After reading this book, I mostly feel guilty for what I have been trying to do to help the environment, and I feel more depressed about change happening since we are apparently just digging ourselves deeper into a non-sustainable world, as the authors point out. 

The points in this book are pretty great, and important for the public to realize, but I think the authors need to take a different approach in getting those points across to the reader.

"Good leads people toward living spirit and compassionate action. Evil leads people away from life, away from spirit, away from kind and wise action, towards fear, confusion, and emotional and physical violence. A strange form of evil has infected the soul of humanity in the twentieth century, and it bears the name nihilism. Nihilism is the belief that all existence is meaningless and there is no possibility of truth. Nihilism is the hopeless darkness of the spiritually blind. Nihilism blinds us to the interdependence of all beings and concern for their common good. Nihilism leads to greed and sexual predation, and in corporate boardrooms can lead to rape of the environment. Nihilism leads to transgressive and criminal behavior, cynically disregarding the possibility of loving-kindness and heroic action. Nihilism is the attitude of egoic paranoia and amorality that makes murder justifiable. And nihilism has become one of the premier attitudes displayed in popular culture" Alex Grey in The Mission of Art

This quote is not in an environmental book but holds true for our situation on our planet. It is undeniable that our food sources and our shelter here on earth are the most precious things we have. We are inextricably entwined with our planet having our spiritual and physical needs met from the energy flowing through Earth and our awareness of this relationship is what has kept our species going. Through industrialization we have lost this connection in only a few generations. We have turned our back on a relationship that we have forged for thousands of years. Instead of living in nature we now try to control it. Over-population has driven us to the point of unsustainability through lack of natural food sources and loss of shelter. Questionable agricultural and industrial practices have poisoned the earth, air and water, our food supply is tainted, and our children are not even being educated on these problems. They grow up thinking that fast and processed food is the status quo. Who are these monsters who knowingly and selfishly feed the population this garbage. Do they not care themselves, for their children, their children's children, and everyone else on this planet. Has greed trumped all other human qualities?

These nihilistic evildoers have no consideration of our health or the environment. They hold no consideration of the well being of others or themselves. They willingly feed people poison and will continue to do so as long as they are profiting. How can we possibly trust these people to produce food, the very life energy that all beings require when they don't even care about the food they are feeding their own children. The bottom line is that you cant trust people in this world of industrial agriculture. No one is going to look out for what you are consuming or the toxicity of your environment, and in fact will go to great length inorder hide the truth. This is not a isolated problem this is affecting virtually every single American, and in the bigger picture the whole world. Everyone expects food to be safe and clean because well its food. But this couldn't be further from the truth. Care about what you are eating because no one else will.

The Test of Human "Creation"

Of all the materials we have read thus far concerning sustainability, renewability and recyclability, I feel the best ideas are down-to-earth in their complexity, literally. When it comes to creating items for human consumption, industry must begin asking itself, does this thing pass the same test Mother Nature requires of natural organisms. For me, the old saying “reinventing the wheel” comes to mind. Mother Nature has already invented the test and strategy humankind needs to ensure we sustain ourselves and our natural resources. And I’m not just talking about Biomimicry, although I find this science exciting and believe it will play a useful role in the future of sustainable science, I’m talking about a new common sense approach to “creation.”

Imagine a world where waste isn’t waste; a world where items renew themselves because they were created to do so. There is no need to wait for some complex invention that will make this world a reality. All we need to do is change how we choose to invent things. Specifically, we as a society must change our applications regarding the manufacturing of goods. In Cradle to Cradle, William McDonough and Michael Braungart compel us as a society to examine how we manufacture things, they urge to, “…leave aside the old model of product-and-waste, and its dour of offspring.” From cars to blenders, society must give human creations the same rigorist standard of sustainability that Mother Nature gives biological organisms. In nature, a successful organism comes from nature and returns itself completely once its life cycle is complete. In fact, it gives itself so another organism and a new cycle of create can begin anew. This ultimately creates a net positive effect. Now imagine a world that the same could be said about human creations.

Natural Capitalism

As seen in many of the chapters we've studied,"Natural Capitalism" is about paradigm changing. This weeks chapter talks about the commerce, economy as being part of the solution to become a sustainable society. In terms of economy it is very important that we realize the scarcity of resources and the authors suggest that radical improvement in the resource productivity and resource usage can expand humanity's possibilities for growth. I also liked how they talk about the economic progress that's becoming restrictive due to the misuse of resource and we should be addressing this important factor; they introduced a concept called "restorative economies" that addresses these needs. We have to rethink the way we live, the way we do things if we have to create new sustainable systems and at the same time restore endangered natural systems. We have to create equilibrium among these systems. The authors think we have to follow three principles if we want to reach this natural capitalism:
- radical resource productivity
- biomimicry
- flow of services
- restoration of natural capital.
Commerce is part of the solution; transportation and building design are part of the solution. Working on all these different aspects and coming up with new sustainable technologies is going to be the solution

Paradigm Shift/What that may look like

In the piece, Brother Can You Spare a Paradigm, Paul Hawkins asserts that since the industrial revolution, we have been increasing productivity, thereby using more of nature and less of human labor. You can see this personified when comparing construction projects in the U.S. and China. It takes 10 men to do in the U.S. what it would take 100 men to do in China. The difference here is that the U.S. widely focuses more on machines to do the job than human labor. Of course it takes some workforce to build the machine in the form of gathering and transporting the raw materials. This comes at a cost of the environment and fosters unemployment. As we have seen through the reading and discussion's, all of our so called "economic development" in the name of increasing human contentment has not really worked. We have a huge problem with depression and poverty, we are spending less and less time with our families, and have less and less time to spend doing things we love to do. This has all come at an expense of the environment as well, so what we have done to increase happiness has had the opposite result. What i think we have established in the class so far is that we need to have a paradigm shift towards what really matters in this life. Aldous Huxley provides an example of what that paradigm shift may look like in his novel, Island. He tells the story of a people on an island called Pala that live an alternate lifestyle to the overpopulation, militarism, destruction of environment and lack human values that they see the rest of the world around them experiencing. The people of Pala tend to be focused on the relationship between religion and science. They are a Buddhist people. For example, one thing they did was to teach the parrots on the island to continuously squawk "Attention". They say that this is supposed to help remind people to always be mindful of their surroundings and to find happiness in what is going on around them instead of rushing around to the next job with their heads down. They hold to the philosophy of always giving the people on the island a job that suits their own abilities. For example, they send the big strong men out to do physical labor, chopping wood, working in the fields, there-by getting their aggression out while being productive. Everyone on the is equal and all receive a fair share of the food grown, never letting a person gain more than 4 or 5 times the wealth of the poorest person, focus being placed on internal well being. They also do a lot of work with children. To begin with, they teach ecology as soon as the children are old enough to go to school. Here is a passage where they are discussing education and the teaching of ecology to children: "Never give children a chance of imagining that anything exists in isolation. Make it plain from the very first that all living is relationship. Show them relationships in the woods, in the fields, in the ponds and streams, in the village and the country around it. Rub it in."
"And let me add," said the Principal, "that we always teach the science of relationship in conjunction with the ethics of relationship. Balance, give and take, no excesses---it's the rule of nature and, translated out of fact into morality, it ought to be the rule among people" (pg 260). The people of Pala also have an interesting family structure. They have what is called a Mutual Adoption Club. This club is made up of a number of families and they all act as parents for all their children. Here is another excerpt discussing the difference between Pala and the industrialized world: "Take one sexually inept wage slave," she went on, "one dissatisfied female, two or (if preferred) three small television addicts; marinate in a mixture of Freudism and dilute Christianity; bottle up tightly in a four-room flat and stew for fifteen years in their own juice. Our recipe is rather different: Take twenty sexually satisfied couples and their offspring; add science, intuition and humor in equal quantities; steep in Tantrik Buddhism and simmer indefinitely in an open pan in the open air over a brisk flame of affection" (pg 107). The novel goes on and on, describing all the facets of this Palanese ideal society, i highly suggest reading Huxley's novel as it shows examples of a possible sustainable society and gives the reader a glimmer of hope.

Genetically modified organisms

This week’s chapter about GMO’s was an eye opener. In Elaine Ingham’s chapter points out the drastic effects of the use of klebsiella planticola on farmers fields and the toll it takes by spreading into different plants, trees and ecosystems. It’s scary to think about the effects this might have on your yard if you lived next door or close to a farm. Or even worst yet, what if it washed into our water supply.
Both Ingham and Suzuki bring up very good points about GMO’s spreading out of control without a known outcome. In Ingham chapter she points out that Rhizobium bacteriaum was being released in Louisiana in the nineties and how it has spread across the North American continent. Now I’m not a soil scientist and I don’t know what exactly rhizobium is, but I do know that having a bacteriaum that spreads and isn’t able to be controlled is not a good thing.
Likewise, Suzuki and Pollan bring up very good points about GMO’s being in our daily food without us as consumer knowing. It wasn’t very heartwarming to find out that I am currently taking part in an experiment by consuming GMO’s in my daily food. I don’t remember signing up for this. The fact is GMO foods should be labeled. We as consumers have the right to know not only where our food comes from, but what’s in it, and how it was processed and manufactured. I’m hoping that some day in the near future the FDA will require all GMO’s to be marked, just like BHG was in milk for a while. Until then I guess the safest things we can do as consumers is to buy locally, and inquire about everything that we eat and drink.

World Savings

I must say that the more I read this book It becomes more facinating to me. I really enjoyed the essay by Kent Whealy about the seed savers exchange. Many of you may not know that the world is doing this on a global scale as we speak. we have created a Global seed vault on the Norwegian island of Svalbard near the north pole. It also has the nick name "Dooms Day vault". What have we come to when we are loosing our species of plants at an exponential rate. So here is a little of what they are going to do, they take approximatly 500 seeds in a puncture, air and moisture resistant envelop. Then they put it in a plastic box with its seraiel number on it for referance. After that it's put on a shelf nearley three quarters of a mile in the frozen mountain for safe keep . Once again we have to ask ourselves why do we have to do this?. Any sane person would say why dont we begin to fix the problems we have started and start to repair our ecosystem.

The reading this week reminded me of a trip we took to Yellowstone when I was a kid. They mentioned that even though the fire of ’88 devastated the tree population, they found that it actually helped in the long run. After doing a little research I learned that in 1950 the National parks service started experimenting with controlled burns. If you compare this to the reading you realize that the settlers of the west learned that the Indians had been doing this for years, maybe even hundreds of years. I find it very strange that it took us (white men) almost 100 years to realize the importance of burning land. The ironic thing is that almost everyone does this on a smaller scale.


I did a lot of gardening this summer. The first thing you do is edge the garden this makes an obvious line between what you want to look nice and what you don’t care about. Then you remove all of the grass, trees, ferns, and weeds. This is put on a compost pile to be used at a later date. Then compost is mixed into the garden to add nutrients. Now if this isn’t done on a regular basis the garden will be overgrown by trees and ferns.


This is just like controlled burning. By removing the smaller, undesirable vegetation you allow the rest of the vegetation to grow much stronger. It seems simple enough yet it took our scientists more than 100 years longer to discover this. Maybe if the white people weren’t so arrogant and condescending we could have learned from the Indians. I think this just proves that we are a doomed race. Even when the answer is sitting right in front of us we refuse to accept it.

Nature's Operating Instructions

With all the ecological problems we now realize we are facing, many people wonder what has happened to our natural landscape. Now we must try to restore our environment but where do we begin and how heavy of a helping hand does nature need? Completely letting some natural systems go wild, with the idea nature would replenish our resources, could be disastrous to both humans and our surroundings. For example, in order to save our forests we have created national preserves that neglect the importance of biodiversity in old growth forests. Instead of understanding the ecological science behind environmental problems, quick political fixes have been used, often exasperating the problems or causing sub sequential problems. Diversity is important in order for a ecosystem to survive, many plants and animals rely entirely on one another, and a understanding of this is necessary for any ecological solution. Our agricultural practices have evolved for 10,000 years along with our natural surroundings, and our ability to perpetuate vital species of plants for food relies on healthy cultural and enviromental practices. Moving away from the natural order towards a technologically sustained forced environment causes strains on normal operations which could ultimately destroy the preexisting system

Nature's Operating Instuctions

As I read through the first part of this book I found it refreshing to think that different fields were collaborating. Instead of engineers being separate from biologists, the new ideas behind biomimicry were bringing the two fields together in hopes of creating new systems that are most sustainable then most of hte ones that we use today.
It seems to me that most of the answers to sustaining our lifestyle are represented by many of the organisms that we are surrounded by everyday. All the other species on this planet are able to thrive without advanced technology which makes biomimicry an obvious solution to many of our current problems.
I did my project this week on Janine Benyus, who was the first person we read about in this book. On her website about biomimicry she was talking about how boats were going to be coated with a layer just like a shark's skin. Shark skin is covered in sharp scales, and their shape creates a constant water flow on the surface of the sharks skin making it impossible for particles to become attached and for organisms to burrow into the shark's skin. Currently the way boats are today they gather debris while they sit in the water which makes them less efficient. If the design of shark skin was replicated for a coating on boats they would be more efficient because they wouldn't have the build-up on them that slows boats down.
I think that looking towards nature as answers to sustaining our lifestyle is awesome. I wish that more engineers were collaborating with biologists so all of the new technology was sustainable. I think that if we had more collaboration we would have more sustainable solutions to our selfish lifestyles.

Nature's Operating Instructions

As I was reading Part I of Nature’s Operating Instructions, I found myself awed by the concepts surrounding Biomimicry, more importantly, I found myself hopeful. In fact, I had some of the same feelings reading this text that I get when reading a good science fiction novel. I actually had to check the cover a couple times just to make sure I was reading the right book.

All too often today, we are bombarded with negative ideas. Images of a bleak future for which we do not control; immanent doom seems to fill our airwaves and a feeling of helplessness seems to permeate our society. It’s refreshing to have ideas that provide a possible alternative to the usual. Images of a world where nature becomes the teacher and humans the student. Ideas, that if practiced, may change the human role in nature, from one of conqueror too one of partner.

The idea that nature has much to offer us, if we as a species are willing to learn from it, really is profound in its simplicity. Nature is far more complex then I believe most people give it credit for. In fact, the ideas of Biomimicry have me looking at nature very differently. Instead of seeing a leaf, I wonder now if I’m seeing a future power-cell able to convert sunlight into energy for more then just food.

I now wonder what I can learn from each organism in our biosphere. What wonders does each and every living thing have to offer us that we may not have considered before? In the end, I believe if we are patient and take the time to learn the secrets nature has to offer, there is hope. A future where positive results are commonplace, where things are renewable and sustainable results are just part of everyday life.
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Imagining 2050 Burlington

As a class exercise, I asked groups of three or four people to imagine what a sustainable Burlington, VT would look like in 2050. I wanted an optimistic, yet realistic vision of what would constitute a city that we could consider to meet the idea of sustainability. After some very interesting discussion, the groups shared some of the main themes they imagined in this exercise. A lot of creative details emerged from our discussion, and all four groups shared some common visions. Here is a brief summary of those points:

1. Alternative energy sources would be common and necessary. These ranged from conservation efforts by using energy efficient lighting to capturing the heat from roof-top greenhouses and hot compost piles to heat efficient buildings. Decentralized power sources such as solar panels an win turbines would help to insulate essential services from power outages.
2. Transportation would be very different. Incentives to move away from personal fossil fuel vehicles ranged from an entry toll to bring a car into the city to financial incentives to ride bikes. Students suggested improvements in infrastructure as diverse as bike paths, one-way streets for bikes, alternative energy buses with expanded service routes, and even a solar powered mono-rail.
3. Housing would be denser and more energy-efficient. Suburban sprawl was identified as unsustainable and a more diverse and walkable city center was suggested. Active and passive solar heating would be part of the design of housing.
4. Waste would need to be handled in a more renewable way. Composting would be used to recycle organic wastes, including human waste and this could then be reused as a oil amendment. Non-compostable waste could be burned for heat and electricity. Overall, the groups suggested that a slowing of consumption of non-renewable goods would be necessary and the citizens would need to live more simply with less stuff.
5. The economy would be more concentrated locally. Some groups suggested regulations ore disincentives against multinational corporations in the city center. In addition, locally produced food and other products were highly favored, whether these products were from commercial enterprises or from private gardens or the proposed rooftop greenhouses. This increased reliance on local production was envisioned to assist in providing more jobs for the citizens of the city.
6. Finally, the city would include more green space, including more trees and more gardens.

The discussion surrounding these ideas was very thoughtful and I appreciated every one's input. We have finished reading Tom Wessels' The Myth of Progress and are now moving on to the essays of various authors in Nature's Operating Instructions, edited by Kenny Ausubel. I hope that we can expand on many of these ideas using the examples of work that is already underway towards sustainability. By setting forth some of these visions of a sustainable future we may be better able to see how our individual and collective efforts can move us in the right direction.

Myth of Progress 2nd reading 9/16/08

Our weekly assignment was to finish the reading in the book Myth of Progress by Tom Wessels. I found this book to be interesting and informative on the terminology of biological systems and the human impact on our environment. A lot of groundwork was covered in this weeks reading. I learned about self-organization and how every species has its own ecological role, or niche. These specific niches are confined or decreased by the process of co-evolution. Lifeforms become specialized in there biological role as they adjust to there environment and other species around them. Complex relationships have been formed over thousands of years as species have adapted to coexist with one another. This is the idea of mutualism, species mature to form symbiotic relationships with each other. I think a great example of mutualism is found in a ecosphere. An ecosphere is a self-contained, self sustaining enclosed ecosystem. You can buy these ecosystems and they consist of glass spheres containing red shrimp and algae. The red shrimp feed of the algae and there waste is used by the algae to form oxygen and food for the shrimp. In this mini-ecosystem all resources are utilized without overpopulating or contaminating the environment.
The growing complexity of the earths ecosystems create an increasing amount of biodiversity on earth. Species can either work together or force each other out of a habitat in whats known as competitive exclusion. Humans can play a big role in hurrying up this process by introducing species into different environments. In one example, using species to control other species is commonly used in farming methods throughout the world. As i was working this week at Chapin apple orchard in Essex I noticed many impurities brought on by molds and insects. I found it interesting that to solve the aphid problem apple growers can introduce insects such as lady beetles, lacewings, damsel bugs and flower fly maggots. These helpful insects are an example of mutualism as they help control the ecosystem of the orchard.
The reading covered the problems being faced by the ever growing human race as we have stared to overpopulate our ecosystem. Big problems have been created by the replacement of local enterprises by transnational corporations. Mergers, acquisitions, and outsourcing have been used to create a global free trading economy. Between the 1940's and late 90's we have seen the number of farms in the US drop from 5.6 to 2 million. Local farms can not compete with the low prices being created by these huge corporations and the government subsidies they are provided. The problem is that corporations have become so powerful and rich they have become an influence on politics. Originally corporations were not supposed to be involved with the political process. Over the years this changed and now corporations can even contribute to political campaigns. The loss of local infrastructure has killed the diversity and social structure of our communities. We are going to have to make big changes as a country to start changing the very reasoning for human existence as a whole. Our capitalistic society has created this myth of material wealth being the foundation for progress. But in many cases it is shown that this increased affluence is related to the decrease in happiness and general fulfilment of our citizens. As a whole our country needs to understand the problems being created by a world run on material progress and we need to work these ideas of environmental sustainability into our system.

Chapter 4

Im still finishing up the book, so I decided to discuss part of chapter 4.  I loved how Wessels talked about agriculture in this chapter.  I recently read a book called The End of Food by Thomas F. Pawlick, which was all about our agriculture and food industries today.  A lot of the things he explained in the beginning of the chapter about species richness in ecosystems and why it is important were a great setup for the rest of the chapter.  If we don't make changes in our global economy, our ecosystem will become unstable and vulnerable to natural disasters and other big changes.  The example of Hurricane Katrina as a "pertubation" was a great one to show how fragile our economy is right now.  

This quote summed up, for me, one of the big ideas of this chapter: 

"Where natural systems grow more diverse, integrated, and efficient, with each specialized part working to support the other parts in a stable system, our global economic system is moving in the opposite direction. It is moving toward simplification and homogeneity through competitive exclusion, wasteful use of resources, and lack of integration, with each corporate entity looking out for its own interests-profits-rather than the well-being of the whole system." pg 89

This quote explains why other systems are becoming sustainable and why we are not, which is why we need to change our way of looking at our system and make changes towards becoming more sustainable.

A Good Start

Thanks, Mark, for your post. It is a good start to our semester-long discussion. I was moving my chickens out to do some weeding at the field today and I was thinking of the picture I showed in class last week. I think that the analogy of the chicken is appropriate for so many aspects of sustainability. The discussion in Tom Wessels' book about the GDP illustrates the tendency to measure only one aspect of our overall economy, in the same way that we tend to value chickens for only one aspect of their overall traits, either their eggs or meat. My chickens are now older than most chickens in America are allowed to get. They are almost 10 weeks old and most meat birds are slaughtered at about 8 weeks. My chickens are a mix of different heritage breeds, ones that are not selected purely for their rapid conversion of feed to meat, as the standard industrial Cornish cross breeds are. So if I were to measure them only by their conversion efficiency, I would have to judge them to be inferior breeds. Yet, my hope and expectation is that they can perform tasks that the Cornish cross breed, which often gets too heavy to walk after about 6 weeks old, cannot. I would like to use the chickens as weeders, as soil tillers, as bug controllers, and so use more of their skills than just their metabolic capacity. I think Wessels argues essentially for the same thing, that we measure the economy by more than just its pure productivity of technology or widgets. He points out that by measuring the success of companies only by their profitability on the stock market, the real value of the company to the community was neglected, either being undervalued or overvalued. Perhaps we can make a lot of progress toward sustainability by simply changing what we measure and what we value. Find the right measurements could then allow us to set more useful goals to achieve.
Spencer

Hello, I just managed to get into this blog sight. I found it to be a bit cumbersome to log on because it took me a while to figure it out. So here it goes. I completed the reading assignment on Sunday. I felt the author has had a great deal of research in this particular field. He has a strong opinion that is backed by solid scientific facts and theories. The author does make comparisons to scientists that have been deceased for hundreds of years after they have created theories that are used today in the scientific community. Much of these ideas are very basic.Concepts and beliefs that may have started before or around the Neolithic time period for humankind. During this period hunter/gatherers changed from the nomadic lifestyle to the small community such as the beginnings of towns which , in time will lead to large scale cities. During this time the earliest forms of education, trade, farming, and animal domestication begins to take shape. Who would have thought that this is the blueprint for modern day capitalism. We have evolved from hunter/gatherers to a society that must have immediate satisfaction no matter what the cost. The price we are paying is huge. The amount of pollution and environmental degradation that we have inflicted on our planet has possibly left the effects irreversible. We are supposed to make life easier for future generations. The reality is we have not done a very good job. The first part of this book explains how everything is closely connected and has limits to what is ideal for that certain ecosystem. It also explains what can happen if the balance is disrupted (mainly by the interventions of mankind) Nature shows how devastating the effects can be. The best example I can think of is hurricane Katrina. During that season we broke a record for the most tropical storms. I think there was around 20 to 25 and some of these were a category 3 or higher. The experts say these storms are a direct result of global pollution.

Welcome to Moving Toward Sustainability

Welcome to the class blog for the Moving Toward Sustainability class ENV -2010 VU02 at CCV. I have high hopes that this blog will contain some interesting and well-considered thoughts and comments by the students this fall semester. Other students are welcome to comment and offer ideas to this discussion. This field, like so many things, is an evolving one. It will be interesting to note as we progress whether the evolution is one of gradualism, or like so much of history, one of punctuated equilibria. Which one should we prefer?