Janine Benyus — Biomimicry, an Operating Manual for Earthlings

On Being with Krista Tippett

On Being Studios

Society, Spirituality, Society & Culture, Sociology, Culture, Science, Religion & Spirituality, Krista Tippett, Social Sciences, On Being, Arts

4.7 • 10.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2023

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There is a quiet, redemptive story of our time in this conversation — a radical way of approaching the gravest of our problems by attending to how original vitality functions. Biomimicry takes the natural world as mentor and teacher — for, as Janine Benyus puts it, "we are surrounded by geniuses." Nature solves problems and performs what appear to us as miracles in every second, all around: running on sunlight, fitting form to function, recycling everything, relentlessly "creating conditions conducive to life.” Janine launched this way of seeing and imagining as a field with her 1997 book, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Today she teaches and consults with all kinds of projects and organizations, including major corporations, as you'll hear. Welcome to this unfolding parallel universe in our midst, which might just shift the way you see almost everything about our possible futures. This conversation was part of The Great Northern Festival, a celebration of Minnesota’s signature cold, creative winters.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for on-being with Christa Tippett comes from the Fetzer Institute.
0:03.9	Fetzer supports a movement of organizations that are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems.
0:10.4	Learn more at Fetzer.org.
0:13.4	A few years ago, the term biomemachree started turning up as I moved around the world.
0:20.5	I'll meet someone in a field that has nothing linear to do with the natural world,
0:25.9	but someone creative and inquisitive and also usually markedly kind,
0:32.1	who is remaking, revitalizing their world in some corner.
0:37.7	Biomemachree is not a science, per se, though it works with science.
0:42.4	It's a design discipline that takes the natural world as mentor and teacher,
0:48.1	inviting the intelligence and wisdom of biology and ecology
0:53.1	around tables where previously only engineering and construction and material sciences sat.
1:00.6	Biomemachree inquires into the mechanisms by which nature solves problems,
1:06.8	and by the way, performs what appear to us as miracles in every second all around.
1:13.6	Running on sunlight, fitting form to function, recycling everything,
1:20.8	relentlessly creating conditions conducive to life.
1:26.0	As Janine Benius puts it, we are surrounded by geniuses.
1:31.1	She launched this way of seeing and imagining as a field with her 1997 book,
1:36.9	Biomemachree, Innovation Inspired by Nature.
1:41.0	Today, she teaches and consults with all kinds of projects and organizations,
1:46.1	including major corporations as you'll hear.
1:50.1	There is a quiet, redemptive story of our time in this conversation,
1:55.1	a radical way of approaching the gravest of our problems
	...

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