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Natural Awakenings Dallas -Fort Worth Metroplex Edition

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Biosphere Pioneer Mark Nelson to Keynote Sustainability Summit

Dr. Mark Nelson

 D r. Mark Nelson will be the keynote speaker for the Dallas County Community College District 2016 Sustainability Summit, held from 8  a.m. to 4 p.m., April 15, at Cedar Valley College. Participants at the summit can attend breakout sessions during the day covering four areas of interest: healthy living, environmental integrity, economic vitality, and social responsibility and justice.

Nelson’s address, Making Peace with Mother Earth: Practical Applications in Sustainability from a Biosphere Pioneer, will be delivered at 8:45 a.m. to kick off the free summit. Nelson is also the featured speaker for a full-day workshop on April 16, at Cedar Valley College. He will discuss a number of topics, focusing on Innovative Approaches to Living Sustainably.

Nelson serves as chairman and CEO of the Institute of Ecotechnics, a U.S. and UK nonprofit research group working to harmonize ecology and technology. H, is skeptical of ecologists that continue to share messages of gloom and doom about the environment. Instead, he says, “Positive changes are coming. So many good things are happening. The Russians, for example, are pioneers in closed ecological systems. I would like to see NASA look beyond machines and instead look at how nature has evolved, works and moves on.”

Biosphere Habitat
Biosphere Habitat
Nelson’s experience with the Biosphere 2 closed ecological system facility in Arizona prompted him to expand his work in echotechnics and study drought, which he conducts on a ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico, natural fertility, composting, grasslands, land restoration, gray water recycling and other issues.

He says, “We need to restore natural fertility, which benefits farms and the people who are eating the food. Everything is connected; as a result, these changes are beneficial on a number of levels. The movement to green up cities and produce more local food is gaining momentum, too. It reduces transportation costs and the use of fossil fuels, as well.”

Nelson, who has worked with scientists from around the world on echotechnics and sustainability issues, says, “Global climate change has gone unchecked for 50 years. The biosphere is greater than technology, and we’re just coming to that understanding. That’s also why I founded the Institute of Ecotechnics; because the world’s ecology and technology should have co-existed from the beginning, but haven’t until now.”

Admission to the summit is free; workshop is $99—to register, visit CarbonEconomySeries.com/uncategorized/ecotechnics-and-biospherics. Location: 3030 N. Dallas Ave., Lancaster. For general information, visit dcccd.edu/SustainabilitySummit.