Eco Living
Throughout history human populations have had, over time, a devastating impact on the local and regional ecology. Forest resources have been especially exploited far beyond their possible rate of recovery, resulting in the near total loss of old growth forest, degradation of the natural environment, and the elimination of habitat for wild life. The world wide consumption of wood for fuel, fiber and construction material and the clearing of land for agricultural use have reached such vast proportions that the global ecology is now threatened.
To add a further level of injury to our seriously damaged global ecology, our modern civilization has loaded the environment up with unsupportable levels of pollution. Billions of tons of petrochemicals, including agricultural chemicals, are consumed annually; with the residues absorbed into the environment. The result is toxic soils and contaminated water resources. Similarly, the combustion of fuels has produced waste gases at such a rate that the global equilibrium of the atmosphere has been drastically altered in just a generation.
The life style of our so-called "advanced nations" is the most dangerous of all in terms of production of man-made wastes and, as the global population doubled to 6 billion in one generation, and these populations now aspire to the same way of life, we will find that global ecological collapse is a real possibility. Never before has civilization faced such a compelling need for fundamental change and renewal. We need an ecologically conscious way of life. We need to live without producing wastes and pollution. The science of closed ecological life support systems requires that all resources are reused and therefore such systems produce no waste. Eco Living is a new way of life, built on such sustainable life support concepts. The result will be a safe, non-toxic environment. This distinct change in life style will contribute to the rebuilding and restoration the local ecology and if widely adopted Eco Living will, over the long term, benefit and strengthen the global natural environment.
The Eco Living revolution is made possible at this time by our Open Eco Design approach which integrates a combination of technology breakthroughs, which used together, can produce communities that are truly advanced. The new, underlying systems for building living structures are referred to collectively as Sola Roof Tech, which is based upon biomimicry and the biological cultivation of living plants within the structure of buildings and the infrastructure of communities thus creating ecological habitats for people.
Vertical Farming, Controlled Environment and Closed Ecological Life Support Systems and the Blue Green concepts are among the key technology advances that together enable the broad application of living structures, which use the Life Synthesis of live plants, algae, bacteria, and fungi for the purpose of using them to process solar energy, purify water and to clean and oxygenate the atmosphere within controlled environment structures. Secondarily, the plants and/or the fruit, leaf and root of the plants may be harvested for food, feed, fiber, biomass for fuel or biochemicals. Lastly, the plants may beautify the living spaces, workplaces and recreational areas of the community and food, cut flowers and ornamental plants may be produced for the local market.
Eco Living Potential and the Benefits
The most unproductive part of any community is, arguably, the roofs. Though they provide cover and give shade and keep the rain away, roofs do it without getting any advantage from either the sun's energy of the value of the water. They function as a totally passive architectural or engineering element and in no way optimize the building performance under changing conditions.
The Eco Living system can be modified into a range of modules that can be applied in a variety of settings. The building sectors are then made to be regenerative source of: (1) Food; (2) Energy; and (3) Water. We call this FEW 4 All.
Eco Living elements can be applied in new building construction, but there is also potential in retrofitting existing buildings. Eco Living concepts can be used over the roofs of stores, warehouses and similar structures. With some 100 million houses or households in the USA, and an average roof size of (say) 1,000 sq. ft. there are some 100 billion square feet of passive roof. With a similar amount of commercial roof, the total amounts to more than 200 billion square feet. Using Eco Living concepts these roofs can be used to generate energy from the sun and make a universal good quality of life possible without putting the planet's underlying ecosystem at risk. With Eco Living solutions, buildings become a source of energy rather than being a consumer of energy, and start doing for the environment something of what nature does.
The concept of Eco Living is not new, but its relevance to society has never been greater. Until recently public perception was that oil and gas reserves were unlimited and could be exploited for ever, and public perception was that the environment could never be damaged enough to endanger human society, but that is rapidly changing. Ordinary people have started to understand the issues, and the energy establishment is becoming increasingly on the defensive. But by using Eco Living modules it would be possible for the energy industry to have very low CO 2 emission from fossil fuel fired electric power generating stations. It is not clear yet whether a coal, oil or gas fired power station can be brought to zero CO 2 emission, but it may be possible. But the substitution of Bio Fuel for fossil energy is also enabled by the Eco Living concept. The consequences of this would be invaluable.