There is this place called the Biosphere 2 located in Arizona.
It is the largest enclosed ecological system.
It is based in Arizona and is now a research facility. Biosphere 2 was originally meant to demonstrate the potential of closed ecological systems in supporting and maintaining human life in outer space, such as colonizing Mars/ other planets. It was designed to explore the web of interactions within life systems in a structure with different areas based on various biological biomes. In addition to the several biomes and living quarters for people, there is an agricultural area and workspace for studying interactions between humans, farming, technology and nature as a laboratory for the study of the global ecology.
It is the largest enclosed ecological system.
No material is added in, and nothing leaves—everything contained. Basically what Earth is, but distilled down into a much smaller scale.
Decades back, these researchers spent two years living here—planting their own food and trees that provided oxygen, and those same trees feeding off of the CO2 that the researchers breathed out.
In a weird, creepy, yet extremely fascinating way, the researchers epitomized the phrase “You are what you eat”
I would have loved to be a part of the experiment and truly live in a self-sufficient and sustainable way.
Currently on my bucket list of places to explore…
Pretty cool.
Here is a Ted Talk about Jane Poynter (one of the researcher’s) perspective.
Blog of Jeff Wang 