2.5Two Closed-Loops into One
The previous two closed-loop clothing manufacturing strategies indeed incorporate the natural world theme of continuously reusing all life-supporting materials. But a closer biomimicry-based consideration reveals that nature has no technical nutrient cycle with persistent toxins as part of its materials production process. Sequestering persistent toxins inside a technical closed-loop process is quite different from nature’s production system that uses only safe biodegradable materials for all of her material needs. So if our intention is to follow the universally healthy and dependable materials processes of nature, then part of our new production design plan would include intentionally and continually reducing our products of service and replacing them whenever possible with intelligently designed products of consumption.
The technology currently used in smartphones provides a conventional example. This device not only replaces the yesterday’s telephones but also provides the ability to video chat, text, and e-mail. It easily gathers local, national, and international news and topical information via the Internet. Smartphones provide an audio and visual global positioning system and an endless supply of tunes for our cars, homes, and headphones. In the same vein, smart home hubs from Amazon, Google, Apple, and Bose provide a voice-controlled music and video streaming system, dim lights, control household thermostats and security systems, and make hands-free phone calls. These types of multifunctional products produced in a single closed-loop system would drastically reduce the overall amount of technological products and sequestered toxic compounds.
Another way to reduce the number of products of service might be the removal of ubiquitous items from this group, such as clothing, while transitioning to high-performance bio-based textiles produced in sustainable agricultural operations. Yet another illustration might be a city that invests in a dependable, affordable, clean, comfortable, and safe mass transit system that reduces the number of vehicles (products of service) used by urban residents. The same city might have a visionary real estate company that works with city officials to rebuild residential neighborhoods that include restaurants, retail stores, and recreational opportunities within walking distance, thereby further reducing the need for vehicles.
Keeping toxins out of the biosphere in the near term requires the establishment of technical nutrient cycles for all existing products of service. These production cycles include material-processing facilities, manufacturing operations, take-back systems, and disassembly plants. Decreasing both the overall amount of toxins and the different types of dangerous materials inside technical nutrient cycles would be prudent for business, the natural world, and human communities. One direct benefit would be fewer overall toxins that require tracking and holding in closed-loop systems. Fewer industrial toxins mean less chance for these products-of-service materials to contaminate the environment, where they could be ingested or inhaled by organisms, including man, via food, water, or air. We would see a parallel reduction in hazardous working environments for industry employees who reprocess the noxious materials as well as the elimination of selected closed-loop sequestration systems and corresponding expenses for products that provide diminishing advantages over the product-of-consumption system. Lastly, we would discover the wisdom and longterm rewards of mimicking the natural world in using only safe compounds to provision its 10–15 million other species.
In her book Living Downstream, researcher and author Sandra Steingraber skillfully elucidates the widespread and disastrous effects upon human health by industrial processes, both past and present, that contain various types of carcinogens (cancer-causing compounds). Demonstrating critical-thinking skill and citing extensive credible research, Steingraber explains the effects of various carcinogens upon her own health and that of her associates and friends. Steingraber skillfully discusses the undeniable human misery and financial loss that are spawned by the indiscriminate use of our wide range of industrial toxins. This common practice results in a needless tragedy that continues to deteriorate and shorten the productive lives of innumerable innocent adults, adolescents, and children. In fact, if all the externalized costs of carcinogenic pollutants, such as time off from work and hospitalization, were actually paid by the people who received the beneficial part of the toxic production process (in other words, a situation approaching a free-market system), these particularly injurious practices would be priced out of business. And no one has attempted to assign value to the human misery of cancer.
When compared to our current cradle-to-grave materials system, segregating technical toxic stock and biodegradable materials would deliver major advantages for a long time for businesses and communities. This new manufacturing approach would substantially reduce toxic substances in the biosphere, reduce the volume of virgin materials extracted and energy needed to power the process, establish a return system for nutrients to flow back to our agricultural soils, and reduce raw material costs for manufacturers. Not limited to manufacturing, biomimicry-based innovation is available to all business types for numerous improvements in material use and information flows and in energy strategies for transportation, commercial operations, and residential needs. Let’s now consider an intelligent, nature-inspired approach to energy production for our industrial, retail, and residential world.
2.6Nature’s Energy Path
Most developed nations still primarily rely upon fossil fuels to meet both transportation and stationary energy needs. We extract, transport, process, and burn inordinate amounts of crude oil, natural gas, and coal each day in the U.S. alone. In addition to providing the energy that powers our industrial and personal endeavors, depending on fossil fuels is also costing the U.S. dearly in terms of trade deficit, international military actions, human health problems, and climate change. Clearly, Earth’s major ecosystems have a much preferred energy legacy. We will now look at how the natural world meets its energy needs and consider other possible applications of nature’s wisdom for humankind.
Nature has been remarkably single-minded in her procurement of energy for all of life’s activities. Despite the almost incomprehensible diversity of biota on this planet, life depends on an independent nuclear fusion power plant that is located 93 million miles away for nearly all its energy needs. This power plant has been operating for about 5.5 billion years and is expected to last another 5–6 billion years. This boundless source of energy requires no up-front construction cost and no maintenance and does not lead to air, water, or soil pollution. The vast distance separating the earth from the sun protects us from minor malfunctions and irregularities. Countless power plants such as these exist in the universe. Besides providing a free source of energy for billions of years, these stars are also responsible for the synthesis and distribution of all the known elements of the cosmos. The atoms of this book were previously forged inside a star somewhere in the cosmos. Our natural world is so smitten by this energy source that it has evolved completely dependent upon the sun for all energy needs — without a back-up source or secondary power supply. Any species that might have deviated from this strategy is simply not in existence any longer.
How has nature’s single-source energy gamble paid off? Life on Earth has thrived for an extended period of the last 3.8 billion years. Today, millions of different species populate a wide variety of solar-powered natural communities in the oceans, high alpine valleys, equatorial rainforests, hot and cold deserts, and polar tundra. Green plants are the foundation of Earth’s rich biodiversity as they routinely capture, store, and pass along the sun’s energy to all other living things. Interestingly, energy does not continually cycle in the natural world as materials do; rather, the constant daytime input of sunlight powers the diverse and rich ecosystems. The sun’s energy is stored and then passed along from life form to life form, and it is eventually dissipated as heat, a little at a time, at each life level.
During its long tenure, life has tenaciously survived a number of catastrophic global environmental events. Considerable scientific evidence suggests that one such occurrence approximately 250 million years ago extirpated up to 95% of the species that existed — but life continued. Another cataclysm almost 65 million years ago caused an estimated 75% of all species to disappear. Currently, between 10 and 15 million species are estimated to exist and to continue this