Brave Green World: How Science Can Save Our Planet

by Chris Forman, Claire Asher

Overview

How we can harness cutting-edge biology and manufacturing to fight waste and pollution.

In Nature, there is little chemical waste; nearly every atom is a resource to be utilized by organisms, ensuring that all the available matter remains in a perpetual cycle. By contrast, human systems of energy production and manufacturing are linear; the end product is waste. In Brave Green World, Chris Forman and Claire Asher show what our linear systems can learn from the efficient circularity of ecosystems. They offer an unblinkered yet realistic and positive vision of a future in which we can combine biology and manufacturing to solve our central problems of waste and pollution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262044462
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	03/30/2021
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	647,375
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Chris Forman is a physicist with a PhD in protein engineering, conducting research at Northwestern University into the organization of soft matter using experimental, theoretical, and computational approaches. Claire Asher is a biologist with a PhD in evolution and genetics, specializing in the behavior of ants. A widely published science writer, she has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Bloomsbury Theatre and appeared on BBC 4 and BBC Radio 4.

Table of Contents

Introduction 5

1 Planet Energy Where Does Planet Earth Find Its Energy? 08

2 Circular Ecology Solutions Found in Nature 30

3 Humanity's Linear Systems Where the End Product Is Waste 54

4 The 3D Printer The Game-Changer of Additive Manufacturing 80

5 Synthetic Biology Creating Novel Biology 104

6 Emergence When What's Made Is More Than the Sum of Its Parts 128

7 Artificial Intelligence Algorithms The Magic Ingredient 152

8 The Digital Process Smart Materials 178

9 The Cities of the Future Log on and Print out Your Shopping 202

10 Taking it Further Space Travel and the Bottleneck 226

References 250

Glossary 252

Index 254

Acknowledgments 256

Editorial Reviews

01/25/2021

Biologist Asher and physicist Forman debut with an uneven survey of green technological solutions to a global environmental crisis. The authors focus on a “circular economy” of technology that can be produced efficiently and disposed of sustainably. To that end, they suggest a “synthernet” that would “provide an interface between humans, the internet, ecosystems, and biogeochemical cycles,” and detail how industries could use biochemical processes such as photosynthesis to produce environmentally sustainable goods including “biosmartphones” (“How incredible would it be if a smartphone could be grown like an apple on a tree?” they ask). Asher and Forman offer brief summaries of how this might be done, suggesting that solar energy and “an on-board supply of water” could power a phone “without a single metal wire,” that individual cells’ energy-producing mitochondria could be used to revolutionize cellular circuitry, and polymer molecular assembly could be combined with 3D printing to make such a device. Unfortunately, lengthy and basic descriptions (for example, how energy flows through ecosystems) overpower their curious thought experiment, and the text is laden with ecological platitudes: “Loss of a keystone species has disastrous effects on ecosystems.” More a primer on the living environment than a game-changer, this one misses the mark. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Humans are superb problem-solvers, and the authors make a convincing case that technology will mitigate at least some of the devastation we are inflicting on the Earth… An ingenious, if highly speculative, save-the-planet proposal that emphasizes science over politics." – Kirkus Reviews

"Nothing is wasted in natural systems, yet humankind produces ever-increasing levels of waste. Scientists and science communicators Chris Forman and Claire Asher consider the cycles in nature and how our linear system — production leading to waste — can learn from the cyclical efficiency of ecosystems." – Nature Climate Change

"[Brave Green World] is an exciting and original contribution to the discussion around sustainability, and it certainly refreshes my appreciation for nature, which has evolved the incredibly complex, ordered and efficient systems that we wish to emulate." – Physics World

From the Publisher

2020-12-25
How future technology can clean up the environment.

Physicist Forman and science writer and biologist Asher note the interesting datum that each day, a human “expends eight times the amount of energy released when a single stick of dynamite explodes”—but at a much slower rate. Slowness allows living organisms to metabolize with superb efficiency and produce waste products—mostly water, carbon dioxide, heat, and organic matter—that are not discarded but become energy sources for other organisms. In stark contrast, human creation and consumption dump waste into landfills or the atmosphere. The authors propose an alternative that replenishes resources and passes waste on to other industries for further use—a “circular economy” instead of our ruinous linear one. They emphasize that we must learn to grow material organically, just as wood, bone, silk, and others are grown in the real world: “How incredible would it be if a smartphone could be grown like an apple on a tree?” Using many dazzling illustrations, they deliver a capsule but definitely not dumbed-down education on the biology and thermodynamics that engineers must understand as they change the world. Skeptical readers will discover that two technologies that support the circular economy are already well along in development: additive manufacturing (3-D printing) and synthetic biology, which reprograms DNA “to give us complete control over the chemical tasks that biological cells can perform on our behalf.” The end result of these advancements, write the authors, will be a transformative, interconnected global system. Whereas the internet connects us to information, this “synthernet” would connect to the materials around us; allow us to recycle nearly everything, including our out-of-date smartphone; and then build the latest “biosmartphone” to order. Humans are superb problem-solvers, and the authors make a convincing case that technology will mitigate at least some of the devastation we are inflicting on the Earth. Readers unfamiliar with heterotic computing, photolithography, and other technical terms will appreciate the glossary.

An ingenious, if highly speculative, save-the-planet proposal that emphasizes science over politics.

Kirkus Reviews