- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: Island Press; 1 edition (Mar 11 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1559637781
- ISBN-13: 978-1559637787
- Product Dimensions: 25.7 x 18 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 567 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #961,742 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
Nancy jack Todd tells a marvelous story. This first-hand account of New AlchemyAEs visionary, rigorous, and phenomenal projects to sustain life gives us all hope. This is a book that IAEd like to share with local famers, sprawl fighters, and conscientious citizens. Here we have grounds for the hope of living simply, meeting our basic needs, and restoring health to the world, and on a shoestring budget. --Stephanie Mills
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Book Description
A fascinating story that explores the birth and development of ecological design. In the late sixties, as the world was waking to a need for Earth Day, a pioneering group founded a small non-profit research and education organization they called the New Alchemy Institute. Their aim was to explore the ways a safer and more sustainable world could be created. In the ensuing years, along with scientists, agriculturists, and a host of enthusiastic amateurs and friends, they set out to discover new ways that basic human needs - in the form of food, shelter, and energy - could be met. "A Safe and Sustainable World" is the story of that journey, as it was and as it continues to be. The dynamics and the resilience of the living world were the Institute's model and the inspiration for their research. Central to their efforts then and now is, along with science, a spiritual quest for a more harmonious human role in our planet's future. The results of this work have now entered mainstream science through the emerging discipline of ecological design. Nancy Jack Todd not only relates a fascinating journey from lofty ideals through the hard realities encountered in learning how to actually grow food, harness the energy of the sun and wind, and design green architecture. She also introduces us to some of the heroes and mentors who played a vital role in those efforts as well, from Buckminster Fuller to Margaret Mead. The early work of the Institute culminated in the design and building of two bioshelters - large greenhouse-like independent structures called Arks, that provided the setting for much of the research to follow. Successfully proving through the Institute's designs and investigations that basic land sustainability is achievable, John Todd and the author founded a second non-profit research group, Ocean Arks International. Here they applied the New Alchemy's natural systems thinking to restoring polluted waters with the invention and implementation of biologically based living technologies called Ecomachines and Pond and Lake Restorers. "A Safe and Sustainable World" demonstrates what has and can be done - it also looks to what must be done to integrate human ingenuity and the four billion or so years of evolutionary intelligence of the natural world into healthy, decentralized, locally dreams hard won - and hope.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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5.0 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Evolution of an Important Ecology Research Organization, July 30 2006
By Bugs "Patrick" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise Of Ecological Design (Hardcover)
Nancy Jack Todd eloquently relates the history of her and husband John Todd's New Alchemy Institute (NAI) for ecological design starting in 1969 to the present day incarnation of Ocean Arks International. This book has many photographs and drawings showing systems, buildings both at their research facilities and installations around the world and many of the dedicated people who have worked with the Todd's over the years.The original focus of their research was to develop sustainable organic food production, bioremediation, off-grid energy production, and efficient building construction methods for a virtual stand-alone closed-loop system capable of self-sufficiency without any toxic side-effects, especially, effluent. Through trial and error and much research they met their goals and became internationally recognized for the high state of efficiency their various systems achieved. NAI became a successful format and influence for many colleges to replicate on campuses all over the U.S. and abroad.
Eventually, they turned their focus almost exclusively to natural effluent and pollution remediation techniques developing the "eco-machine" system that utilizes plants, micro-organisms and fish to convert sewage to re-usable water and fish for food production.
The Todd's contributions to solving many of the world's toughest environmental problems and influence on ecological study cannot be understated, especially in the area of bioremediation. If every municipality, farm, and industrial site in the world were join the ranks of those who have already installed "eco-machine" type water purification systems to clean-up their toxic run-off, a huge chunk of global pollution could be eliminated.
This book is a must have for all those interested bioremediation and that should be everyone- a clean environment requires it.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Education & Inspiration, Mar 19 2006
By Jane Stallman "Jane" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise Of Ecological Design (Hardcover)
This book is written for those of us who are not architects or engineers. It illustrates how to live more sustainably on this fragile planet. The process described of incremental learning based on experimenting with small changes over time to find the most efficacious approach to sustainable building, agriculture, food production and zero waste is a lesson in itself. Learning came from doing, carefully recording results, applying lessons learned and improving results. In addition, the book describes how sustainable practices can also be economic engines for new product development and cost reduction.I've recently been in Tanzania looking at community development projects and I plan to send this book to several of the people that I met. It's the way to build and live for the future survival of our species.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
What can be done and what should/will be done, July 5 2005
By Midwest Book Review - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise Of Ecological Design (Hardcover)
Ecological design issues were in the news in the late 1960s, the height of ecological understanding; yet today it remains relatively in the background. A Safe And Sustainable World: The Promise Of Ecological Design provides a personal account of those who set out to discover more sustainable methods of shelter and energy - and comes from research and work of a couple who served as sustainable leaders of ecological design for thousands. What can be done and what should/will be done is discussed in chapters defining elements of success and ecological failure.
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