Product Description

"Biotechnology" as generally understood is a misnomer, having less to do with biology than with generating profits from genetic manipulation. The corporatizing of genetic science is just the latest risky manifestation of a dysfunctional industrial paradigm based on consuming natural capital and producing toxic waste-an economic model totally at odds with the evolutionary intelligence of living systems. But there is another way. The "true biotechnologies," described in this second volume in the Bioneers series, are working strategies grounded in the innate complexity, relatedness, and sustainability of natural ecosystems. The contributors to this volume are visionary leaders in fields such as biomimicry (mimicking nature in order to restore nature and serve human ends harmlessly), "living machines" that break down toxics biologically, natural design for industrial processes and buildings, and the restoration of natural capital. Their guiding principles include diversity, kinship, symbiosis, reciprocity, and community. These brilliant innovators illuminate a future environment of hope by "wedding human ingenuity with the wisdom of the wild," as contributor John Todd puts it. Human beings are a keystone species with an essential role to play in the ecological well-being of our world; we are only just learning how to go about it. Sector by sector-from energy and agriculture to transportation, industrial production, and land management-the true biotechnologies described here show how nature has already orchestrated a symphony of intelligent design that we can emulate and adapt, to the benefit of humanity and all life on Earth.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #211072 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781578050994
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
This engaging collection of essays, culled from the Bioneers Conference, explores the possibilities for eco-consciousness to infiltrate and transform the industrial economy. The subtitle refers not to conventional corporate biotech (which is denounced in several essays, including Elaine Ingham's account of a genetically modified bacterium that could have wiped out all terrestrial plant life), but innovations based on the wisdom and engineering prowess of Mother Nature. On the micro-level, these include self-cleaning paints modeled on the structure of leaves, bacteria that eat oil spills and gardens that treat sewage run-off and sequester heavy metals. On the macro-level, they include industrial processes that, like thrifty ecosystems, recycle wastes or eliminate them altogether, and experiments with a "new paradigm for agriculture" inspired by prairies. The bird's-eye view is offered by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, who advocate a natural capitalism based on the flow of services rather than the production of goods. Some of the pieces are written by green entrepreneurs touting their wares, with a less than meticulous accounting of performance and costs, and the eco-moralizing can sometimes be heavy-handed. But the articles are stuffed with intriguing ideas, and while they sound a necessary alarm about environmental destruction, they also point the way forward to solutions.
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Review
"A full-chakra festival of the most important challenges facing humankind." -- Shared Vision/Dragonfly Review

"Here is a book that turns biotechnology on its head." -- The Ecologist

"[A]n array of imaginative and practical solutions for some of the most perplexing environmental challenges of our time." -- San Francisco Chronicle

From the Inside Flap
"What a joy to enter the world of these practical visionaries. Their insight and eloquence quiet any sense of despair. They call us to action not by fear but by tapping our capacity for awe and awakening our sense of possibility. Bravo."--Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet and coauthor with Anna Lappé of Hope's Edge