Here’s a fascinating article in The Sun about science and technology that imitates nature (only part of it is available online – they want you to buy their magazine so it stays alive – I know the feeling). If you have a design problem of any kind you can go to askNature.org and find out how nature does it. Nature has developed much more subtle and clever ways than our brute methods:

For the most part life operates on very small amounts of energy. When you look at the natural world, you see that organisms do not use high heats or high pressures or toxic chemicals to achieve their ends. A few do use toxins, such as venoms, in small amounts, but none heat anything with explosive force. Biomimicry asks whether we can accomplish our goals without heating things up and smashing them together. Can we start to appreciate the subtle energies around us?

Janine Benyus, author and founder of asknature.org, says something I been wondering about. I have always loved reading about giant technical fixes. Oil running out? No problem, if only we can get nuclear fusion (unlimited energy without radiation and toxic waste), or finally crack artificial photosynthesis (pull CO2 out of the air, mix it with water and sunshine, create carbon and oxygen!), all energy problems are over. Lately, I have been thinking that a breakthrough of that kind might just let us run amok creating things without end, and we might solve global warming at the expense of ruining the biosphere in so many other ways. How much better to reduce fossil fuel use by a plethora of tough choices, so we learn to fit in with natural systems instead of blowing them away with our power. Benyus nails it:

I think fossil fuels were discovered before our consciousness had evolved enough to know what to do with all that energy. We’ve been mesmerized by internal combustion, enthralled by fire. It’s given us almost supernatural powers, multiplying our muscle power by thousands and enabling us to move mountains, literally. People think all we need to fix our predicament is a free source of energy, but I think we need to change our behaviors. More energy would just help us deplete the earth’s lifeblood faster.

So she says that, but then later she is touting artificial photosynthesis after all. It’s an absolute dream, no question, and it’s right in line with all her work. As with nuclear fusion, scientists always seem to be just a few years away from getting it. Someone help me out here: is artificial photosynthesis something we should be on our knees at night praying for, or will it “just help us deplete the earth’s lifeblood faster”?

Read the whole article for lots of examples of biomimicry. It includes a great explanation of why nature does not use all the elements of the periodic table in its chemistry, but only a few, and gets the job done with minimal inputs and waste. I loved her description of three stages of ecosystems. After land has been devastated (e.g., plowed), weeds grow like crazy, putting most of their energy into seeds and very little into roots, because next year the seeds will blow away and seed another field.

… we humans have been a pioneer species, going from open field to open field instead of learning how to live in one place, recycle everything, and develop symbiotic relationships. We just keep moving.

But in a mature, third stage ecosystem like an old growth forest, organisms become extremely efficient and develop cooperative relationships. We are now at a place where we have to start acting like an old growth forest, not a weed field. I did read something very like this decades ago in a wonderful book that, among other things, explained why the European medieval three-field system actually built topsoil rather than eroded it, Edward Hyams’ Soil and Civilization (first published 1952), so I can’t agree that humans are always weedlike. But we have become devastatingly so in the fossil fuel era.