In a lecture broadcast on the UK’s BBC, the Prince of Wales issued a stark warning about impending environmental catastrophe, telling an audience: “If we fail the Earth, we fail humanity.” Giving the 33rd Richard Dimbleby lecture, The Prince set out his vision for tackling what he said were the pressing problems of the “environmental crisis”, and spoke of an economic system with “enormous shortcomings”. A new order was needed to combat these issues which moved away from a “mechanistic” approach to one that was more “balanced and integrated with nature’s complexity”.
…the emerging discipline of biomimicry puts what zoologists and biologists know about natural systems together with the problems engineers and architects are trying to solve, in order to produce technology that mimics how Nature operates. There are some remarkable examples – by studying the surface of lotus leaves, an exterior paint has been developed that enables walls to clean themselves when it rains; and from a tiny desert beetle comes a sheet that can harvest moisture from the lightest of mists in the driest parts of the world. They all blend the best of the old with the best of the new to produce highly efficient technology that works with the grain of Nature rather than against it.
Complete speech at http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk
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