The environment as a life support system: the case of Biosphere 2
2010; Routledge; Volume: 26; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/07341510903313048
ISSN1477-2620
Autores Tópico(s)Environmental, Ecological, and Cultural Studies
ResumoAbstract This paper studies an attempt to replicate the Earth's biosphere in the second half of the twentieth century with the aim of preserving and refashioning the environment as a self‐reproducing ecological system. Ecosystems dynamics framed the planet Earth as a closed system and directed scientific attention to questions of global environmental management. The image of the Earth as a spacecraft and operable in a similar way supported ideas of placing the environment in a laboratory setting. Using the case of Biosphere 2, launched in the Arizona desert in 1983, this paper studies the images of nature and environment contained in this quest to create an ecosystem and human habitat as good as, or superior to nature on Earth (known in this context as Biosphere 1). The second biosphere was designed as 'a prototype for a space colony' that would eventually enable its deteriorating predecessor, the Earthly biosphere, to reproduce and allow human settler societies to migrate to other planets. The paper draws on the cultural history of the ship in Western culture and on ships and spaceships as archetypes of autarkic enclosures set apart from nature. It argues that Biosphere 2 as an example of a technologically controlled endosphere advanced an understanding of the environment as a 'life support system' that emphasized not completeness but systems integrity, and was based on principles of functionality and replaceability. The paper will explore how notions of biospheric life support shaped demands on the natural and social environments in Biosphere 2 and Biosphere 1. Keywords: biosphere sciencesBiosphere 2ecologyecosystemtwentieth century environmental historyenvironmental crisisenvironmental managementlife support system Notes 1. Silent Running, USA, Universal 1972, directed by Douglas Trumbull, starring Bruce Dern in the role of Freeman Lowell. 2. Ward and Dubos, Only One Earth, xvii–xviii; Ward, Spaceship Earth. 3. Boulding, 'Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth'; Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth; Höhler and Luks, Beam us up, Boulding!; Anker, 'Buckminster Fuller as Captain of Spaceship Earth.' 4. Allen, Parrish, and Nelson, 'The Institute of Ecotechnics,' 205, 209, 207. 5. The 1960s are considered the 'time of awakening' of the environmental movement, while the year 1970 is regarded as the beginning of the 'Environmental Era' in the Western world. Jamison speaks of the 'age of ecological innocence' coming to an abrupt end with the oil price shock in 1973–1974; Jamison, Making of Green Knowledge, 87. 6. On the close relations of ecology and space flight to improve the architecture and design of interior spaces see Anker, 'Ecological Colonization of Space'; Anker, 'Closed World of Ecological Architecture.' On Biosphere 2 see Haberl, Weisz, and Winiwarter, 'Kontrolle und Kolonisierung in der zweiten Biosphäre.' 7. Among the growing body of literature on technology recreating nature see Cronon, Uncommon Ground; Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women; Hughes, Human‐Built World; Merchant, Reinventing Eden; Price, Flight Maps. 8. Hutchinson, 'Biosphere.' 9. Ibid., 3. 10. Ibid. 11. Sueß, Entstehung der Alpen, 159. 12. Sueß, Antlitz der Erde, vol. 3, 739. 13. Ibid. On the term 'biosphere' see also Grinevald, 'Sketch for a History.' 14. Vernadsky, Biosphere. The editors of the volume attribute the trifling reception and spreading of Vernadsky's work until the 1980s to the Iron Curtain, the trans‐European barrier of the Cold War. The pre‐war time of the 1930s and 1940s prevented the immediate translation into English. A French translation, prepared in 1929, became the master copy for the first abridged English translation in 1986 done in the course of the Biosphere 2 project. Ibid., 15–17. Vernadsky visited Sueß in 1910. See Levit, Biogeochemistry, Biosphere, Noosphere. 15. Vernadsky, Biosphere, 15. 16. Ibid., 91. Compare Samson and Pitt, The Biosphere and the Noosphere Reader, 23, for the different translations of Sueß' original phrase with 'self‐contained' or 'self‐maintained.' 17. Hutchinson, 'Biosphere,' 5, 8. 18. Ibid., 7, 11. 19. Lovelock, 'Gaia Hypothesis,' 16. 20. The Biosphere, vii–viii. 21. See Sachs, 'Natur als System'; Hagen, An Entangled Bank; Elichirigoity, Planet Management. 22. Bowker, 'How to be Universal,' 108; Edwards, 'The World in a Machine,' 242. 23. Use and Conservation of the Biosphere, 251–7. 24. Ibid., 191–235; concerning the research recommendations see 209ff. Recommendation 1 reads: 'International Research Programme on Man and the Biosphere,' 209–211; see also Dasmann, Planet in Peril?, chap. 7 'An International Programme,' 127–32, quote 127. 25. Biosphere reserves reflected the simultaneous emergence of national environmental movements all over the world as well as a rising global environmental movement that was mirrored in institutions like the WWF and the UNEP that took up work in 1972, and also in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that was founded in 1948 as the world's first global environmental organization. Hays, 'From Conservation to Environment'; Lewis, Inventing Global Ecology. 26. Ward and Dubos, Only One Earth. 27. Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, 46. 28. Ibid., 52. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid., 54. 31. Boulding, 'Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth,' 3, 4, 9. 32. Foucault, 'Of Other Spaces,' 27. 33. Barthes, 'The Nautilus and the Drunken Boat.' 34. Sloterdijk, Sphären, vol. 2, 251 ff. (translations are mine). 35. Ibid. 36. Foucault, 'Of Other Spaces,' 27. 37. Frederick Jackson Turner had proposed his 'frontier thesis' in the year 1893, asserting that the center of American history was actually to be found at its edges. Turner, The Frontier in American History. On the closing world frontier see Osborn, Limits of the Earth, 78. On the relation of the American space program and the experience of frontier exceptionalism and expansionism see for instance Logsdon, Decision to Go to the Moon, Introduction: 'A Great New American Enterprise,' 1–7. 38. Boulding, 'Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth,' 9. 39. Polunin, 'Our Use of "Biosphere,"' 198, emphasis in the original. Compare Siebert, 'Nature as a Life Support System.' 40. Monod, Chance and Necessity. 41. Eigen, Stufen zum Leben, 65 (translation is mine). 42. Sloterdijk, Sphären, vol. 2, 260–1. 43. Architect Phil Hawes as quoted by Allen, Biosphere 2, 16. 44. Kuhns, The Post‐Industrial Prophets, chap. 10 'Leapfrogging the Twentieth Century: R. Buckminster Fuller,' 220–46, quote 222. In a comment written in 1980 Boulding referred to the colonization of space as a vision closely connected to the metaphor of the spaceship; Boulding, 'Spaceship Earth Revisited.' 45. Sloterdijk, Sphären, vol. 2, 254. 46. Bernal, The World, The Flesh and The Devil, 23. 47. For a critique of the 'engineering approach to the age of biology' and 'creating a second nature in our image' see Rifkin, Algeny, 252; for an affirmative view see Sagan, Biospheres, 195. On culture becoming 'a veritable "second nature"' at the moment 'the modernization process is complete and nature is gone for good', see Jameson, Postmodernism, ix. 48. Gentry and Liptak, The Glass Ark, 82. 49. Allen, Biosphere 2, 1, 59. 50. Allen and Nelson, Space Biospheres, 1, 59. 51. Allen, Biosphere 2, 147. 52. Allen and Nelson, Space Biospheres, 40. 53. Ibid., 52. 54. Building Biosphere 2 was estimated to cost US$30 million. The Texan oil millionaire Edward Perry Bass owned about 90% of Decisions Investment. See Allen, Biosphere 2, 2, 18. 55. For more information on the key people of Biosphere 2 see the Biosphere 2 website at http://www.biospheres.com (last accessed on 20 February 2010); the site also offers a view into extracts from Allen's most recent book: Me and the Biospheres. 56. Allen, Biosphere 2, 7–8. 57. Kelly, 'Biosphere 2 at One,' 105; Kelly, 'Biosphere II.' The Biosphere 2 managers supported this favorable impact by using their own outlet, Synergetic Press in Arizona. For contemporary newspaper coverage of Biosphere 2 see Luke, 'Environmental Emulations.' The scandalizing and taunting treatment of the project only began with the first long‐term closure experiment in 1991, picking up and commenting on internal controversies among the organizers and the crew. 58. On spaceframe design, the specially designed transparent panes, sealing, pressure equilibration, and cooling see Allen, Biosphere 2, chap. 5, 'Technics,' 59–68. 59. Allen and Nelson, Space Biospheres, 21; Alling and Nelson, Life Under Glass. 60. Allen, Biosphere 2, 95–6 on 'Microcity,' 'Micropolis,' and 'Habitat.' On 'intensive agriculture,' see chap. 6, 'The Farm,' 73–87. 61. Ibid., 69–70. 62. Allen and Nelson, 'Biospherics and Biosphere 2, Mission One.' Mission 2 started in March 1994 and was terminated after 6 months. 63. Allen, Biosphere 2, 2. 64. Allen and Nelson, Space Biospheres, 55. 65. Allen, Biosphere 2, 3. 66. Ibid., 33, emphasis in the original. 67. Whitney Matthews from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in 1961. See Matthews, 'Miniaturization for Space Travel.' 68. Die Kolonisierung des Weltraums, 111 (translation is mine). 69. Ibid. 70. Gentry and Liptak, Glass Ark. 71. Allen, Biosphere 2, 115. 72. Ibid., chap. 3, 'Biospherics,' 33; chap. 5, 'Technics,' 60, paragraph on 'Ecotechnics,' 71. 73. Ibid., chap. 9, 'Cybernetics,' 115; Zabel et al., 'Construction and Engineering.' 74. Allen, Biosphere 2, 48. 75. Ibid., 35. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid., 127. 78. Latour, Politics of Nature. 79. Luke, 'Environmental Emulations,' 101, 109. See also Luke, 'Biospheres and Technospheres.' In a similar vein: Hayles, 'Simulated Nature and Natural Simulations.' 80. Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, 13 ff. 81. Giorgio Agamben brought forth the view that sovereign power over life closely associates with the idea of the sacred or 'bare life.' Agamben, State of Exception; Agamben, Homo Sacer. For a recent argument 'against ecological sovereignty' on the global scale of environmental politics see Smith, 'Against Ecological Sovereignty.' Smith maintains that the declaration of a state of global ecological emergency following a modernized Gaian reasoning would end in suppressing political liberties 'in the name of survival' rather than encourage ecological politics. Quite on the contrary, Smith argues, the recognition of ecological crisis would go along with impositions of emergency measures and options for technological and military fixes (110). 82. Luke, 'Environmentality as Green Governmentality.' 83. Poynter, The Human Experiment. Hers is a telling account of foibles and conflicts among the group. See particularly chap. 12, 'Cabin Fever,' 167 ff.; chap. 18, 'Dysfunctional Family,' 261 ff. 84. Baudrillard, 'Überleben und Unsterblichkeit,' 338; Baudrillard, 'Maleficient Ecology.' 85. Gentry and Liptak, Glass Ark, back cover: 'Pollution, acid rain, global warming – these are problems caused by people that must be solved by people.' The authors claim that Biosphere 2 was marshaled to solve these problems. 86. See Haberl, Weisz, and Winiwarter, 'Kontrolle und Kolonisierung in der zweiten Biosphäre,' 247 f. on the additional work that the species losses caused the crew. Among the problems the authors also list temperature regulation, maintenance of the water cycle, and atmospheric composition. They refer to the German edition of Kelly, Out of Control, and to a one‐page note of correspondence by Eugene Odum in Nature, in which Odum comments on the 'extremely high cost of providing nature's free life support services with the use of non‐renewable fossil fuels' as well as on the monetary costs of the project in general. Odum, 'Cost of Living in Domed Cities.' The monthly electricity bills the crewmembers would have to face if they had to pay for utilities at the US residential rates would be more than US$150,000. 'At anywhere near this cost, very few of the billions of people on Earth could afford to live in domed cities,' Odum concludes. Biosphere 2 was placed under the management of Columbia University. See Marino and Odum, 'Biosphere 2.' 87. Warshall, 'Lessons from Biosphere 2,' 27. 88. Mitsch, 'Preface: Biosphere 2,' 1. See also Kelly, Out of Control, chap. 9, 'Pop Goes the Biosphere,' 150–65. 89. Mitsch, 'Preface: Biosphere 2,' 1. The actual costs of Biosphere are as contended as everything else about the project. Poynter, The Human Experiment, 5, speaks of US$250 million; the New Scientist mentions US$150 million; see Lewin, 'Living in a Bubble'; Veggeberg, 'Escape from Biosphere 2.' 90. Alling and Nelson, Life Under Glass, 233. Until the present day Nelson and Allen are convinced that the experiment was a success (personal communication in 2007). 91. Mitsch, 'Preface: Biosphere 2,' 1. 92. Allen, Nelson, and Alling, 'The Legacy of Biosphere 2.' Biospherians Poynter and Taber MacCallum filed US Patent 5865141 for 'Stable and reproducible sealed complex ecosystems' in 1996, claiming an 'apparatus and method for establishing a sealed ecological system that is self‐sustaining, remains in dynamic equilibrium over successive generations of organisms.' 93. Marino and Odum, 'Biosphere 2,' 13. 94. 'Spaceship Earth: Attraction at Epcot Theme Park.' Establishing an experimental spaceship community like EPCOT harmonized well with the goals of NASA's space program in the 1980s during the Reagan administration, that projected a permanent US Mars station to be in place by the year 2030, nuclear‐powered and complete with greenhouses, living modules, and working spaces. During the 1990s, Robert Zubrin, a former astronautical engineer, authored several science fiction novels and a range of popular books on 'terraforming' Mars for human settlement and on testing this Earth‐shaping practice in remote regions on Earth. In his 1996 book The Case for Mars, Zubrin included a chapter titled 'The Significance of the Martian Frontier' in an obvious recollection of Frederick Jackson Turner's American Frontier thesis. 95. Hawking, 'How can the human race survive the next hundred years?' 96. Sahm et al., Homo spaciens; Sandvoss, Vom homo sapiens zum homo spaciens. 97. 'Definition of Life Support Systems in the Context of the EOLSS.'
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