Bob Dylan’s “…for the times they are a changing…” echoed in the cavernous main hall of Boston’s Conference and Exhibition Center as two modern-day ‘rock stars’ prepared to take the stage for Greenbuild’s closing presentation. 29,752 showed up this week despite the turmoil in financial markets and thousands were inspired and learn about two critical sustainability tools.
A building conference may seem an odd place for two biologists to keynote, but as the first keynoter E.O Wilson reminded us in his opening “We are a biological species living in a biological world” so it is crucial that science and the future oriented businesses represented by the attendees come together.
Just one statistic he offered us: 60,000 known fungi, and the total may be north a million. But the human species is destroying biodiversity before we even know what we have. Wison is working to correct that through the Encyclopedia of Life.
Fellow keynoter Janine Benyus talked about a second tool: www.asknature.org where we can now ask the question “How would nature do this?” and then flip through a catalog of nature’s most ingenious solutions. The Biomimicry Guild and the Biomimicry Institute provided the ‘starter culture’ and Janine urged the audience
We live in a very narrow band of what nature offers and now the potential for creative responses to our greatest challenges is exponentially easier – thank you Janine and EO for these extraordinary gifts. May they soon help us transform our culture from occupier to student, learning how to live sustainably, meeting our needs in ways more conducive to life.