symbiosis
The most effective approach is already designed by nature,
and biomimicry is the process to learn it
theory of change
the land usage
Data source:
Ellis, E.C.; Beusen, A.H.W.; Goldewijk, K.K. Anthropogenic Biomes: 10,000 BCE to 2015 CE. Land 2020, 9, 129. https://doi.org/10.3390/land9050129
In the recent hundreds of years, as the industrialization and growth of population going on, humans have rapidly turned a significant amount of land on Earth from natural landscapes to croplands and pastures. At the same time, the area of nature decreased by a half. In other words, half of the land area on Earth is serving humans.
in the air
Data source:
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/climate-change?facet=none&hideControls=true&Metric=CO%E2%82%82+concentrations&Long-run+series%3F=true&country=~OWID_WRL
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/global.html
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been stably fluctuated with a range in the history of Earth.
In the recent five hundred years however, the carbon dioxide concentration suddenly increased sharply. As of 2022, it doubled compare with previous average level.
It is already beyond the regular pattern but there is no sign that it’s going back.
ecological circulation
the circulation of substances in nature
the circulation of substances with human
In the natural ecology, all the substances move around in circulations. Things are being reused over and over again.
After human got engaged in with industries, all things started to serve human and trash was created. It may take thousands of years for landfill to be broken down and rejoin the circulation of substances in ecology.
plasticology
Unlike any other substances in the ecosystem, plastic is an artificial chemical made from petroleum and is not degradable in nature. All the discarded plastic will always be somewhere on Earth, taking the mass and room. It is like permanent entropy in our ecology.
When the plastic in the environment is broken down into very small pieces of microplastics, they reaches anywhere from our drinking water to lung and blood vessel.
zero sum consumption
Humans make up only 0.01% of life on Earth, but have and continue to take a disproportionate significant amount of resources the nature has to provide. Meanwhile, millions of other wild species are under threat of extinction due to habitat loss and poaching caused by humans.
No single egg can stay intact in a fallen nest.
No single species can thrive in a collapsed ecosystem.
In order for humans to survive in long term, we need to keep the ecosystem healthy.
Sustain the nature, not the plastic.
biomimicry
the most effective approaches are already designed by nature.
biomimicry is the way we learn from it.
At this time, mycelium may be nature’s design to tackle the mess that humans have created.
While synthetic polymer is the artificial trash, mycelium is the sustainable alternative designed by nature. What we need to do is to mimic its design.
In the new proposed model, mycelium as the material goes around the lifecircle over and over, leaving zero entropy to the ecosystem.
This is the way that is sustainable for the ecology on Earth.
When natural resources are scarce, human created artificial products.
When plastic created by human is harming the ecosystem, mycelium has the potential ability to heal the nature after.
If humans can create an environment for mycelium to thrive and do the healing, the symbiotic relationship between humans and fungi is being built: humans rely on fungi for mycelium material, while fungi rely on humans for the growing environment.
What is further, with the engagement of mycelium, we should be able to embed the human society into the natural ecology in a way that does no harm to other species in the ecosystem. So that we can establish a new harmony relationship with nature, which we call symbiosis.