Greenr - Accelerate the Change!

In  2005 I provided the seed grant that gave rise to The Biomimicry Institute. Since then a dedicated team has developed the tools that students, professionals and educators need to join the burgeoning biomimicry movement. Please join me in closing out the decade by reviewing our successes to date and ambitious plans for the future: http://www.biomimicryinstitute.org/images/Biomimicry_Institute_Report.pdf

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With CES, the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, just around the corner I thought this introduction to a biomimetic screen technology from Qualcomm/Mirosol was timely.

Qualcomm’s mirasol display technology is based on a reflective technology called IMOD (Interferometric MODulation), with MEMS structures at its core. This MEMS–based innovation is both bistable, meaning it is both extremely low power, and highly reflective, meaning the display itself can be seen even in direct sunlight.

By studying and mimicking nature’s processes and structures – a field of study called biomimetics – Qualcomm engineers have developed the nature-inspired mirasol display.

Check out this short introductory video.

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I  generally focus on solutions rather than preaching to the choir about the issues, but sometimes a report like this is a wakeup call for me and everyone who believes there is a good chance that human influence climate change (chaos!) is underway.

“Number of Americans who believe in climate change drops, survey shows only 57% of Americans feel that the planet’s atmosphere is warming, a fall from 77% two years ago”

Continued:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/22/climate-change-us-pew-survey

http://people-press.org/report/556/global-warming

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A cornerstone of the house renovation is our energy strategy and key to that will be monitoring whats usage. So I read this with interest:

A half-dozen companies are launching their first energy dashboards this year, and a few others are starting to gain traction with already available online tools. One of the biggest differences between these firms is whether companies will sell directly to the consumer or to utility partners for upcoming smart meter rollouts. Continued at http://earth2tech.com…

If you’re interested in this topic and you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ll be attending an event on topic in Palo Alto Thursday night.

Updated: http://news.zdnet.com/2346-9595_22-369180.html?tag=nl.e539

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Bob Dylan’s “…for the times they are a changing…” echoed in the cavernous main hall of Boston’s Conference and Exhibition Center as two modern-day ‘rock stars’ prepared to take the stage for Greenbuild’s closing presentation. 29,752 showed up this week despite the turmoil in financial markets and thousands were inspired and learn about two critical sustainability tools.

A building conference may seem an odd place for two biologists to keynote, but as the first keynoter E.O Wilson reminded us in his opening “We are a biological species living in a biological world” so it is crucial that science and the future oriented businesses represented by the attendees come together. 

Just one statistic he offered us: 60,000 known fungi, and the total may be north a million. But the human species is destroying biodiversity before we even know what we have. Wison is working to correct that through the Encyclopedia of Life.  

Fellow keynoter Janine Benyus talked about a second tool: www.asknature.org where we can now ask the question “How would nature do this?” and then flip through a catalog of nature’s most ingenious solutions. The Biomimicry Guild and the Biomimicry Institute provided the ’starter culture’ and Janine urged the audience

We live in a very narrow band of what nature offers and now the potential for creative responses to our greatest challenges is exponentially easier - thank you Janine and EO for these extraordinary gifts. May they soon help us transform our culture from occupier to student, learning how to live sustainably, meeting our needs in ways more conducive to life.

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