Spotlight
Nathan Allen
By Dave Califano • Photography By Jennifer Polixenni Brankin
After doing his graduate work at the University of Arizona, Allen took a position as the sustainability coordinator at Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Ariz. “In school I worked on how people learn about the environment and how that effects how they live,” he says. “So [Biosphere] has been a fascinating environment.”
What helps makes Allen a sort of walking encyclopedia on the environment is that unlike the research scientists at the facility, who focus on one project and one project only, Allen is on top of every ongoing experiment at Biosphere 2. After spending two and a half hours talking with Allen, I came away with a greater understanding of the Earth and how our role as caretaker needs to change if we have any hope to preserve it for our future generations.
OVM: What do you do at the Biosphere?
NA: I work with folks in the research facilities, education, outreach departments trying to connect the dots between what all the different departments do. The bottom line is we are trying to figure out how the earth works and what our place is in it, and how we need to live in order to respect that relationship. My job is to get with researchers and say, what are the implications of your research, and how should we be managing the facility?
I think historically a big challenge of science has been how do you apply what we now know about climate change, desertification, urban sprawl and the effects on bio diversity? How do you translate that into the way people live? There is a lot of “So what?” going on, which makes it an exciting position.
OVM: Are you constantly butting heads with the whole “so what” thing?
NA: No, its good. That’s sort of the story with Biosphere — the history of it. We’ve gone through these different stages; as this sealed-off container, private space venture that no one went inside to Columbia University coming and things getting opened up a little bit more, to now when visitors come. An intricate part of the visitor experience is interacting with the scientists.
OVM: What came out of the original Biosphere effort?
NA: The mission started in ’91 and lasted two years. I think that everyone who hears about Biosphere now has a reaction like, “Wasn’t that a big debacle?” and I think that that response is the biggest sign of the shortcomings of the project.
Originally, it was designed to be an experiment, and all scientists know that the way you learn things is by messing up, so there were some pretty big miscalculations that led to some interesting things we had never seen before. The water treatment they designed was one of the first systems designed to treat waste with living organisms. It didn’t work here, but the people that were involved in that system have gone on to be leaders in bioremediation, a whole new industry of treating waste water and pollution with living organisms.
A number of things have come out of that experiment because it didn’t work — we still learned a lot. The sheer size of Biosphere and the ability to seal sections of it allow us to do research that you can’t do anywhere else. A lot of the science that has come out in the last 20 years has been from laboratories, its been about DNA, but when you get on to the scale when you are talking about climate change, you can learn about things like desertification.
OVM: What is desertification?
NA: Desertification is the basic process of area drying out. Rainfall becomes more sporadic and unreliable. Areas like Tucson and the desert Southwest are kind of the canary in the mineshaft. Because we are already arid we are going to feel more of the effects of changes in global climate as weather patterns shift, as oceans warm in different areas. That is why Biosphere is really well-placed to do experimentation.
OVM: What makes Biosphere so special?
NA: At Biosphere, we specialize in doing three things: scaling, collaborating and coupling. We are the largest facility in the world that can control all of the variables inside. Those lead to new models. We can test things for all different types of disciplines. Because of the size of the facility, we can do all these things at the same time, which brings all of these disciplines together. In addition, we can couple the public with academia, and that’s really the bottom line, to bring the public industry, schools, government, and get them more involved so there is a better dialogue between science and the public.
OVM: Do scientists work both in the field and in Biosphere?
NA: We do both. We have projects that are being collaborated with Biosphere and other College of Science departments and labs. One project we are looking at is how ground water changes along the San Pedro as you have an encroachment of mesquites over grasslands. We are basically building a small watershed inside that we can completely seal up, so we can control what the precipitation is, and then track the precipitation as it moves through the landscape. That’s never been done before. It is really groundbreaking.
OVM: Not everyone believes in global change. Is part of what you’re doing just getting out the idea that there is something going on?
NA: Absolutely. That’s one of the big things we’ve seen here at Biosphere, that the public is really hungry for someone to talk straight with them, to get access to a scientist. All of a sudden they can have a conversation with someone who is really involved with these issues without having the filter of the media or politics. Our visitors often say that is one of the highlights.
OVM: We are not at a point yet where cleaner technology is cheaper technology. Do find that you have to change peoples mindsets to understand that you have to spend money to preserve the planet?
NA: That is probably the biggest challenge right now. I think these last few years we have been going through a transition from an economy that had a surplus of resources and a shortage of labor, to an economy that needs to adjust to a surplus of labor and a shortage of resources. That’s going to make efficiency more and more important. The difficult thing is that our current economic structure is not built to value efficiency, it’s built to value production.
Germany has started doing business where the motto is “cradle to cradle.” The company is responsible for their goods for their entire life. I think that that’s a model we will see more and more of as people try to figure out how to make money in a sustainable way.
OVM: Where do you see us going, conservation-wise, as a society?
NA: One of the big mind shifts that is happening right now is a movement called biomimickry, where instead of looking to the abstract, society looks to nature to find solutions to problems. How does nature transport water, for example? If you look at nature, solutions primarily come from diversity. The Sonoran Desert is one of the most diverse places on earth. We are in a hot bed of how different organisms use different tactics to accomplish similar goals.
I think that’s the bottom line, you can’t just buy the hybrid and say, ok, I’m saving the planet now. There are certain questions you can ask about your lifestyle and values that will inform how you live your life. Our hope is we can give you the understanding of how the world works so you can make decisions that inform your values and your actions.
OVM: We are throwing so much at the public about how they should change their lives, is there a point where people rebel?
NA: People aren’t stupid. They can see that things are changing. I think people are frustrated because we are getting berated with a lot of problems and not a lot of solutions. That’s been a real failure of the leadership in this country. There are really simple things that you can do.
OVM: What do you think of how we try to control the environment?
NA: I think it’s a slippery slope. I think the more we try to manipulate things now, the more work its going be for us in the future.
We have to look at how natural systems work. How we plant things around our yard effects how much energy we use. Planting trees that shade our homes brings our energy costs down. Planting a tree to shade your air conditioner is going to reduce the amount of energy it uses. These are very simple things, but you can’t make these decisions if you don’t know how the earth works.
OVM: Is xerescaping a big deal these days?
NA: Absolutely. I think people realize that xerescaping doesn’t mean a rock garden. We can plant native, dry-tolerant species. We can plant vegetable gardens. Restoring habitat, encourage native birds to come back.
There are an infinite amount of things you can do that will make your house into a really enjoyable micro climate for native plants and animals. We need to be thinking about the value of biodiversity and these organisms coming into our community, instead of just thinking the environment is just out there and something separate from us.
OVM: The U.S. is falling behind in science education. Is that going to be a barrier in moving forward with these issues?
NA: What we see at the university is that there are fewer and fewer students enrolling in the sciences, math and engineering. A greater portion of grad students are international. In the past several years, we have also seen a decrease in funding and development. A lot of the big science innovations in the last 20 years have primarily been in genetics and pharmaceuticals, which are highly specialized and abstract. My feeling is that we need to shift our focus in science from a specialized focus to a broader concept.
OVM: How can people get more information and keep up with new ideas like the ones you are talking about?
NA: We’ve got a great Web site, b2science.org, and I’ve started a sustainability blog — “Sustain the Sphere.” I post photos and conversations about any number of different things they have out here.
One of the great things about Biosphere is that it’s more than the dome. We have three branches, the attraction, the research, and the B2 institute which is being developed into this think tank. This is a world of the future. This is where we are hoping to provide some solutions.
There is no two ways about it, if you have even the slightest interest in global warming and the environment, you will find Nathan Allen one interesting and intelligent man.
After doing his graduate work at the University of Arizona, Allen took a position as the sustainability coordinator at Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Ariz. “In school I worked on how people learn about the environment and how that effects how they live,” he says. “So [Biosphere] has been a fascinating environment.”
What helps makes Allen a sort of walking encyclopedia on the environment is that unlike the research scientists at the facility, who focus on one project and one project only, Allen is on top of every ongoing experiment at Biosphere 2. After spending two and a half hours talking with Allen, I came away with a greater understanding of the Earth and how our role as caretaker needs to change if we have any hope to preserve it for our future generations.
OVM: What do you do at the Biosphere?
NA: I work with folks in the research facilities, education, outreach departments trying to connect the dots between what all the different departments do. The bottom line is we are trying to figure out how the earth works and what our place is in it, and how we need to live in order to respect that relationship. My job is to get with researchers and say, what are the implications of your research, and how should we be managing the facility?
I think historically a big challenge of science has been how do you apply what we now know about climate change, desertification, urban sprawl and the effects on bio diversity? How do you translate that into the way people live? There is a lot of “So what?” going on, which makes it an exciting position.
OVM: Are you constantly butting heads with the whole “so what” thing?
NA: No, its good. That’s sort of the story with Biosphere — the history of it. We’ve gone through these different stages; as this sealed-off container, private space venture that no one went inside to Columbia University coming and things getting opened up a little bit more, to now when visitors come. An intricate part of the visitor experience is interacting with the scientists.
OVM: What came out of the original Biosphere effort?
NA: The mission started in ’91 and lasted two years. I think that everyone who hears about Biosphere now has a reaction like, “Wasn’t that a big debacle?” and I think that that response is the biggest sign of the shortcomings of the project.
Originally, it was designed to be an experiment, and all scientists know that the way you learn things is by messing up, so there were some pretty big miscalculations that led to some interesting things we had never seen before. The water treatment they designed was one of the first systems designed to treat waste with living organisms. It didn’t work here, but the people that were involved in that system have gone on to be leaders in bioremediation, a whole new industry of treating waste water and pollution with living organisms.
A number of things have come out of that experiment because it didn’t work — we still learned a lot. The sheer size of Biosphere and the ability to seal sections of it allow us to do research that you can’t do anywhere else. A lot of the science that has come out in the last 20 years has been from laboratories, its been about DNA, but when you get on to the scale when you are talking about climate change, you can learn about things like desertification.
OVM: What is desertification?
NA: Desertification is the basic process of area drying out. Rainfall becomes more sporadic and unreliable. Areas like Tucson and the desert Southwest are kind of the canary in the mineshaft. Because we are already arid we are going to feel more of the effects of changes in global climate as weather patterns shift, as oceans warm in different areas. That is why Biosphere is really well-placed to do experimentation.
OVM: What makes Biosphere so special?
NA: At Biosphere, we specialize in doing three things: scaling, collaborating and coupling. We are the largest facility in the world that can control all of the variables inside. Those lead to new models. We can test things for all different types of disciplines. Because of the size of the facility, we can do all these things at the same time, which brings all of these disciplines together. In addition, we can couple the public with academia, and that’s really the bottom line, to bring the public industry, schools, government, and get them more involved so there is a better dialogue between science and the public.
OVM: Do scientists work both in the field and in Biosphere?
NA: We do both. We have projects that are being collaborated with Biosphere and other College of Science departments and labs. One project we are looking at is how ground water changes along the San Pedro as you have an encroachment of mesquites over grasslands. We are basically building a small watershed inside that we can completely seal up, so we can control what the precipitation is, and then track the precipitation as it moves through the landscape. That’s never been done before. It is really groundbreaking.
OVM: Not everyone believes in global change. Is part of what you’re doing just getting out the idea that there is something going on?
NA: Absolutely. That’s one of the big things we’ve seen here at Biosphere, that the public is really hungry for someone to talk straight with them, to get access to a scientist. All of a sudden they can have a conversation with someone who is really involved with these issues without having the filter of the media or politics. Our visitors often say that is one of the highlights.
OVM: We are not at a point yet where cleaner technology is cheaper technology. Do find that you have to change peoples mindsets to understand that you have to spend money to preserve the planet?
NA: That is probably the biggest challenge right now. I think these last few years we have been going through a transition from an economy that had a surplus of resources and a shortage of labor, to an economy that needs to adjust to a surplus of labor and a shortage of resources. That’s going to make efficiency more and more important. The difficult thing is that our current economic structure is not built to value efficiency, it’s built to value production.
Germany has started doing business where the motto is “cradle to cradle.” The company is responsible for their goods for their entire life. I think that that’s a model we will see more and more of as people try to figure out how to make money in a sustainable way.
OVM: Where do you see us going, conservation-wise, as a society?
NA: One of the big mind shifts that is happening right now is a movement called biomimickry, where instead of looking to the abstract, society looks to nature to find solutions to problems. How does nature transport water, for example? If you look at nature, solutions primarily come from diversity. The Sonoran Desert is one of the most diverse places on earth. We are in a hot bed of how different organisms use different tactics to accomplish similar goals.
I think that’s the bottom line, you can’t just buy the hybrid and say, ok, I’m saving the planet now. There are certain questions you can ask about your lifestyle and values that will inform how you live your life. Our hope is we can give you the understanding of how the world works so you can make decisions that inform your values and your actions.
OVM: We are throwing so much at the public about how they should change their lives, is there a point where people rebel?
NA: People aren’t stupid. They can see that things are changing. I think people are frustrated because we are getting berated with a lot of problems and not a lot of solutions. That’s been a real failure of the leadership in this country. There are really simple things that you can do.
OVM: What do you think of how we try to control the environment?
NA: I think it’s a slippery slope. I think the more we try to manipulate things now, the more work its going be for us in the future.
We have to look at how natural systems work. How we plant things around our yard effects how much energy we use. Planting trees that shade our homes brings our energy costs down. Planting a tree to shade your air conditioner is going to reduce the amount of energy it uses. These are very simple things, but you can’t make these decisions if you don’t know how the earth works.
OVM: Is xerescaping a big deal these days?
NA: Absolutely. I think people realize that xerescaping doesn’t mean a rock garden. We can plant native, dry-tolerant species. We can plant vegetable gardens. Restoring habitat, encourage native birds to come back.
There are an infinite amount of things you can do that will make your house into a really enjoyable micro climate for native plants and animals. We need to be thinking about the value of biodiversity and these organisms coming into our community, instead of just thinking the environment is just out there and something separate from us.
OVM: The U.S. is falling behind in science education. Is that going to be a barrier in moving forward with these issues?
NA: What we see at the university is that there are fewer and fewer students enrolling in the sciences, math and engineering. A greater portion of grad students are international. In the past several years, we have also seen a decrease in funding and development. A lot of the big science innovations in the last 20 years have primarily been in genetics and pharmaceuticals, which are highly specialized and abstract. My feeling is that we need to shift our focus in science from a specialized focus to a broader concept.
OVM: How can people get more information and keep up with new ideas like the ones you are talking about?
NA: We’ve got a great Web site, b2science.org, and I’ve started a sustainability blog — “Sustain the Sphere.” I post photos and conversations about any number of different things they have out here.
One of the great things about Biosphere is that it’s more than the dome. We have three branches, the attraction, the research, and the B2 institute which is being developed into this think tank. This is a world of the future. This is where we are hoping to provide some solutions.
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