Living Technologies for a Living Planet by John Todd and Nancy Jack Todd




Humanity’s present overarching crisis has been summarized by author and environmental educator David Orr as follows: “The problem is simply how a species pleased to call itself Homo sapiens fits on a planet with a biosphere. This is a design problem, and requires a design philosophy that takes time, velocity, scale, evolution, and ecology seriously.”

Ecological design is a comparatively new discipline. It involves more than using renewable resources like solar and wind energy in lieu of fossil fuels or nuclear power. Predicated upon an unprecedented partnership with the natural world, ecological design at Ocean Arks has generated a new and hybrid form of technology. This technology, literally drawing on the intelligence encoded in the processes of evolution, incorporates elements from the living world in the form of thousands of selected organisms.

Living technologies incorporate the use of Living Machines . . . . A Living Machine is made up of a contained ecosystem that has been inoculated with thousands of life forms including microorganisms, snails, fish, and higher plants. Confidence in their ability to self-design, self-organize, self-repair, and maintain their ecosystems is at the core of the design philosophy. Such a machine is intended to solve problems and perform designated tasks that can range from the restoration of water, waste treatment, growing food, air purification, climate moderation, treating industrial wastes, and environmental remediation . . . . Less expensive and more effective than their industrial counterparts, living technologies have the potential not only to solve problems of production and pollution; they are also instruments of environmental restoration.

Read full article at WholeEarth Magazine

Keywords : environmental crisis, design, planet, humanity, civilization, living machine, co-evolution, co-intelligence, partnership
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