Spaceship Earth

Buckminster Fuller released a book in 1969 titled, “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth” in which he presents a vision of the world as an interconnected, self-contained system that requires careful management to ensure the well-being of its inhabitants. Fuller states that Earth’s resources are limited, and humanity must learn to manage them efficiently and equitably. He stresses the importance of using technology and innovation to maximize sustainability. He advocates for design solutions that consider the entire system, suggesting that humanity can solve global problems like poverty and environmental degradation. Overall, he calls for a shift in human thinking from short-term, self-serving practices to a long-term, collective responsibility for Earth’s future. He emphasizes the role of technology, design, and innovative thought in navigating the challenges of a finite world.
All of this to say that the idea for Kopi-Us was sparked from the study of sustainable systems, permaculture. We were teaching a permaculture pilot course at the local high school, imploring students to carry the principles of permaculture and apply them to every facet of their future, their homes, their careers, use it to transform their thinking and their environment. “Look at a problem and think to yourself, how lucky am I!” Thats what our teacher Bill Wilson used to tell us.
How could we implore the youth, our future, to do such a thing and not take it upon ourselves to act on our own disturbances now. Thus Kopi-Us was born into action, lifted out of the again-and-again talks of someone should do something like this or that to fix this thing.
When I was looking for a place to call home in the Chicagoland area I knew my top two priorities, to be surrounded by greenery, and close to water. I was patient and ultimately blessed with exactly what I had been looking for, a humble home surrounded by forest preserves right on the Fox River. I had found a small paradise in the Chicago Suburbs, everything I had ever dreamed of. After some time here, the condition of the river really started to wear on me.
My dreams now are to have an abundance of clean water. Kopi-Us is more than just a plant food product, it is a movement to start raising priority of our aquatic habitat restoration and preservation in the culture. Traditional fertilizers tend to end up in our rivers and create algae blooms, dead zones. Not only that, but the practice of soil degradation and amendment only prioritizes the three macronutrients that plants need, NPK.
There has been an oversight on the effect the loss of ‘micronutrients’ in our soil, therefore our food, has had on our health. Nutrients like Iron, Zinc, Magnesium, Calcium, Phosphorus, Potassium, and Selenium that not only enrich the soil and improve plant health but will also enrich human health through produce yielded from any plant grown in such a case. Kopi thus serves as a sustainable way to boost both soil vitality and human nutrition.
We have been gifted this new resource of Kopi, or Carp, is a symbol of strength and perseverance in Japanese culture because they are such a tough species. They can thrive in conditions where other species may faulter and that’s what makes them so ‘invasive’, and able to out compete. We seek to strike a balance and glorify this gift of Carp by renewing its body into a form that will renew our land and surround us with copious abundance for all.