A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise of Ecological Design.A SAFE AND SUSTAINABLE WORLD: The Promise of Ecological Design NANCY JACK TODD Jack Todd (born 1946 in Nebraska) has been a sports columnist for the last 10 years for the Montreal Gazette. He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska, where he was a scholarship athlete in track and field, specializing in the high jump, triple jump and 400 meters. This is the story of the New Alchemy Institute The New Alchemy Institute was a research center that did pioneering investigation into organic agriculture, aquaculture, and bioshelter design, between 1969 and 1991. It was founded by John Todd, Nancy Jack Todd, and William McLarney. , a pioneering, countercultural, environmental compound founded on Cape Cod Cape Cod, narrow peninsula of glacial origin, 399 sq mi (1,033 sq km), SE Mass., extending 65 mi (105 km) E and N into the Atlantic Ocean. It is generally flat, with sand dunes, low hills, and numerous lakes. in the late 1960s. The institute closed in 1906, but Todd, with her husband John Todd and Bill McLarney, moved on to create Ocean Arks International Ocean Arks was founded in 1981 by John Todd and Nancy Jack Todd and is a nonprofit research and education organization dedicated to the creation and dissemination of the thinking and the technologies fundamental to a sustainable future. , an environmental-remediation business. Nancy Jack Todd here recounts how the three idealists progressed from identifying environmental problems in the 1960s to trying to solve those problems in subsequent years. She discusses the thinkers who inspired the institute's efforts in areas such as biofriendly architecture, hydroponics hydroponics, growing of plants without soil in water to which nutrients have been added. Hydroponics has been used for over a century as a research technique, but not until 1929 were experiments conducted solely to determine its feasibility for growing commercial , and alternative energy sources. Influences included Buckminster Fuller and Margaret Mead. While the New Alchemy Institute is gone, Ocean Arks International has had success in finding commercial uses for some of its predecessor's novel solutions to water-quality issues. The Todds and McLarney have worked on wastewater-treatment plants around the world. Todd's book includes stories of people and institutions as well as many details of technologies for preventing and reversing environmental damage. Island Press, 2005, 232 p., b&w photos, hardcover, $28.95. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion