5/10: Initial Thoughts

When VanDerRyn offers in his article that ecological design should be an engagement and partnership with nature in which we embrace and engage in the natural processes found in nature, the suggestion is one that theoretically should be applied globally in every aspect of the living environment. From the point we are at now as a country and planet, it is going to be a huge undertaking and timely process to apply ecological design on a global scale. Getting away from the negative habits we have already formed alone, would be a great start but one that will be years if not decades in the making.

With scale though, we are fortunate enough to see link betweens nearly all aspects of nature and because of this, I would foresee a chain of benefits to our environment when we start to make ecologically sound decisions. Similarly to the authors outlining the influences scale has on our perspectives when we look at ecological design from a massive to minute, decisions made will be affected by the scale used for targets of design. For example, if a decision is made to limit waste dumping in our water sources, is this decision going to be enforced on a local pond in your backyard, a lake in your city, or the Atlantic ocean. Granted all three are positive, ecological decisions, the resources needed to fulfill those decisions vastly differ from one source outlook to another. These scales must be accounted for in making sounds decisions. Making ecological decisions encompassing all factors surrounding scale, will lead to greater results and overall an ultimately sustainable environment from the ecological decisions we are starting to make.

From this, we need to first understand the different levels of scale and nature's geometry. Depending on how deeply we apply nature's geometry to which scales will determine how sustainable we can make the environment around us. Problems manifested at the regional scale are first encountered when defining the levels of scale and geometry we want to apply to a certain region. Creating a common gauge though, despite the different ecological constraints of different regions will prove to be the most affective when carrying out decisions though, as stated by the author.