Ocean Book of the Month

Each month in 2008, The Ocean Project will highlight a book focused on our blue planet or environmental sustainability. Books for all age groups will be covered, non-fiction and fiction, prose and poetry. If you have a suggestion, please let us know.

From Eco-Cities to Living Machines – Principles of Ecological Design

By John Todd and Nancy Todd

We are often floored by the engineering feats of the modern world. Television programs pay regular homage to our “modern marvels” and there is a constant buzz about the latest in technology whether it’s the increasingly tiny electronics that have provided us a new digital world or the ever more complex heavy duty machinery and monumental architectural structures.

In the words of the authors, From Eco-cities to Living Machines is

"a book about ecological design. By this we mean design for human settlements that incorporates principles inherent in the natural world in order to sustain human populations over a long span of time. This design adapts the wisdom and strategies of the natural world to human problems. Our own research in applied biology and eco-technology has led an emerging synthesis of precepts by which the present human community could sustain itself indefinitely without destroying its basis of living support systems. It is a claim, we think, that could not be made for current industrial cultures."

Provocative and grounded firmly in the principles of biodiversity, this work sets out to change the way we utilize production, technology, water and energy. Within the pages John and Nancy Todd lay out the precepts of ecological design and map out how we can apply them to re-design our communities and economies into healthy sustainable systems. They further develop the idea of Eco-cities, designs for integrating agriculture and flowing pure water into green urban settings and introduce “Living Machines” – a family of technologies for purifying wastewaters to tertiary quality effluent without chemicals.

Since 1969 with the founding of New Alchemy Institute on Cape Cod, John and Nancy Todd have become known world-wide for their leadership in the restoration of pure water, bioremediation of wild aquatic environments, food production, and urban design. They have been honored with major global environmental awards.

The thinking delivered through this work is not only visionary, but offers hope and practical inspiration for a sustainable world well worth revisiting in a time when we’ll have to do some serious re-engineering to survive and thrive.

This is a book to be read as a valuable guide to thoughtful ecological design.

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• If you have any suggestions for a future "Ocean Book of the Month", please let us know. Send us your favorite recent or not-so-recent read so we can share it with all!