Janine Benyus
"Innovations for a Sustainable Future"
Wednesday, April 18, 2001, 12:30 PM
Janine Benyus is a life sciences writer and author of six books, including her latest, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired By Nature. In Biomimicry, she names an emerging science that seeks sustainable solutions by mimicking nature's designs and processes (for example: solar cells that mimic leaves, agriculture that looks like a prairie, business that runs like a redwood forest). Benyus' other titles include three ecosystem-first field guides: The Field Guide to Wildlife Habitats of the Western US, The Field Guide to Wildlife Habitats of the Eastern US, and Northwoods Wildlife: A Watcher's Guide to Habitats.
Benyus is a graduate of Rutgers University, New Jersey, with degrees in Forestry and Writing. She worked as a backpacking guide for five years and as a writer in the research arm of the Forest Service for nine. Benyus now writes, teaches interpretive writing, lectures on science topics, and works towards restoring and protecting wildlands. An educator at heart, she believes that the better people understand the genius of the natural world, the more they will love and want to protect it.
Lecture Summary
The world if full of magical things waiting for our senses to grow sharper. - W.B. Yeats
Why biomimicry? Because at this point in time we're biologically vulnerable.
As we begin to realize that we're only one species in a party of 30 million, the question arises, "How do we keep ourselves alive without destroying that which sustains us?" Only one percent of all species that evolved on this planet have answered this question; they're the ones all around us. For how long will we be part of this one percent?
We need to do what men have such a hard time doing: ask directions.
But designers and engineers (traditionally male-dominated professions) don't ask for directions; they don't study biology. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Western science frowns on natural history knowledge, as related by Janine's anecdote about Benke, the master Brazilian naturalist, cajoled to set up experimental plots to test questions for which he already had the answers through a lifetime of practical observation.
Janine maintains that "We are nature." (Didn't David Suzuki say almost exactly the same thing at our inaugural lecture last year?) Our cars and buildings and computers come from Homo sapiens, like a robin's nest comes from Turdus migratorius. B52s are natural, but are they well-adapted, like a robin's nest? With only a few hundred thousand years on the planet, we're a young species. Are we well-adapted? We'll see.
Janine shared a little menagerie of critters with us, each with a design lesson for Homo sapiens.
Leaf stoma that still open and close 30 years after the tree dies, as a model for breathing clothes or buildings.
Mucus made at 98 degrees in an aqueous environment, that holds up to 15 times its volume of water, as a model for lubricant.
Scales cool the rapidly beating wings of a butterfly, as a model for cooling computer chips.
Rhino horn that self-repairs, as a model for self-repairing bridges or roads.
Bioluminescent fish mix chemicals in a nontoxic aqueous environment, as a model for making light without electricity or petrochemicals.
Geckos that use Van der Walls forces as a dry adhesive, as a model to cover and re-cover and re-cover surfaces.
Shellfish that accumulate sea-water precipitate in between a secreted cellular "mortar," as a model for aviation.
More observations from Janine: Life creates conditions conducive to life. Will we produce conditions conducive to some other organism?
Biomimicry deals with:
1) Form - how something is designed
How about a surface that sheds dirt like the undulating surface of a lotus leaf when water beads up and rolls off.
or...
How about cars and clothes that aren't painted but rely on internal structures to reflect and refract light. A brown peacock appears blue. Could clear clothes be structured to take on various colors? (But what if your transparent clothing suddenly lost its "structure"?)
2) Process - how something is made
Plastics made from cornstarch synthesized into polyactic acid (PLA) instead of from petrochemicals http://agproducts.unl.edu/pla.htm
Plastics made directly from carbon dioxide instead of from petrochemicals. http://www.chem.cornell.edu/gc39/
Shape-based computing - if it's good enough for our brains, why not for computers?
3) Living systems - how something fits its environment
Re-inventing the prairie. Ten thousand years ago humans figured out how to push perennials to act like annuals and grow these plants in a monoculture, which is like hanging out a big sign for pests "All You Can Eat!" Wes Jackson at The Land Institute is figuring out how to get back to a multispecies perennial system with four components: cold grasses, warm grasses, composites, and legumes. It's more productive, more pest-resistant, more drought-resistant, and less capital-intensive. Agribusiness probably hates it. Farmers will love it.
The Land Institute and other organizations are trying to move us from Type I systems that are linear, simple, temporary, and good at colonizing to Type III
systems which are rooted, cyclical, densely interconnected, and self-sustaining. Type I worked when there were few humans in a wide-open planet. Now that there are six billion of us and we've pressed to the edges of the planet, Type III makes more sense.
Some final thoughts from Janine:
We are the natural selection agents for all our products, policies and processes. (I wondered about this. Won't natural systems also select for or against our activities? Global warming may select against fossil fuel use. One-hundred-year floods may select against building in floodplains, etc.)
When gratitude tempers greed the notion of resources becomes obscene.
Unencumbered evolution is our most valuable asset.
We need to see nature as a source of ideas not goods, as a teacher instead of a warehouse, as model, measure, and mentor.
Questions and Answers
Q: What does nature have to teach us about dealing with brownfields?
A: Willows can be effective for brownfields.
Q: This information needs to get out to K-12 students.
A: David Suzuki will be hosting a three part series on Biomimicry for fall of 2002.
Q: What corporations would you work with? Who is really serious about this?
A: Right here in Portland there's Norm Thompson. I'm currently working with Interface Carpet, whose CEO is passionately green. They've taken their design ideas for replaceable carpet tiles from looking at leaves on the forest floor - you remove a leaf and the forest still looks the same. It's still beautiful.
Q: What about the concept of patenting species?
A: This is a crucial period of time for that issue. It's currently on hold for a year and a half while policy-makers study the proposal to allow anyone to just walk into a patent office with a biological specimen and ask for a patent without a description or potential use. And here's the kicker: if the specimen RESIDES in the United States, but originally comes from some other country, the patent office would list the United States as the country of origin. This is an issue that needs a lot of scrutiny and work right away, because there's a small window of opportunity to keep us from going in the wrong direction on this.
Books by Janine Benyus:
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (1998)
'Biomimicry is the story of the fascinating men and women who are studying life's best ideas and then imitating these designs and processes to solve human problems. Already, biomimics are learning to grow food like a prairie, harness energy like a leaf, weave fibers like a spider, compute like a cell, find cures like a chimp, and run a business like a redwood forest. Nature manufactures in water, without toxins, using abundant raw materials and very little energy. Nature banks on the diversity of polycultures rather than the vulnerability of monocultures. Nature computes using shape, not symbols. These and other new ideas will surprise you, and help you brainstorm about ways to not just tweak old paradigms, but to overturn them completely.' Source: Biomimicry, Inc. website
The Secret Language and Remarkable Behavior of Animals (1998)
'Perfect for animal lovers of all ages, this book interprets animals' expressive body language and in the process gives us a better understanding of the fascinating behavioral patterns of the creatures around us. Author Janine Benyus, renowned animal behaviorist, writes in clear and simple terms as she explores the subtleties of communication in the wild kingdom. The direction a lion points its ears shows you if it is curious or threatened; when a gorilla hoots it's telling its group to start moving; when a gray wolf holds its tail straight out, it's ready to attack and when a male crocodile shoots a fountain of water into the air, it's courting its mate.' - Amazon.com review
The Field Guide to Wildlife Habitats of the Western United States (1989)
The Field Guide to Wildlife Habitats of the Eastern United States (1989)
Northwoods Wildlife: A Watcher's Guide to Habitats (1989)
Lectures, Interviews & Articles by Janine Benyus:
Interview on the Paula Gordon Show - 'A Natural Teacher'
2003 interview with Future Positive
2002 speech - Flow design conference in Amsterdam
2001 Yes! Magazine - 'Mother Nature's School of Design'
Interview with Janine Benyus on ISdesigNet