SCI 1030Lecture slides 5

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• Bioregionalism is a political, cultural, and environmental system or set of views based on naturally-defined areas called bioregions, or ecoregions

• The bioregionalist perspective opposes a homogeneous economy and consumer culture with its lack of stewardship towards the environment

• Ensure that political boundaries match ecological boundaries.

• Highlight the unique ecology of the bioregion.• Encourage consumption of local foods where possible.• Encourage the use of local materials where possible.• Encourage the cultivation of native plants of the region.• Encourage sustainability in harmony with the bioregion.

– The term appears to have originated in work by Peter Berg and Raymond Dasmann in the early 1970s

What leads to scientific discovery?

Inside the Box• Careful, methodical,

sequential experimentation and study

Outside the Box• Free, open-minded,

creativity.

Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller

• born on July 12, 1895, in Milton, Massachusetts,

• Spending much of his youth on Bear Island, in Penobscot Bay off the coast of Maine

• Struggled in school

• Fuller was sent to Milton Academy, in Massachusetts, and after that, began studying at Harvard.

• He was expelled from Harvard twice: first for spending all his money partying with a vaudeville troupe, and then, after having been readmitted, for his "irresponsibility and lack of interest." By his own appraisal, he was a non-conforming misfit in the fraternity environment

• By age 32, Fuller was bankrupt and jobless, living in public, low-income housing in Chicago, Illinois.

• In 1922, Fuller's young daughter Alexandra died from complications from polio and spinal meningitis.

• Allegedly, he felt responsible and this caused him to become drunk frequently and to contemplate suicide for a while.

• He finally chose to embark on "an experiment, to find what a single individual [could] contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity.

Dymaxion Car

Geodesic Dome

Although Fuller was not the original inventor, he developed the intrinsic mathematics of the dome, thereby allowing popularization of the idea — for which he received a U.S. patent in 1954

The geodesic dome appealed to Fuller because it was extremely strong for its weight, its "omnitriangulated" surface provided an inherently stable structure, and because a sphere encloses the greatest volume for the least surface area

• The Dymaxion Chronofile is Buckminster Fuller's attempt to document his life as completely as possible.

• He created a very large scrapbook in which he documented his life every 15 minutes from 1920 to 1983.

• The scrapbook contains copies of all correspondence, bills, notes, sketches, and clippings from newspapers. The total collection is estimated to be 270 feet (80 m) worth of paper.

• This is said to be the most documented human life in history.

"There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance."

• Fuller coined to mean "doing more with less“• Buckminster Fuller was one of the first to propagate

a systemic worldview, and he explored principles of energy and material efficiency in the fields of architecture, engineering and design.

• He cited François de Chardenedes' opinion that petroleum, from the standpoint of its replacement cost out of our current energy "budget" (essentially, the net incoming solar flux), had cost nature "over a million dollars" per U.S. gallon (US$300,000 per litre) to produce.

• From this point of view, its use as a transportation fuel by people commuting to work represents a huge net loss compared to their earnings

Fullerene