Nature has spent 3.8 billion years perfecting how to make stuff without messing up its' own back yard.
Humans have taken just 40,000 years to pollute our oceans, raise the earth's temperature, change the climate, pollute the rivers and streams, eradicate numerous species and generally poison/pollute the world we share with millions of other organisms.
Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Inspired by Nature, shows that humans use a heavy-handed approach to making things using the full spectrum of elements from the periodic table via a "heat, beat and treat" process that produces 96 per cent waste and a mere four percent that's useful.
On the other hand, nature makes stuff using the lightest possible touch, at room temperature and pressures by recombining in clever ways a small sub-set of the chemicals at its' disposal. The result is an environment which is sympathetic to other life forms.
Benyus asks three qestions about what nature can teach us. How does nature make things, make the most of things, and make things that disappear into systems or become part of systems?
She puts up twelve big design ideas such as self-assembly at room temperature. Carbon dioxide as a feedstock to make stuff from glucose and protein chains. Harvesting light directly. Power shapes that reduce friction or improve flow. Extracting water directly from the atmospshere. Using "green chemicals" rather than the dangerous and toxic. Metals without mining. Timed degradation.
Here's a workshop to explore the possibilities:
1. Brainstorm some ways Benyus 12 rules might change our world and the tools we use.
2. What would it take for hard-rock miners to make the switch to extracting minerals using biological rather than physical processes?
3. If we could self-assemble tools and products at room-temperature, using a small sub-set of the least toxic elements, what would be the impact on our environment?
4. What do you know about how nature works that could change the way we design, organize and operate organizations for the better?
5. Brainstorm a list of possible uses for surfaces that are self-cleaning?
6. What might a farm be like if it was part of nature? What new rules might farmers follow?
7. What if we could grow houses, or parts of houses such as light collecting surfaces. What might they look like or be like to live in?
8. If we could unlock nature's rules for timed degradation, what could we use this technology for?
9. If we could convert sunlight directly to usable forms of energy in the way plants do with the same kinds of efficiencies, what impact would this have the social and physical world?
10. What new powers might humans acquire using new kinds of tools we create that not only mimic nature but become a part of nature?
Humans have taken just 40,000 years to pollute our oceans, raise the earth's temperature, change the climate, pollute the rivers and streams, eradicate numerous species and generally poison/pollute the world we share with millions of other organisms.
Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Inspired by Nature, shows that humans use a heavy-handed approach to making things using the full spectrum of elements from the periodic table via a "heat, beat and treat" process that produces 96 per cent waste and a mere four percent that's useful.
On the other hand, nature makes stuff using the lightest possible touch, at room temperature and pressures by recombining in clever ways a small sub-set of the chemicals at its' disposal. The result is an environment which is sympathetic to other life forms.
Benyus asks three qestions about what nature can teach us. How does nature make things, make the most of things, and make things that disappear into systems or become part of systems?
She puts up twelve big design ideas such as self-assembly at room temperature. Carbon dioxide as a feedstock to make stuff from glucose and protein chains. Harvesting light directly. Power shapes that reduce friction or improve flow. Extracting water directly from the atmospshere. Using "green chemicals" rather than the dangerous and toxic. Metals without mining. Timed degradation.
Here's a workshop to explore the possibilities:
1. Brainstorm some ways Benyus 12 rules might change our world and the tools we use.
2. What would it take for hard-rock miners to make the switch to extracting minerals using biological rather than physical processes?
3. If we could self-assemble tools and products at room-temperature, using a small sub-set of the least toxic elements, what would be the impact on our environment?
4. What do you know about how nature works that could change the way we design, organize and operate organizations for the better?
5. Brainstorm a list of possible uses for surfaces that are self-cleaning?
6. What might a farm be like if it was part of nature? What new rules might farmers follow?
7. What if we could grow houses, or parts of houses such as light collecting surfaces. What might they look like or be like to live in?
8. If we could unlock nature's rules for timed degradation, what could we use this technology for?
9. If we could convert sunlight directly to usable forms of energy in the way plants do with the same kinds of efficiencies, what impact would this have the social and physical world?
10. What new powers might humans acquire using new kinds of tools we create that not only mimic nature but become a part of nature?
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