Wow! Look what the vine on my wall is doing now!
These strange stick-like stalks are what the vine produces to grow a leaf. The leaves grow on the ends of these foot long stalks and each one produces a single leaf. That means the vine has a real depth. It’s quite a way from the leaves to the wall! But not that autumn has come the stalks pop off the leaf at the end once it turns red and yellow, then some time after it pops off its attachment to the rest of the vine.
Isn’t that an amazing process?
Janine Benyus describes the fabulous harmony between form and function that we find everywhere in Nature. She’s a scientist who specialised in trees and forestry and began to wonder why we don’t look to Nature for our solutions. Her thought was that instead of thinking we can invent technologies which can “conquer” or “control” Nature maybe we can learn from some of the adaptive strategies of other species which have actually lived on this planet for a lot longer than we have.
She’s coined the term “biomimicry” to describe this concept.
I like this idea, and it seems consistent with my own experience of wonder, amazement and, frankly, humility, in my every day life.
The potential for sustainable solutions if we take this approach is exciting. I’ve just started reading her book. I suspect I’ll be posting a few thoughts which that stimulates but let me start today with a passage right from the start.
Nature has answers. Its strategies are wildly successful – collaborating, innovating, resilient, adapting to change and leveraging diversity.
Isn’t that a great list?
- Collaborating
- Innovating
- Resilient
- Adapting to change
- Leveraging diversity
Think how applying those principles could improve the way we deliver health care, organise towns, influence a new approach to politics and economics even?
[…] few days back I wrote a post about biomimetics. Wouldn’t it be great if doctors became experts in health? In how a human being stays […]