Alan Marshall is a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

author, scholar, and artist working within the discipline of

environmental studies Environmental studies is a multidisciplinary academic field which systematically studies human interaction with the environment. Environmental studies connects principles from the physical sciences, commerce/economics, the humanities, and social ...

. He is noted as a key scholar in

environmental philosophy Environmental philosophy is a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the natural environment and humans' place within it. It asks crucial questions about human environmental relations such as "What do we mean when we talk about nature?" "What ...

and for his investigations into eco-friendly cities of the future. For his research on these topics, the

University of Wollongong The University of Wollongong (abbreviated as UOW) is an Australian public research university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, approximately 80 kilometres south of Sydney. As of 2017, the university had an enrolment of ...

awarded Marshall a doctorate and ''National Geographic'' assigned him as an explorer.

Major projects

In 2006, Alan Marshall founded The Ecomimicry Project which tries to meld ecology with Green

innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entity ...

sustainable art Sustainable art is art in harmony with the key principles of sustainability, which include ecology, social justice, non-violence and grassroots democracy. Sustainable art may also be understood as art that is produced with consideration for the wide ...

, and the ethics of

environmentalism Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seek ...

. Examples of designs that emerged from this project include: * a Hemp Sail Battle Cruiser for the Royal Australian Navy (in which a navy ship had its engines 'designed-out' and in their stead it is powered by

sails A sail is a tensile structure—which is made from fabric or other membrane materials—that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails may ...

made from eco-friendly

hemp Hemp, or industrial hemp, is a botanical class of ''Cannabis sativa'' cultivars grown specifically for industrial or medicinal use. It can be used to make a wide range of products. Along with bamboo, hemp is among the fastest growing plants o ...

) * a

manure Manure is organic matter that is used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Most manure consists of animal feces; other sources include compost and green manure. Manures contribute to the fertility of soil by adding organic matter and nutri ...

-powered swimming pool heating system (in which a luxury pool is heated by the composted body waste of the swimmers) * a hairy-roofed

Carpathian mountain The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The range stretches ...

village where the architecture is adorned with an engineered protective material that mimics the fur of local brown bears. These designs, illustrated by and large by Marshall, were compiled into the
Wild Design
' book and then praised by the Australian art & design media. In January 2013, Marshall started th
Ecotopia 2121
project; which (as noted by ''CNN'' and ''The Independent'') explores 'graphic future scenarios' of 100 'super-ecofriendly' cities across the world. In 2015, the master-class part of this project conducted at Mahidol University was awarded the 2015 Kenneth M. Roemer Innovative Course Design Award by the

Society for Utopian Studies The Society for Utopian Studies (founded 1975) is a North American interdisciplinary association devoted to the study of utopianism in all its forms, with a particular emphasis on literary and experimental utopias. Publications The Society publis ...

. ''Ecotopia 2121'', the book of the project written and illustrated by Marshall, has attracted broad critical acclaim. The ''Times Higher Education'' review of ''Ecotopia 2121'' stated "very few academics ever produce anything as stunning and imaginative as this", whilst ''National Geographic UK'', ''Al Jazeera'', ''ZMEScience'',
Lithuanian Radio Television
''Forbes'', and ''Publishers Weekly'' variously declared it "curious and creative", "adventurous", "impressive", "visionary", and "monumental". ''Ecotopia 2121'' was put on Resurgence and Ecologist magazine's Book of the Year list, won a Silver Medal at the 2017 Nautilus Book Awards and placed 1st in the 'Future Forecasts' category of the 2016 Green Book Festival, whilst the 'London 2121' cityscape from the book was chosen by the

Museum of London The Museum of London is a museum in London, covering the history of the UK's capital city from prehistoric to modern times. It was formed in 1976 by amalgamating collections previously held by the City Corporation at the Guildhall, London, Gui ...

to be displayed within their 2018 ''London Visions'' exhibition and by the London Design Biennale as part of their 2021 exhibition at

Somerset House Somerset House is a large Neoclassical complex situated on the south side of the Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadrangle was built on the site of a Tudor palace ("O ...

. In turn, Marshall's 'San Diego 2121' cityscape was highlighted on the

LA7 La7 is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned by Cairo Communication. Until 2013 it was a pay-per-view channel owned by Telecom Italia Media and operated by Telecom Italia. Signal overspill means that parts of Albania, Croatia, Swi ...

TV show ''Piazza Pulita'' during the pre- COP26 climate talks, whilst the
Tokyo 2121
cityscape adorned the frontispiece of the book ''Green Leviathan'' by Belgian philosopher Mark Coeckelbergh, and the 'Macau 2121' cityscape featured in the pages of the popular Arab women's magazine ''

Sayidaty ''Sayidaty'' (Arabic سيدتي ''Sayyidatī'', meaning ''My Lady'' in English) is a weekly Arabic and a monthly English women's magazine published in both Riyadh and Beirut and distributed throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Am ...

''. In late 2015, Marshall began a new project in urban ecology calle
Frankencities
which details the worst-case scenarios of emerging environmental problems in a series of cities around the world whilst comparing them to the insights offered by the

Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...

story. The
Daily Express
' and
VICE
' reported that Marshall's work on ''Frankenstein'' extended to critiquing the popular idea that Mary Shelley was inspired to write the original ''Frankenstein'' novel because she was affected by a volcanically-induced

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

event known as the

Year Without a Summer The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by . Summer temperatures in Europe were the extreme weather, coldest on record between the years of 1 ...

. For the Frankencities project and for the Ecotopia 2121 project, Marshall developed a novel urban design

methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...

known as 'The Literary Method of Urban Design' which is not so much about design but more about inventing new social change strategies. A film scripted by Marshall about this methodology was published by National Geographic Indonesia and became an 'official selection' at a number of film festivals across Asia and Europe. In 2020, Marshall began the "Global Sheeplands" project which investigates the way

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus ''Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated s ...

have contributed to the making of the modern world. As part of this project, Marshall has made off-screen and on-screen contributions to a two-hour

arte Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plus ...

TV documentary about sheep. Prior to his 21st century work in the eco-design field, Marshall was mainly involved in eco-philosophy and techno-criticism. In the 1990s, Marshall developed a postmodern version of the Human–Nature relationship, one that throws into doubt the idea that Nature is a united orderly system. Marshall's approach is heavily influenced by the science of

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

but has been criticized as privileging one school of ecology, i.e., ' 'plant sociology", over others such as systems ecology and the ecology of

Gaia In Greek mythology, Gaia (; from Ancient Greek , a poetical form of , 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea , is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenog ...

-- both of which he critiques as shallow forms of environmentalism. Indeed, his book ''The Unity of Nature i''s one of the fiercest critiques of

Systems Theory Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...

in general, and

Gaia Theory The Gaia hypothesis (), also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps ...

and

Chaos Theory Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to have co ...

in particular. Marshall is also referred to as a critic of the car industry, of the

nuclear industry Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced ...

and of space exploration. His writings on the latter subject have been cited as insightful but are usually regarded by scientists and engineers as being too radically '

environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

' especially his calls for the protection of the Martian landscape.

Fiction

Alan Marshall is also an award-winning writer of fiction; a genre he was very active within from about 1998 to 2002. His works of fiction include an historical novel, ''Lancewood'', about an iconic New Zealand plant, and a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

radio drama called ''This Pointless Thing Called Life'' that was broadcast on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

, KFAI, KUNM, and XM Satellite Radio in the USA. In 2001 ''This Pointless Thing Called Life'' received the "Silver Award" from the Mark Time Awards by a panel that included Grammy-award winner

Phil Proctor Philip Proctor (born 1940) is an American actor, comedian and a member of the Firesign Theatre. He has performed voice-over work for video games, films and television series. Career Of the four members of Firesign Theatre, Proctor has had t ...

who said it was "definitely on a par with

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it ...

". Along with Peter Jackson's ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...

'' movie trilogy, ''This Pointless Thing Called Life'' was nominated for a Vogel Award in the category "Best Long Form dramatic science fiction and fantasy production made in New Zealand in the year 2002". Like his scholarly writings, Marshall's fiction explores the relationships between "humans and technology" and between "humans and nature". The sequel to ''This Pointless Thing Called Life'' was another award-winning full-length radio feature broadcast in four parts on XM Satellite and by some NPR stations in 2003. This sequel was titled ''This Miserable Thing Called Life''.This audionovel is accessible on YouTub
here

Books

* Alan Marshall (2016)
Ecotopia 2121: A Vision of Our Future Green Utopia -- in 100 Cities
', Arcade/Skyhorse Publ: NY. * Alan Marshall (2009)
Wild Design: Ecofriendly Innovations Inspired by Nature
', North Atlantic Books: Berkeley. * Alan Marshall (2006)
Dangerous Dawn: The New Nuclear Age
', BNI: Melbourne. * Alan Marshall (2002)
The Unity of Nature
', Imperial College Press/World Scientific: London & Singapore * Alan Marshall (1999)
Lancewood
', Indra Publishers: Melbourne.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marshall, Alan Living people Year of birth missing (living people) New Zealand environmentalists New Zealand science fiction writers Environmental studies scholars Neo-Luddites University of Wollongong alumni