Biophilia

We’ve heard of recycling for a long time but in recent years a new term has turned up --UPCYCLING!    The term “Upcycling” was coined by the German engineer Reiner Pilz in 1994 during an interview about the European waste system where Reiner seemed to have been trying to diminish the idea of recycling by stating that recycling should really be called “downcycling” since it was a method of giving objects less value. Reiner was promoting a new idea of giving object more value after its initial use which he referred to as “upcycling”. The term upcycle was given additional popularity when William McDonough explored the idea of upcycling in his book Cradle to Cradle .   Upcycling is simply the act of taking an item after its initial original use and giving it a second life or a new function.   Whereas the recycling process breaks down a product to its base materials and use those materials to manufacture a different new product, for example, a recycled ...

I recently moved to Suwannee County (North Florida), exactly six miles away from the prehistoric Suwannee River. Since moving here I have been exploring the many spring flows in the region and I’ve been absolutely mesmerized by the magnitude and beauty of these sacred gifts provided to Floridians by our planet Earth. Florida is known as the “Land of a thousand springs”, in the Suwannee River alone there are 314 documented springs releasing an average of 2.4 million gallons of water per day (MGD). The Suwannee is often referred to as the “Saudi Arabia of water” due to its abundant water flows. North Florida is a “hydrogeological wonder” with some of the greatest known concentration of springs on Earth. So what exactly is a spring? A spring is simply where water from the aquifer is naturally released into the surface of the Earth; in Florida it is a powerful source of pure fresh water. The water that comes out of our Florida’s springs is the same water that it is utilize...

This week I have chosen to focus on the work of Richard Manning. Manning has produced several works grounded on many environmental and social issues of our era. Since we explored   permaculture last week, this week I would like to focus on Richard Manning’s work on the topic of agriculture.   In his book, titled Against the Grain , subtitled How Agriculture has Hijacked Civilization , Manning offers an in-depth and pragmatic view of the so called “progress in food production”. Manning poses the idea that wheat has domesticated man - in contrast to the opposite - and exposes the truth about the very unsustainable practices of agriculture.   Manning delves on the idea of how agriculture stripped man’s of his “genetic heritage and freedom to wander and hunt and gather”. Humanity became dependent and highly addicted to grains, thus prisoners of the agricultural systems that severely changed societies. Because of agriculture, humans no longer had to live like nomads...

I’m enrolled in the Global Sustainability Master Program at the University of South Florida. Since I currently live and work in North Florida I attend all my classes online. While facing some challenges in completing an assignment last week I decided to take a quick impromptu trip to Tampa, FL to gain some clarification from my professor and take advantage of the long trip to also enjoy a live lecture. And WOW what a great experience that was! It was so refreshing being back on a university campus and interacting with like-minded individuals and seeing how other students are so passionate about sustainability issues.   The topic of the week and the live lecture was PERMACULTURE; aka: permanent agriculture.   Permaculture is a system of agricultural designs and principles that works with the environment - any environment - to generate positive yields for people and for the ecosystem. Permaculture   refutes traditional mono cropping farming methodologies a...