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?