By Magdalena Wadowski
We may think that transferring from our industrial ways to the natural system will be the easiest transition ever but with our pampered habits even with the thought of changing a lot of people would have a hard time giving up the lifestyle. At the rate that we are destroying the earth we truly need to fully understand how complicated natures cycles are and how we need to evolve back into producing high quality goods and still being eco-friendly. People think that it will be simple to redo what we have destroyed and transition to eco-friendly products and materials, but nature is extremely complex. We need to be able to completely imitate nature and learn how it exactly works, or this simple idea of changing our habits will not happen anytime soon.
Nature is something that we need to take care of because if we keep destroying our planet with non-biodegradable items, we may not have a planet to give to our children. Nature is made up of many different cycles, and we need to be careful with what waste we throw away. That waste will alter nature’s balanced cycles. Benyus states that we need to practice “biomimicry,” which is a science that studies life’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems” (34). We need to imitate nature to be able to sustain ourselves because nature by itself can be sustainable. We are only a negative variable at this point because of how wasteful we are. “The more our world looks and functions like the natural world, the more likely we are to endure in this home that is ours, but not ours alone” (Benyus 34). The more we learn from nature the better we can produce products that are safer for the planet.
…If we truly need to change something in nature to help us better sustain ourselves, then we also have to consider what else will be changed in nature if we alter just one thing. A sustainable organic farmer, Joel Salatin, who took farming to the next level said, “‘in an ecological system […] everything’s connected to everything else, so you can’t change one thing without changing ten other things’” (Salatin qtd. in Pollan 284). At this moment we have been changing nature at a high rate and we have not looked back on the consequences that happened because of those modifications…
Imitating nature is the only way out of our consuming lifestyles. We need to desperately start changing our ways to restore the ecosystems we wiped out. Through the knowledge of nature we will be able to accomplish more than what we have accomplished with our industrial mindset.
If we plan to be here in the future we need to follow the basic concept, “cradle to cradle.” This means we need to create and have sustainable products that circulate instead of being used and then discarded. We have followed the industrial thinking of “cradle to grave,” which means we only create to use and throw away….
By giving up our polluting lifestyles we will be able to make an even bigger step to living a nature inspired sustainable culture. If we look at nature and learn how helpful it really is we can “realize that what is good for the living Earth is good for us as well” (Benyus 36), by understanding that nature is good for us we need to be more interested in its helpful ways. Nature not only heals you spiritually it can also help you physically. If we keep on polluting the earth then we will not be able to enjoy the beautiful scenery that nature has to offer for us which means our spirits will not be as high as when the sun is out and it is beating down and warming our faces. We also need to “see nature as a source of ideas, as a mentor” (Benyus 38). By seeing nature as something we can learn from instead of what we can take out of we will be able to fulfill our ideas of becoming this sustainable, healthy society that runs off of nature and interacts with nature.
By creating products that can be used over again and still keep its high quality value we can move faster into our plan of being eco-friendly. We need to be interested to learn from nature and act upon what she teaches us. To become sustainable and understand nature our abilities need to be met under the standards of what nature creates. If we destroy so much and not replace what we have destroyed, how will we be able to give nature to our children? If we are to live long enough for many generations to thrive after us we need to act now.
Works Cited
Benyus, Janine. “Mother Nature’s School of Design.” Choices for Sustainable Living. Ed. Northwest Earth Institute. Portland, OR: Northwest Earth Institute, 2009. 34-38. Print.
Elgin, Duane. “Simplicity and Consumption.” A World of Health: Connecting People, Place, and Planet. Ed. Northwest Earth Institute. Portland, OR: Northwest Earth Institute, 2010. 71. Print
McDonough, William and Michael Braungart. “The Extravagant Gesture.” Choices for Sustainable Living. Ed. Northwest Earth Institute. Portland, OR: Northwest Earth Institute, 2009. 95-97. Print
Pollan, Michael. “The Animals: Practicing Complexity.” Emerging: Contemporary Readings for Writers. Ed. Barclay Barrios. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. 280-292. Print.
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