Nature’s Solutions as Models

9.11.2019

According to Isenmann, economists and engineers often use biological analogies, specifically from organisms (analogy with evolution, with fractal growth, with the brain, etc.) in order to solve socio-economic phenomena. However, without an associated conceptual framework and in the absence of philosophical enlightenment, the prospect of industrial ecology as a means to understand nature as a model probably remains speculative. It is worth questioning whether the work related to biological analogies results in something new, or if it is just a reordering based in common sense. Strengthening the basis of industrial ecology is useful for protecting the powerful idea that nature serves as a model, rather than just using it as a simple rhetoric or a note in the literature of environmental management, as a beautiful accessory. The root cause of the total unsustainability of modern civilization lies in the dualistic separation of nature and culture. It is in nature that all people and all species are united in a community of life. However, culture is usually conceived of as something independent and separate from nature.

 Despite this reversal of cultural values, since the industrial revolution, reductionist science has allowed man to design a series of powerful and manipulative technologies, which are transforming the planet in a devastating way. The great biomimetic innovations of mankind alert and question: What will the Biomimicry Revolution do differently than the Industrial Revolution? Who can assure that the thunder of nature will not be stolen and used in a campaign against life? This is not an infantile concern; one of the most important biomimetic inventions was the airplane, inspired by the flight of birds. Men flew for the first time in 1903, but in 1914, they were already dropping bombs from the sky. Maybe what is really necessary is not a technological change, but an internal change of mentality that allows for sensitivity to nature’s lessons.