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• Revised Edition •
DAVID WANN
• Foreword by Frederic Krupp •
Johnson Books: Boulder
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David Wann works for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but
the views and opinions in this book do not necessarily represent
Agency policy or priorities on particular issues.
© 1990, 1994 by David Wann
Cover design by Bob Schram/Bookends
Special Focus logo by Sue Simmons
“For the Children'’ from Turtle Island, © 1974 by Gary Snyder.
Reprinted by permission of New Directions
Publishing Corporation.
Revised Edition
987654321
library of Congress Cataloging-ln-Publication Data
,
Wann, David. , ._.
Biologic: designing with nature to protect the environment /
David Wann; foreword by Frederick Krupp.—Rev. ed.
p. cm. ,
Includes bibliographical references (p. 263) and index.
ISBN 1-55566-122-X .
1. Environmental protection. 2. Environmental sciences
Philosophy. 3- Environmental protection—United States.
4. Environmental engineering—United States. I. Title.
TD170.W358 1994
94-2328
3637—dc20
Text printed on recycled paper with soy ink.
Cover printed on recyclable paper with soy ink.
Printed in the United States of America by
Johnson Printing Company
1880 South 57th Court
Boulder, Colorado 80301
We must learn to think not only logically
but biologically.
— Edward Abbey
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the
integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic
community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.
— Aldo Leopold
University Libraries
un . iinivor
Dedication:
For Julie, Colin, and Libby, who put up with me; for my
parents, who always counseled not to tear anything apart
until I was ready to suggest alternatives; and for my sister
Susan and brother-in-law David, whose support came at
just the right times.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD «
Frederic C. Krupp, Environmental Defense Fund
INTRODUCTION xl
Environmental Protection by Design • North America! • Boomerang¬
throwing Lessons • No Room Service in the Twenty-first Century •
Suit Coat or Straitjacket? • The Paradigm Sneeze
Chapter 1: BIOLOGIC 1
Using a Better Recipe • A Few Principles of Biologic • Biologic:
Benign Design • The Way Ecosystems Do It • Biologic in Bloom •
Life Cycle Analysis • Industrial Ingenuity • Smarter Than Bugs •
Renaissance Trees and Porous Pavers: Pollution Controls That Are
Living • Out Standing in Their Fields • A New Recipe: The Leaning
of America • When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go Shopping
• SPECIAL FOCUS: Beefeaters • Wrong Side Up • Burgeoning
Bioregionalism • The Earth Is Shy: It’s Not Used to So Many People
• Gaia—A Beautiful Woman
Chapter 2: KNOWING 43
“I Got Killed in Vietnam, I Just Didn’t Know It at the Time” • Dying
to Make a Living • You Can’t Tell the Players Without a Scorecard
• Knowing the Right Stuff • Reading Nature Like a Map: Biomoni¬
toring • Still-silent Spring • Fingerprinting Air Pollution • Geophys¬
ical Messages • Ecological Impact Assessments • A Shift in Focus
• SPECIAL FOCUS: Biosphere II—A Millionaire’s Hobby, or a Crit¬
ical Piece of the Puzzle? • Just Say Know • Caring Capacity • Video
vs. Values
Chapter 3: CHOOSING 89
Ordering a la Carte from a World-class Menu • Choosing the Nickel
• Everything on It? • Environmentally Friendly Products: It’s Easy
Being Green • SPECIAL FOCUS: Organic by Choice • Mail Order
Menu • “The Consumer Doesn’t Want High Efficiency” • Cuttings
Wastes Rather Than Trees • Planting Seeds at Corporate Headquar¬
ters • SPECIAL FOCUS: Doing What’s Right with What’s Left • As
American As Apple Pie and Disposable Cameras • Gucci Garbage
• SPECIAL FOCUS: Driving Ourselves Crazy? • Front-row Seats at
the Fossil Fuel Follies • Access by Proximity
Chapter 4: DESIGNING 139
When on Earth, Do As the Earth Does • Genetic Gin Rummy •
Nature-compatible Design Strategies • The Strategy of the Back¬
packer • The Strategy of Steel • The Strategy of Compost • The
Strategy of the Cactus •The Strategy of the Apples • The Strategy of
the Rice Paddy • The Strategy of the Rat • The Strategy of the
Athlete • The Strategy of the Butterfly -A New Design Ethic for
America • SPECIAL FOCUS: The Blooming Wastewater * Biologic
vs. Technologic • A Very Disturbing Weather Report • Property
Shopping: The People vs. the Products of America • Designer
Packaging Hits the Mainstream • SPECIAL FOCUS: A Plastic Fork in
the Trail • Living Rooms, Living Houses • Icebox Follies • The Beast
in the Garage . Inventing Institutions That Nurture Smart Design
Chapter 5: IMPLEMENTING 199
Barbed Wire and Branding Irons: Regulations That Fence Pollu¬
tion In • The Coevolution of Ecology and Political Will . Bull’s-
eye Biologic • SPECIAL FOCUS: Playing Hardball with the Soft
Path • Electricity by the Express Route • Power Plants or Powerful
Plants? • Substituting Wits for Watts • Buildings with High IQs •
Harvesting the Opportunities • Where the Money Comes From:
Avoided Costs and Waste-free Lifestyles • Sweet-talking the
Wicked Witch • Let the Seller Beware • Profits and Principles *
What’s the Use? • It Depends
AFTERWORD 259
ENDNOTES
APPENDIX: Sources and Resources
INDEX
FOREWORD
In this book, David Wann succeeds at nothing less than describ¬
ing and giving texture to a new environmental ethic. His choice of
the word “biologic” is perfectly in keeping with this ambition. At
first glance, the word is a lighthearted, rather obvious pun, but it
also points to an important idea—that the organic and artificial,
intuitive and rational, poetic and technical aspects of human prob-
lem-solving have too long been seen as mutually exclusive.
Biologic attempts to synthesize these opposites. Using nature as
a touchstone, it guides human intelligence within the clear limits
imposed by our involvement with and dependence upon the rest
of nature. Rather than overlay human inventions on natural sys¬
tems, it studies those systems as models for efficient, sustainable
ways of organizing our energy use, food production, housing,
transportation, and recycling of wastes. Instead of a disruptive
force to be dominated—at best a source of romantic inspiration-
nature is revealed by biologic to be an endless wellspring of prac¬
tical information.
This book makes clear that throughout our history we in the
United States have consistently ignored the lessons of nature. Yet
Warm's critique of American mass-engineered, earn-and-spend,
throwaway “monoculture”—while devastating—is not malicious.
As a pioneer nation with vast natural resources in the midst of
seemingly unlimited land, water, and air, we found it possible to
get rich without worrying about the consequences. This wasn’t
really surprising, he says, although it was foolish. We may have
not had much understanding, but we had power, and we used it.
Now our car-driving, TV-watching, energy-gluttonous lifestyle has
become untenable. It’s time to change.
Using biologic, we must rethink everything from energy use to
the way we advertise our products. As the paradigm of our culture,
we must replace the unwavering arrow of “forward progress” (an
illusion) with the continuous loop of recycling (the way nature
actually works). To do this, we must make use of every available
tool—from free market mechanisms to government intervention.
Only by making an unstinting effort at every level of society can we
make the changes that will allow us to prosper and not just survive.
Happily, Wann’s idea of change is not to renounce everything
we enjoy, put on sackcloth, and glumly eat our Brussels sprouts.
X Foreword
Just as he has enlivened his dry and sometimes grim subject matter
with a prose full of fresh metaphors and sparkling humor, the pro¬
cess does not have to be unpleasant. In fact redesigning our cul¬
ture more humbly this time—should be exciting and satisfying
because changes will be local and specific, not generic and
imposed from afar.
Many of these are not new ideas, but Wann pulls them together
in an argument that is optimistic without being naive. He under¬
stands the magnitude of such threats as global warming but refuses
to be gloomy about it. In the United States today there is a consen¬
sus that we must change our ways. We are a can-do people—the
same smart, vital people who subjugated the wilderness—and we
can harness our creativity and will to learn to “fit in” with the nat¬
ural systems we formerly (and mistakenly) thought we were above.
This is the business of the 1990s and beyond. The heart of this
book lies in the fascinating, exhaustively researched examples of
biologic that have already sprung up throughout the country.
Clearly this is not a movement of the future—it is already well
under way.
Much remains to be done, of course. National, state, and local
politicians must rally the public to change, pass laws that are good
for the environment, and see that government bureaucracies
adhere to biologic. Corporations must change their production
processes and products (something it is increasingly in their
financial interest to do). Consumers must change their buying and
living habits.
Each of these actions will provide positive feedback for the oth¬
ers. As more consumers demand environmentally sound products,
more such products will appear in the stores, and it will become
easier to find and buy them. As people make, for example, recy¬
cling a part of their lives, they will expect politicians to propose
up-to-date, efficient programs. As politicians make curbside and
apartment collection of recyclables the standard, it will become
even more convenient for citizens to participate.
Of course, no matter what systems we are able to devise, there
is no substitute for every individual adopting an environmental
ethic. This excellent book gives us the philosophical framework for
such an ethic and a myriad of down-to-earth ways to achieve it.
Frederic Krupp, Executive Director
Environmental Defense Fund
