PLEASE NOTE: This lecture has been canceled due to weather.
John Todd, a global leader in
sustainability and ecological water purification, will speak on “Sustainability
Through Ecological Design” on Thursday,
Feb. 10, at 7 p.m. in the Nott Memorial.
His talk, part of the “Sustainable
Development” series sponsored by Union's
Environmental Studies program, is free and open to the public.
Todd is a global leader in the field of ecological water
purification. Ocean Arks International, founded by Todd in 1981 in response to
natural resource exploitation and depletion, disseminates ideas and practices
of ecological sustainability throughout the world.
He is
author of over 200 technical and popular articles on biology and planetary
stewardship. A professor at the University of Vermont, he was assistant
professor of ethology at San Diego State University, and assistant scientist at
the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
In 1969
he co-founded the New Alchemy Institute to create a science and practice based on
ecological precepts. He also co-founded Living Technologies Inc., an ecological
design, engineering, and construction firm in Burlington,
Vt., and Living Technologies in Findhorn, Scotland.
He sits on a number of environmental and technical boards.
Todd is a
leader in the field of ecological design. He has described his work in a series
of books: The Village as Solar Ecology
(1980), Tomorrow is Our Permanent Address
(1980), Reinhabiting Cities &
Towns: Designing for Sustainability (1981) and Bioshelters, Ocean Arks, City Farming: Ecology as the Basis of Design
(1984). This last book has been revised and published as From Eco-cities to Living Machines (1994).
Todd has
received numerous accolades for his work. He was profiled in Inventing
Modern America, a publication of the Lemelson-MIT Program for Invention
and Innovation, which features the development of his signature ecological
waste treatment systems. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Green Mountain
College in 2000, and
received the Bioneers Lifetime Achievement Award two years previous. Also in
1998, he and Nancy Jack Todd received the Lindbergh Award in recognition of
their work in technology and the environment.
Environmental
Studies also is sponsoring a conference on Sustainable Development on Friday,
Feb. 25, at College Park Hall. Noted environmentalist Lester Brown will deliver
the keynote address and give a pre-conference talk on Thursday, Feb. 24, at 7
p.m. in the Nott Memorial.