Healing Earth

A true pioneer and respected elder in ecological recovery and sustainability shares effective solutions he has designed and implemented.

A stand-out from the sea of despairing messages about climate change, well-known sustainability elder John Todd, who has taught, mentored, and inspired such well-known names in the field as Janine Benyus, Bill McKibben, and Paul Hawken, chronicles the different ecological interventions he has created over the course of his career.

Each chapter offers a workable engineering solution to an existing environmental problem: healing the aftermath of mountain-top removal and valley-fill coal mining in Appalachia, using windmills and injections of bacteria to restore the health of a polluted New England pond, working with community members in a South African village to protect an important river.

A mix of both success stories and concrete suggestions for solutions to tackle as yet unresolved issues, Todd's narrative provides an important addition to the conversation about specific ways we can address the planetary crisis. Eighty-five color photos and images illustrate Todd's concepts. This is a refreshingly hopeful, proactive book and also a personal story that covers a known practitioner's groundbreaking career.

About the Author

One of the pioneers in ecological design, John Todd has been active in shaping the discipline for over forty years. He has taught, mentored, and inspired such well-known names in the field as Janine Benyus, Bill McKibben, and Paul Hawken. He has been named with his wife Nancy Jack Todd as a Visionary of the 20th Century by the British organization, Resurgence, and has been featured in "The Genius Issue" of Esquire Magazine. Dr. Todd was named one of the 20th Century's top thirty-five inventors by the Lemelson-MIT Program for Invention and Innovation.

In 2010 his Eco-Machine, at the Center for Sustainable Living, the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, was recognized as a significant design breakthrough by the Smithsonian Institution. The drawings and film of the project were displayed in the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design in NYC. Co-founder of the New Alchemy Institute in 1969, Todd is now founder and president of John Todd Ecological Design, and president of Ocean Arks International, an NGO dedicated to publishing, and to healing the inshore oceans.

Dr. Todd is widely published and is the author of over two hundred scientific, technical, and popular articles. He is the author or co-author of seven books, including North Atlantic Books' From Ecocities to Living Machine. He is the inventor of Eco-Machines (TM) and holds five patents. His passion and his work revolve around the broad field of planetary healing and regeneration.He is an Emeritus Research Professor and Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Vermont, and a Fellow at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics. He holds a bachelor's degree in agriculture and a master's degree in parasitology from McGill University and a doctorate in fisheries and oceanography from the University of Michigan. He has also received two honorary doctorates.