Ephemeralization as Environmentalism: Rereading R. Buckminster Fuller’s Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth

Abstract

This study critically surveys the environmental thinking and design philosophy Of R. Buckminster Fuller by revisiting two of his major theoretical works, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth and Utopia or Oblivion. It highlights Fuller's fascination with economic efficiency and environmental justice in his own pursuit of the practices of industrial design, urban planning, and vernacular engineering. In addition, the analysis stresses how the optimism and energy that Fuller gave to rethinking environmentalism so radically during the 1960s are vital qualities that contemporary green thinkers need to rekindle in their works today.As the United States readies the final countdowns for its last three manned space missions flying its now dwindled fleet of four space shuttle vehicles based on three-decade old designs, it is a suitable opportunity to consider the intellectual impact that both aeronautical and astronautical technology have had on the development of the modern environment movement in the 20th century. Al Gore Jr. always reminds the world how significant the riveting images of the famous 1968 "Earth Rise" photographs taken from the Apollo 8 crew capsule orbiting the Moon during December 1968 were for contemporary environmentalists, but they were not the real beginning of this major gestalt shift in ecological thought.Of course, the "view from space," as historians, philosophers, and other social scientists have noted (Berg, 1982;Deese, 2009;Höhler, 2010), seemed to give environmentalism a fresh set of goals and values during the 1960s. Yet it was also the case those earlier widespread opportunities for people to travel rapidly around the planet, using various new flying and new sailing technologies, provided equally radical changes in perspective. Those devices also allowed individuals to survey swiftly and systematically panoramic views of large bioregions and vast ecosystems around the Earth. After the 1890s, then, as dirigibles, submarines, dreadnoughts, and airplanes

The New Corporate Environmentalism and The Ecology of Commerce

“…Similar to ecological modernization theorists (Mol, 1995; also see York & Rosa, 2003), Hawken is optimistic that innovative technologies (combined with process redesign and reformist government policies) can substantially dematerialize production, thereby correcting market-based capitalist systems. According to Hawken (p. 64), the restorative economy can be built partially on heightened efficiency and R. Buckminster Fuller's vision of "a material civilization that would ephemeralize through design and increasingly lightweight materials" (for a detailed discussion of Fuller's concept of ephemeralization, see Luke, 2010).…”