Becoming Nature's apprentice

Reading The Sun magazine this morning. Inspiring article, "The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Janine Benyus On The Virtues of Imitating Nature."  Benyus is one of Time magazine's Heroes of the Environment, and came up with an emerging discipline called Biomimicry, which seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature's designs and processes. For example, solar cells that mimic leaves, agriculture that models a prairie, businesses that run like redwood forests.

In the interview she says:

"Biomimicry is the practice of borrowing nature’s design principles to create more sustainable products and processes. When designers, engineers, architects, chemists, city planners, and so on have a problem to solve, I encourage them to ask, “What part of the natural world has already done what I’m trying to do?” With biomimicry we look to design principles in nature as examples for good behavior. I think of it as becoming nature’s apprentice."

I first heard of biomimicry several years ago from Jay Yowell, an Oklahoma City based architect and friend, and was fascinated with the concept but never explored it further. After reading the article, I'm determined to circle back to Benyus' book, "Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature" and become Nature's apprentice.

Pondering all this morning and wondered, what would happen if we all became Nature's apprentices? 

Comments

[Hydrophilia]

Closing the loops, wasting nothing, less spending, less fight and more flow: this all sounds good.

Can we build homes that improve the local and global environment compared to no homes? Homes, perhaps, that mimic our bodies efficiency in heating/cooling (hypothermia house, anyone? Cool extremities...like bedrooms...while preserving the core heat.) Homes that expand the local ecosystem rather than robbing and burying it? Green roofs or straw bales are probably a start.

Is there a way we can evolve or otherwise design systems that will better fit the world? Could computers help us use our current unsustainable technological civilization to step to a sustainable path?

I see two paths, not mutually exclusive... One would have fewer people, fewer belongings, far less footprint per person: just back off the consumption. The other would be a far more technical designed-green world, but one in which we have created lives and tools that might be far more natural. I do not trust either product of man's mind as we seem to have trouble fully visualizing the ramifications of our actions and creations, but it is better to try than not.

Still, playing with something like aquaponics can help close nutrient cycles and bring food and the life and death it entails closer. And there are so many other ideas to work with....And if we are going to save the world we may as well have fun doing it!