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