The design of the 21st Century is being based on the design of a tree. Study the book Cradle to Cradle. The authors write the potential goals of human design on pg 90 “buildings create more energy than they consume, water leaving factories is cleaner than entering, etc”.

Both of which have already been accomplished.

Oberlin College http://www.oberlin.edu/campusmap/South.htm and Rohner Textile http://www.climatex.com/en/start_e.html

Here’s a journal talking about eco-effectiveness.

http://www.mbdc.com/news.htm

There are magazines on eco-effectiveness.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98oct/industry.htm, http://www.time.com/time/reports/environment/heroes/heroesgallery/0,2967,mcdonough,00.html, http://www.noetic.org/ions/HTML/Online|0Library/nsrev/review_archives/issue64/r64holland.pdf, http://www.greenmac.com/bioneers/McDonough/

The Cradle to Cradle movement does not promote lean production or dematerialization with the intention of reducing the ecological footprint of humanity. That movement is eco-efficiency: do more with less. Eco-efficiency was adopted by business after Rio Conference in 1992.

Eco-effectiveness, Cradle to Cradle, and the Next Industrial Revolution does instead promote re-materialization and the abundance of energy and material used by humans. Here’s the requirement, as long as these materials are designed to be totally safe for air, water and soil and children of all species (biological nutrient) or as safe, perpetually up-cycled material for industry (technical nutrient). When everything is put into either biological or technical cycles we stop mining and logging the Earth and landfills and incinerators become obsolete. Eco-effectiveness is about a sustaining agenda not a sustainable agenda.

A sustainable agenda is maintenance. To sustain is the maintenance of a system. In our case this would mean the maintenance of a system that balances destruction and conservation. A system that gives better masks to workers, where fossil fuels are using more efficiently, fewer people die from toxins, goal is zero waste. Sounds mostly dark and boring to me.

What I think is exciting is a “sustaining agenda”, a system that helps the natural world. Where products that are good for the natural world, communities and the economy. Where we restore wetlands, grasslands, great forests because we no longer get our raw materials from the natural world we get them from closed loop technical and biological metabolisms. This is where we love all the children of all species for all time. A sustaining agenda would not need masks because the products give people nutrients not cancer, we use the sun, no one dies from toxins and waste can not be conceived because we are working with Nature.

The energy for our economy will come solely from the sun, because every time we use nuclear, fossil fuel we are not working with Nature. Trees do not make nuclear reactors in their trunks. However, right now solar collectors are not true technical nutrients, they are working directly on that right now.

The daily solar energy on the Earth is between 5,000 (McDonough 2003), 13,000 (Rifkin, 2003) and 20,000 (Neville, 1995) times more energy than humans presently use every day.

Let's turn Hardin's Trategy of the Commons into the Celebration of the Commons. We have solar income let's go catch it. On decentralized massive, slow, quiet, technical nutrient wind turbines (blades length of blades 90m).

One of the authors of Cradle to Cradle, William McDonough, gave a speech to the media in front of BushII

http://www.npr.org/programs/npc/2002/020424.wmcdonough.html

Why did we not hear about this?!!

Here are other audios that I have found, if you find any more send them my way please.

http://talktotara.com/health_mind_body.php under Cradle to Cradle

http://evworld.com/view.cfm?section=article&storyid=378

http://www.savvytraveler.org/show/features/2002/20020628/interview1.shtml

http://wpr.org/webcasting/ideas_audioarchives.cfm?Code=hoe under McDonough

http://www.kpbx.org/news/poverty/mcdonough.htm

http://www.paulagordon.com/shows/mcdonough/

Every where you look and see pollution, you see a negative that is under attack because it does not makes a much money. Pollution is about to disappear because this is about business. Study it, critique it, share it. I think we should stop teaching hopelessness.

Eco-effective design honours ecology to obey Nature’s laws, socialism to be fair and equitable, and capitalism to create revenue.

However, the question of capitalism not “how much can I get for how little I give” the question is now “how much can I give for all that I get”. Turning the idea of capitalism on it’s head.

My favourites:

Lecture:

http://wesley.stanford.edu/Multimedia/lectures/mcdonough.ram

Movie:

http://thunderbay.indymedia.org/news/2004/01/11372.php

Radio audio infront of BushII:

http://www.npr.org/programs/npc/2002/020424.wmcdonough.html

Save this article on your computer for constant reference. We need to fiercely engage in peace.

Cheers,

Aaron Vallejo

There appears to be only a partial understanding of the factors involved in alternative energy and wishing for something - even with positive thoughts and the best of intentions - isn't going to produce the actual equipment needed to impliment it

1.) the sun's energy globally IS far greater than our energy needs BUT the earth is mostly oceans, what 1/3'rd of the actual dry land remains for our use is sorely needed for crops and animals not to mention people. We would have to cover most of our land surface with solar collectors to supply our energy needs - then where would we grow our food ?

2.) to set up this vast global system of millions of collectors takes raw materials and energy, minerals and fossil fuels are the only sources we have for these

You would be shocked to see how much energy it takes to produce even a simple solar cell...

Since we've already invested most of our resources into non-alternative energy and global warming is upon us, it's too late to do this on the wide scale needed to supply the world's energy needs

3.) global warming is already in motion and fossil fuels are running out - the critical aspect of all this is the earth simply cannot support the number of people we have, and technology is not the answer - it's the problem

4.) the only way the earth's life will survive is in a massive die-off much like the dinosaurs did to provide our fossil fuels - we will become the fossil fuel for future generations