natural steps for living in the universe j. andy smith iii with assistance from ralph copleman

NATURAL STEPS for LIVINGinTHE UNIVERSE

J. ANDY SMITH IIIwith assistance from RALPH COPLEMAN

What is a tree?

TrunkBranches

Leaves, needles

Roots

Carbon production machine

Converter of solar energy

Food, fuel, fodder, fiber, fertilizer

Stabilizer of soil

Lumber

Shade provider

Home for animals

Part of forest

Source of pharmaceuticals

Living system

Source of beauty and inspiration

Cause and Effect

A B

Intertwined Systems

Living Systems

Every system is a whole in its own right and also composed of subsystems, each of which is a whole. At the same time every system is part of a larger system from the atom to the ultimate system, the universe. No system is reducible to its parts.

What is a tree?

TrunkBranches

Leaves, needles

Roots

Carbon production machine

Converter of solar energy

Food, fuel, fodder, fiber, fertilizer

Stabilizer of soil

Lumber

Shade provider

Home for animals

Part of forest

Source of pharmaceuticals

Living system

Source of beauty and inspiration

Our Home

EnvironmentEcosphere

Earth

Society-All Human Action

Human Society in Earth Context

Religion

Arts and Culture

Politics

Economy

Science and Technology

Healthcare

Communication

Education

Agriculture

EnvironmentEcosphere

Earth

Society-All Human Action

Today’s Human Society

Religion

Arts and Culture

Politics

Economy

Science and Technology

Healthcare

Communication

Education

Agriculture

Ecosystem

Services

Population

and

Consumption

Unsustainable

1980

Ecosystem

Services

Population

and

Consumption

Sustainability

Philosophy is written in this grand book the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and to read the alphabet in which it is composed.

Galileo Galilei

"Our human responsibility as one voice among so many throughout the universe is to develop our capacities to listen as incessantly as the hovering hydrogen atoms, as profoundly as our primal ancestors and their faithful descendants in today's indigenous peoples. The adventure of the universe depends upon our capacity to listen." Brian Swimme & Thomas Berry, The Universe Story

Photo courtesy Mark McCaughrean and the European Southern Observatory

The Universe Emerged in Raw Form About 13.7

Billion Years Ago

• No one can say for sure how it will wind up (or down) – or why

• No one knows why it happened

• It created more questions than answers

The Big Bang

• “Flaring forth” in all directions

• 10-13 bya: galactic clouds, first elements, giant galaxies swallowing smaller ones… differentiations, mergers, supernovae• 5 bya: disc-like cloud floats in Orion arm of Milky Way – our neighborhood

...The Story Continues...

• 4.6 billion years ago: “Tiamat” goes supernova


•4.5 billion: our sun is born

Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

...The Story Continues...

• .4.5 billion: planets formed; earth creates atmosphere, oceans, one land mass


Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

LIFE ON EARTH BEGINS

4 billion years ago: first living cells (prokaryotes)

Earth still has no “breathable” atmosphere 3.9 bya: a mutant cell invents photosynthesis 2 billion: another mutant cell learns to cope with oxygen, and life begins to take off Imagine 2 billion years of earth’s

existence during which oxygen was poisonous to all living things

–Anaerobic – no nucleus

Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

Photosynthesis

Down through the Eons...

700 million years ago: appearance of 1st multicellular animal

600 million: flat worms, jellyfish 570 million: Cambrian extinctions: c. 85% of all species eliminated 550 million: clams and snails

510 million: vertebrates

–By this point, 95% of all the time between the Big Bang and today has already gone by

Five Kingdoms of Life on Earth

bacteria – 5,000 species identified

eukaryotic cells – 65,000 species identified slime molds (protofungi) algae (protoplants) protozoa (protoanimals) fungi – 100,000 species identified

plants – 300,000 species identified

animals –over 1,390,000 species identified

Brief History of the Human...

2.6 million years ago: earliest record of Homo habilis

1.5 million: Homo erectus, the hunter 500,000: fire, hand axes

200,000 archaic Homo sapiens

Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

Photosynthesis

Brief History of the Human...

10K: agriculture; settlements

8K: Jericho has 2000 people

Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

Photosynthesis

Two laws of waste management in the five kingdoms:

Everything that is waste for one kingdom is input for another.

Everything that is a toxin or pathogen for one kingdom is a nutrient for another.

Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

Photosynthesis

Review Stages inDevelopment

4.5 BYA Earth

3.9 BYA Green cells

2.6 MYA Earliest humans

200 YA Industrial Age

The Timeline of Evolution in Ten Years If the earth evolved 10 years ago then:

The entire 200 years of the industrial age would have occurred in the last 14 seconds

All written human history would have happened in the last 5 minutes

The first human would have appeared 2 days ago

The Neanderthals would have been around 2 hours ago

The Copernican revolution would have occurred 32 seconds ago

Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

Photosynthesis

Take

Make

Waste1

1. TAKE The condition of naturally occurring materials

The earth is not sustainable if we continue to take from its crust stored deposits of materials at a faster rate than nature’s own cycles take and return those substances.

. Photo courtesy Mark McCaughrean and the European Southern Observatory

Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

Photosynthesis

Take

Make

Waste1 2

2. MAKE The condition of socially produced materials

The earth is not sustainable if we continue to make synthetic compounds and other materials at a faster rate than they can be broken down and integrated into natural cycles


Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

Photosynthesis

Take

Make

Waste1 2

3

3. MAINTAIN The condition of ecosystem manipulation

The earth is not sustainable unless our actions maintain or renew natural ecological systems rather than systematically destroying them by overuse and misuse.


Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

Photosynthesis

Take

Make

Waste1 2

3 4

4. USE The socio-economic condition

The earth is not sustainable unless we efficiently use and justly distribute its resources to meet the basic needs of all people.


“In the absence of significant sharing of power, all other system conditions are subject to degradation.”Steve Viederman, Oct. 6, 2000

Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

Photosynthesis

1 2

3 4Take

Make

Waste

5

5. FINANCE The use of money

The earth is not sustainable if we continue to extract financial wealth from money in speculative ways totally unrelated to natural capital.


Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

Photosynthesis

1 2

3 4Take

Make

Waste$Money driving the

system

Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

Photosynthesis

1 2

3 4Take

Make

Waste$

Money within the system

5

$ =/

Money is a token of exchange for goods and services

Value is totally a social decision

Money is not a principle of the universe

FOURSCIENTIFICPRINCIPLES

1. We can neither create nor destroy energy or matter, the first law of thermodynamics.

2. Matter and energy tend to disperse; everything is eventually everywhere, and useful energy declines in proportion to use, the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy law.

3. Matter and energy have quality according to the amount of structure, purity and concentration.

4. Net increase in the quality of matter on the earth comes almost entirely from the solar driven process of photosynthesis.

Four Universe Principles

Present everywhere in everything from the Big Bang until now -- strategies for organizing any community, family, neighborhood or organization, for learning and having the most fun doing it.

I. DIFFERENTIATION

No system works w/o difference, diversity, complexity, disparity, multiform nature, heterogeneity, articulation

Experimentation & play are primary modes of expression

II. SUBJECTIVITY Every species, every

being has its own internal experience

The more complex the being, the greater the capacity for sensing this experience

Also called: Interiority, autopoeisis, self organizing capacity, inner capacity, self-manifestation, subjectivity,

III. Communion

We cannot avoid awareness of the unity of everything – all species, minerals, planets, dynamics

Every body wants and needs every one and every thing

It all came out of the split-second Big Bang – the source of our common ground

Community and interrelatedness

IV. GENEROSITY

The Sun gives up 4 million tons of itself every minute to make life on earth possible

The universe is a vast community of diverse subjects from the smallest particle to the largest galaxy.

Unity and Diversity

Each individual part is fully related to the whole

or

the whole contains each individual part

The calcium in our bones was made in the stars

About 70% of the human body is water. When does that water become us?

“The universe is full of hydrogen gas. Leave it alone for 13 billion years. It turns into rosebushes, giraffes and humans.”

Brian Swimme

In Contrast...

The Modern Human has largely excluded from its sense of communion all other species…

...And limited its conscious involvement with the earth itself The result is a behavior pattern characterized by objectivity and ownership

Compare... Natural Universe

13.7 billion years of engaged, organic, unfolding, experimenting, evolving, self-emergence, creating galaxies, stars, planets, and interdependent life...

Modern civilization pursuing one recipe for techno-paradise to erase all “problems” and completely secure our mono-cultural ideals…

An end to “celebration”?

MODERN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

1543 Copernicus - earth revolves around sun 1609 Galileo confirms Copernican revolution by observation1687 Newton - modern view of universe1809 Lamarck - evolution from lower to higher forms of life1859 Darwin - natural selection in evolution1860 Lenoir - internal combustion engine1903 Wright Brothers - first flight1905 Einstein - modern understanding of time, space, motion and energy1928 Quantum mechanics developed1929 Hubble - evidence of expanding universe1961 First man in space 1962 Rachael Carson - effects of pesticides1965 Background radiation from big bang discovered1969 First walk on the moon 1990 Hubble Space telescope

MODERN BUSINESS

1606 Virginia Company, Plymouth Company1608 British East India Company 1776 Adam Smith Wealth of Nations1798 Malthus – population places environmental limits on growth19th century - industrial revolution & intro of term capitalism1800’s Growth of modern industry beginning in Britain 1830 first railroads1870 Standard Oil of Ohio, Atlantic Richfield, 1885 AT&T incorporated1886 corporation recognized as person before law1892 GE incorporated, 1897 Dow Chemical Company, Johnson & Johnson1900 Weyerhauser, Clinton Pharmaceutical (Bristol Myers)1901 US Steel, 1903 Ford Motor Company, 1908 General Motors1944 Bretton Woods agreement World Bank, IMF, 1967 GATT (1995 WTO)1995 World Business Council for Sustainable Development


OTHER MODERN

MEGA-INSTITUITONS


Education

Politics

Religion

CommunicationsArts and Culture

Health Care

Agriculture

MODERN

MEGA-INSTITUITONS


EducationPoliticsReligionCommunicationsArts and CultureHealth CareAgriculture

Science and technologyBusiness

Not one of these mega-institutions operates on the fundamental assumption of its relationship to the natural world

The Threat to Survival -Measures of World

Health and Sustainability Population Growth

Global Warming/Climate Change

Stratospheric Ozone Depletion

Loss of Biological Diversity

Deforestation

Desertification and Land Degradation

Freshwater Loss and Degradation

Marine Environment and Resource Degradation Persistent Organic Pollutants

Gross Divergence in Income

A

Ecosystem Services

Population and

Consumption

Photosynthesis

1 2

3 4Sustainability

B

Resource Availability and Ecosystem Ability to Provide Basic Services

Societal Demand for Services

Sustainability

(Gross Earth Product)

(Gross Domestic Product)

Adapted from The Natural Step for Business

BACKCASTING FROM SUSTAINABILITY

Organization

todayProactive Organization in

Sustainable Future

Unsustainable

Sustainable

CD

AB

The Fundamental Challenge

How can we transform human institutions – government, business, education, religion, healthcare, science and technology, communications, arts and culture – to recognize our grounding in the universe, the ever evolving web of life in the natural world ?

The Business Challenge

Business opportunities abound in the living economies to be created by those moving forward into a new age based on living in harmony with the web of life rather than exploitation of the earth’s resources for the benefit of a few. Those companies that learn how to develop these opportunities will be the companies that become the business leaders of the 21st century. The natural world is a model, a mentor and a measure for building these sustainable businesses.

21 Questions for Building a Local, Living Economy

Does my business, product or service:

1. Build community and foster dialogue? 2. Support diversity of people, cultures, and resources? 3. Encourage self-organization, creativity and local decision-making?

4. Utilize or increase the local knowledge base?

5. Increase focus on services needed and delivered rather than products?

6. Increase social equity?

7. Enhance awareness, interaction and interdependency of humans with the natural world?



8. Use less material from the crust of the earth and focus on renewable resources? 9. Maintain and enhance natural ecosystems?

10. Enhance efficient use of resources? 11. Avoid the use of toxic or persistent organic pollutants? . 12. Utilize natural energy flows?

13. Enhance the use of resources from the local bioregion?

14. Avoid direct altering of internal information systems of organisms (DNA)? (using GMO products)



15. Eliminate or recycle waste?

16. Create safe objects or services of long-term value? 17. Increase efficiency of energy flows?

18. Use natural organic models in its design?

19. Encourage reduced consumption of natural resources? 20. Increase the long-term economic viability of local communities?

21. Utilize full life-cycle ecological, economic and social accounting?

See www.NaturalStep.org for further information on the Natural Step Framework

All space photos are courtesy of NASA unless otherwise indicated

All Space Photos from NASA unless otherwise indicated

http://www.naturalstep.org/

Produced by

J. Andy Smith III

www.earthethics.com

With assistance from

Ralph Copleman

All Space Photos from NASA unless otherwise indicated

http://www.earthethics.com/

natural steps for living in the universe j. andy smith iii with assistance from ralph copleman

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