Book Review: A Safe and Sustainable World
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 10.27.05
Author Nancy Jack Todd tells the story of the New Alchemy Institute (NAI), founded in the late 1960's, with the goal of building a safer and more sustainable world. As a co-founder of NAI, Todd uses her unique position from the inside looking out to take her readers through the remarkable journey from it's roots as a small community farm to a thriving sustainable community christened by a visit from Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
The story of the growth and groundbreaking research and development of the group is compelling, but ultimately plays a secondary role to their discovery and execution of innovative ways to sustain the human population in harmony with the natural world.
Perhaps the most important lesson in the book regarding ecological design is simply that "It works!" Their early experiences farming vegetables and fish to building windmills led to the consolidation of all of their ecological design experience into the construction of two "Arks" -- large greenhouse-like shelters built to sustain those living inside (including their shelter, food and energy needs) independent of the power grid or the rest of the world.
Drawing on design examples from both the natural world (bacterial water filters in the fish tanks) and the human world (our old pal Buckminster Fuller's design ideas), each of these examples builds on the last, showing the power that many individual projects have when combined into a working, living system. Ultimately, Todd's narrative is an impressive, hopeful story that demonstrates NAI's ability not only to simply run a sustainable farm or build a functional windmill, but how to adopt ecological design as a top-to-bottom lifestyle and generate a healthier, more efficient world. She proves that by combining a little know-how with ingenuity and passion, the world not only can be, but should be, a safer, more sustainable place.
Nancy and John and friends of mine and I have been associating with New Alchemy since the early 1970s. Last saw the Todds a few months ago when John lectured at MIT.
Glad to see that Nancy's book is finally getting some attention. Here are a few of my notes.
_A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise of Ecological Design_ by Nancy Jack Todd
Washington: Island Press, 2005
ISBN 1-55963-778-1
(162-163) Twelve principles fundamental to the practice of ecological design:
1. Geological and mineral diversity must be present to evolve the biological responsiveness of rich soils.
2. Nutrient reservoirs are essential to keep such essentials as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium available or the pants.
3. Steep gradients between subcomponents must be engineered into the system to enable the biological elements to evolve rapidly to assist in the breakdown of toxic materials.
4. High rates of exchange must be created by maximizing surface areas that house the bacteria that determine the metabolism of the system and facilitate treatment.
5. Periodic and random pulsed exchanges improve performance. Just as random perturbations foster resilience in nature. in living technologies altering water flow creates self-organization in the system.
6. Cellular design is the structural model as it is in nature where cells are the organizing unit. expansion of system should also use a cellular model, as in increasing the number of tanks.
7. A law of the minimum must be incorporated. At least three ecosystems such as a marsh, a pond, and a terrestrial area are needed to perform the assigned function and maintain overall stability.
8. Microbial communities must be introduced periodically from the natural world to maintain diversity and facilitate evolutionary processes.
9. Photosynthetic foundations are essential as oxygen-producing plants foster ecosystems that require less energy, aeration, and chemical management.
10. Phylogenetic diversity must be encourages as a range of aquatic animals from the unicellular to snails to fish are as essential to the evolution and self-maintenance of the system as the plants.
11. Sequenced and repeated seedings are part of maintenance as a self-contained system cannot be isolated but must be interlinked through gaseous, nutrient, mineral, and biological pathways to the external environment.
12. Ecological design should reflect the macrocosmos in the microcosmos, representing the natural world miniaturized and reflecting its proportions, as in terrestrial to oceanic and aquatic areas.
(183) This approach to watershed restoration [ecological systems] involves the following:
1. Modifying hydrological cycles on a microscale.
2. Working first upstream then downstream in the watershed,
3. Developing many local points of intervention.
4. Allowing local topography, including buildings, parking lots, and roadways, to direct design.
5. Employing natural systems engineering.
6. Incorporating organisms such as fungi, mosses, and higher plants to sequester metals, bind phosphorus, and destroy pathogens or to break down organic compounds, including petroleum-based products.