NATURAL STEPS for LIVING in THE UNIVERSE J. ANDY SMITH III with assistance from RALPH COPLEMAN

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NATURAL STEPS for LIVINGinTHE UNIVERSE J.
ANDY SMITH IIIwith assistance from RALPH COPLEMAN
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What is a tree?
Trunk
Branches
Leaves, needles
Roots
Stabilizer of soil
Food, fuel, fodder, fiber, fertilizer
Carbon production machine
Converter of solar energy
Shade provider
Home for animals
Part of forest
Source of pharmaceuticals
Source of beauty and inspiration
Lumber
Living system
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A
B
Cause and Effect
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Intertwined Systems
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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.
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What is a tree?
Trunk
Branches
Leaves, needles
Roots
Stabilizer of soil
Food, fuel, fodder, fiber, fertilizer
Carbon production machine
Converter of solar energy
Shade provider
Home for animals
Part of forest
Source of pharmaceuticals
Source of beauty and inspiration
Lumber
Living system
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Our Home
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EnvironmentEcosphereEarth
Science and Technology
Politics
Economy
Agriculture
Religion
Education
Arts and Culture
Healthcare
Communication
Society-All Human Action
Human Society in Earth Context
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EnvironmentEcosphereEarth
Economy
Science and Technology
Politics
Agriculture
Religion
Education
Arts and Culture
Healthcare
Communication
Society-All Human Action
Todays Human Society
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Ecosystem Services
1980
Unsustainable
Population and Consumption
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Ecosystem Services
Sustainability
Population and Consumption
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• 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

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"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
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The Universe Emerged in Raw Form About 13.7
Billion Years Ago

• No one knows why it happened

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

• It created more questions than answers

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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

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...The Story Continues...

• 4.6 billion years ago Tiamat goes supernova

• 4.5 billion our sun is born

Photo courtesy Mark McCaughrean and the European
Southern Observatory
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...The Story Continues...

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

Photo courtesy Mark McCaughrean and the European
Southern Observatory
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LIFE ON EARTH BEGINS

• ? 4 billion years ago first living cells
  (prokaryotes)

• Anaerobic no nucleus

? 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 earths existence
during which oxygen was poisonous to all living
things
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Photosynthesis
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Down through the Eons...

• ? 700 million years ago appearance of 1st
  multicellular animal

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

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

? 510 million vertebrates
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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
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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

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Photosynthesis
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Brief History of the Human...

• ? 10K agriculture settlements

• ? 8K Jericho has 2000 people

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Photosynthesis
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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.
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Photosynthesis
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Review Stages in Development

• 4.5 BYA Earth

• 3.9 BYA Green cells

• 2.6 MYA Earliest humans

• 200 YA Industrial Age

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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
The Copernican revolution would have occurred 32
seconds ago
All written human history would have happened in
the last 5 minutes
The Neanderthals would have been around 2 hours
ago
The first human would have appeared 2 days ago
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Take Make Waste
Photosynthesis
1
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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 natures own
cycles take and return those substances.   . Photo
courtesy Mark McCaughrean and the European
Southern Observatory
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Take Make Waste
Photosynthesis
1
2
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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
Photo courtesy Mark McCaughrean and the European
Southern Observatory
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Take Make Waste
3
Photosynthesis
1
2
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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.  
Photo courtesy Mark McCaughrean and the European
Southern Observatory
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Take Make Waste
3
4
Photosynthesis
1
2
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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.
Photo courtesy Mark McCaughrean and the European
Southern Observatory
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In the absence of significant sharing of power,
all other system conditions are subject to
degradation. Steve Viederman, Oct. 6, 2000
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Take Make Waste
3
4
Photosynthesis
1
2
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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.
Photo courtesy Mark McCaughrean and the European
Southern Observatory
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Take Make Waste
3
4
Photosynthesis
1
2
Money driving the system
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5
Take Make Waste
3
4

Photosynthesis
1
2
Money within the system
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/
Money is a token of exchange for goods and
services
Money is not a principle of the universe
Value is totally a social decision
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FOURSCIENTIFICPRINCIPLES  
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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.

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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.

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I. DIFFERENTIATION

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

• ? Experimentation play are primary modes
  of expression

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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,
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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
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IV. GENEROSITY
The Sun gives up 4 million tons of itself every
minute to make life on earth possible
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The universe is a vast community of diverse
subjects from the smallest particle to the
largest galaxy.
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Unity and Diversity
Each individual part is fully related to the
whole
or the whole contains each individual part
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The calcium in our bones was made in the stars
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About 70 of the human body is water.
When does that water become us?
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The universe is full of hydrogen gas. Leave it
alone for 13 billion years. It turns into
rosebushes, giraffes and humans. Brian Swimme
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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
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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?

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MODERN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 1543 Copernicus -
earth revolves around sun 1609 Galileo
confirms Copernican revolution by
observation 1687 Newton - modern view of
universe 1809 Lamarck - evolution from lower to
higher forms of life 1859 Darwin - natural
selection in evolution 1860 Lenoir - internal
combustion engine 1903 Wright Brothers - first
flight 1905 Einstein - modern understanding of
time, space, motion and energy 1928 Quantum
mechanics developed 1929 Hubble - evidence of
expanding universe 1961 First man in space 1962
Rachael Carson - effects of pesticides 1965
Background radiation from big bang
discovered 1969 First walk on the moon 1990
Hubble Space telescope  
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MODERN BUSINESS 1606 Virginia Company, Plymouth
Company 1608 British East India Company 1776
Adam Smith Wealth of Nations 1798 Malthus
population places environmental limits on
growth 19th century - industrial revolution
intro of term capitalism 1800s Growth of modern
industry beginning in Britain 1830 first
railroads 1870 Standard Oil of Ohio, Atlantic
Richfield, 1885 ATT incorporated 1886
corporation recognized as person before law 1892
GE incorporated, 1897 Dow Chemical Company,
Johnson Johnson 1900 Weyerhauser, Clinton
Pharmaceutical (Bristol Myers) 1901 US Steel,
1903 Ford Motor Company, 1908 General Motors 1944
Bretton Woods agreement World Bank, IMF, 1967
GATT (1995 WTO) 1995 World Business Council for
Sustainable Development
Photo courtesy Mark McCaughrean and the European
Southern Observatory
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OTHER MODERN MEGA-INSTITUITONS

Education
Politics
Religion
Communications
Arts and Culture
Health Care
Agriculture
Photo courtesy Mark McCaughrean and the European
Southern Observatory
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MODERN MEGA-INSTITUITONS
Science and technologyBusiness
Not one of these mega-institutions operates on
the fundamental assumption of its relationship to
the natural world
Education
Politics
Religion
Communications
Arts and Culture
Health Care
Agriculture
Photo courtesy Mark McCaughrean and the European
Southern Observatory
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The Threat to Survival -Measures of World Health
and Sustainability
A
? 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
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B
3
4
Sustainability
Photosynthesis
1
2
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BACKCASTING FROM SUSTAINABILITY
A
Unsustainable
B
D
Organization today
Proactive Organization in Sustainable Future
Sustainable
C
Adapted from The Natural Step for Business
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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 ?

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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
earths 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.
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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?

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21 Questions for Building a Local, Living Economy
Does my business, product or service
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)
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21 Questions for Building a Local, Living Economy
Does my business, product or service
 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?
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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
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Produced by J. Andy Smith III www.earthethics.com
With assistance from Ralph Copleman
All Space Photos from NASA
unless otherwise indicated