Biomimicry

Paul Hawken thinks we’ve had it backward. Instead of taxing good things like income, Hawken would like to see government tax bad things like pollution or excessive use of energy or virgin materials. Taxing fuels based on their carbon content, for instance (more carbon is more damaging), would encourage use of low-polluting fuels like natural gas in

There are fourteen different shapes of crystal that are possible in all of nature.

The trick is to start with crops that mimic the first successional stage (grasses and legumes), and then add crops that mimic the next stage (perennial shrubs), all the way up to the larger trees—nut crops, for instance.

nature’s first trick of the trade is that nature manufactures its materials under life-friendly conditions—in water, at room temperature, without harsh chemicals or high pressures.

other than rocks and metals, it’s hard to find any raw material we use that was not once alive, owing its ultimate existence to plants.

Self-assembly, then, is nature’s third trick of the materials trade.

Nature runs on sunlight. Nature uses only the energy it needs. Nature fits form to function. Nature recycles everything. Nature rewards cooperation. Nature banks on diversity. Nature demands local expertise. Nature curbs excesses from within. Nature taps the power of limits.

Five materials—paper, steel, aluminum, plastics, and container glass—account for 31 percent of U.S. manufacturing energy use.

have to go looking for sunlight. Their seedlings can tolerate their parents’ shade, so wave after wave of the same species can grow up here.