Climate Action 2010-2011

Technology and Business
our manufacturing uses the traditional ‘heat, beat and
treat’ technologies but not the spider, nor the abalone sea
snail. The spider manufactures silk five times stronger
and more flexible than steel using benign, low-energy
manufacturing. Abalones manufacture a ceramic
considerably more beautiful and durable than any ceramic
we have ever produced but in ambient water temperature
with no toxic chemicals or high pressure.
Mother-of-pearl, also called nacre, is renowned in
scientific circles because it is twice as tough as our
high-tech ceramics. Researchers have now developed a
nanoscale, layered material that comes close to nacre’s
properties, including its iridescence. This water-based,
low temperature process allows liquid building blocks to
self-assemble and harden into coatings that can toughen
windshields, bodies of solar cars, airplanes or anything
that needs to be lightweight but fracture resistant.
Silicon chips are currently processed in energy intensive
and highly toxic ways. Marine sponges, on the other hand,
form silica structures in ambient conditions with the help
of a protein called silicatein. Researchers at the University
of California, Santa Barbara have created a mimic of this
protein called a cysteine-lysine block copolypeptide. Lab
results confirm that these molecules are able to direct
formation of ordered silica structures, just as silicatein
does. This creates the possibility of developing a non-toxic,
low temperature approach to silica chip manufacture.
Finding a solution to climate change is no easy
endeavour and hundreds of organisations and government
agencies are working on this issue. However, we do know
that the built environment is responsible for much of our
energy use and CO 2
emissions. According to the United
States Environmental Protection Agency, buildings in the
US consume 36 per cent of nation’s energy and 65 per cent
of electricity consumption. Buildings are responsible for
30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.
The opportunities to reduce energy use in buildings by
learning from nature are many. Mick Pearce Architects
and Arup Engineering collaborated on a mid-rise building
in Zimbabwe that has no air-conditioning, yet stays
cool thanks to a termite-inspired ventilation system. The
Eastgate building is modelled on a local termite species
that maintains the temperature inside their nest to within
one degree of 31°C, day and night, summer and winter
while the external temperature varies between 3°C and
42°C. The Eastgate complex uses only 10 per cent of the
energy used by a conventional building of the same size.
Vapour-absorbing insects are inspiring a new building
dehumidification device that would absorb moisture in
humid air and wick it away for collection using a very
small amount of energy. Researchers at the Centre for
Biomimetic and Natural Technologies at the University
of Bath in England are studying how desert cockroaches
gather water to develop a new kind of dehumidifier
technology. Dehumidifying air in a city like Atlanta, GA
before it is cooled would save on energy (drier air takes
less energy to cool), reduce toxic mould, and potentially
provide a new source of potable water. According to the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, desiccant systems
could potentially save about 400 trillion Btu (British
thermal units) of energy each year in US buildings and
prevent the emission of more than 24 million tonnes of
carbon dioxide (CO 2
) by 2010. Desiccant dehumidification
could reduce total residential electricity demand by as
much as 25 per cent in humid regions.
Aside from studying individual species and how
they have developed elegant, well-adapted strategies,
we shouldn’t miss the opportunity to look for climate
change solutions at the systems level by learning from
whole natural ecosystems. Instead of an extractive
agriculture that mimics industry, prairie-inspired farming
is a self-renewing agriculture that mimics nature while
sequestering significant amounts of carbon. Prairies –
temperate grass and shrublands – hold the soil, resist
pests and weeds, and bolster their own fertility, all without
our help. Prairie-like polycultures using edible perennial
crops and biofuel candidates like switch grass would, over
winter, making ploughing or planting every year obsolete.
These mixtures of plants would also give farms resilience,
reducing the need for oil-based pesticides.
These are just a few of hundreds of examples of how
researchers and designers are creating new technologies
that, by following nature’s principles, are both highly
efficient and environmentally sustainable. After 3.8
billion years of evolution, nature has learned what works,
what is appropriate, and what lasts.
[Additional research provided by Janine Benyus.]
Bryony Schwan is Executive Director and co-founder of
The Biomimicry Institute, a non-profit organisation that
promotes the new science of biomimicry. Schwan is also an
affiliate faculty member at the University of Montana where
she teaches in the Environmental Studies programme. Prior
to this, she worked for 11 years as the Executive Director
and then National Campaigns Director for Women’s
Voices for the Earth (WVE), a non-profit environmental
justice organisation that she founded in 1995. Born in
Zimbabwe, she moved to the US in 1981. She has an MS in
Environmental Studies from the University of Montana.
The Biomimicry Institute, co-founded in 2005 by science
writer Janine Benyus, is a non-profit organisation that
promotes the study and imitation of nature’s remarkably
efficient designs in creating sustainable technologies. Benyus
also co-founded the Biomimicry Guild, which brings scientists,
engineers, architects and innovators together to collaborate
and develop green, nature-inspired solutions. The Biomimicry
Institute does not conduct its own research but serves as a
clearinghouse and resource for those who do. Biomimicry is a
new science that studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates
these designs and processes to solve human problems.
The Biomimicry Institute
P.O. Box 9217, Missoula, MT 59807, USA
Email: bryony@biomimicryinstitute.org
Websites: www.biomimicryinstitute.org
www.asknature.org
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