January, 2014 | Environmental Debt

The sharks and the bees: what nature’s patterns teach us about sourcing

First posted in the Guardian, January 22, 2014

“Although human subtlety makes a variety of inventions by different means to the same end, it will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple, or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

When sharks, honeybees and other animals forage for food, they move in a pattern of short movements in one area combined with a few longer treks to more distant areas. This pattern is called Lévy walks (or flights).

A National Academy of Sciences study released last month, “Evidence of Lévy walk foraging patterns in human hunter–gatherers”, also found that the Hadza, hunter-gatherers from northern Tanzania, perform Lévy walks when foraging for a wide variety of food items.

The authors suggest that this type of movement profile is a “fundamental feature of human landscape use, regardless of the physical or cultural environment, and may have played an important role in the evolution of human mobility”.

We can see the same kind of pattern closer to home: in Saturday Night Fever and HBO’s Girls, young people seek their mates in their local Brooklyn neighborhoods, with an occasional jaunt to Manhattan. And in Law & Order: Criminal Intent, brilliant detective Robert Goren often solves the crime by identifying the movement patterns of serial murderers.

Nature, our subconscious master, is very, very powerful. Nature’s intricate web is the genius embedded in every breath we take and every morsel we eat. It’s incumbent upon us to start looking more closely at its patterns and constraints.

Many scientists and investors are already doing this. Janine Benyus, who named the emerging discipline of biomimicry, describes “seeking sustainable solutions by emulating nature’s designs and processes (for instance, solar

Mutually Assured Survival

By Amy Larkin and Siddhartha Velandy

This post was originally published on the Huffington Post on January 10th, 2014 and co-authored by Siddhartha Velandy, a Major in United States Marine Corps Reserve and author of The Green Arms Race: Reorienting the Discussion on Climate Change, Energy Policy, and National Security, 3 HARV. NAT’L SEC. J. 309 (2012). The views expressed here are his own.

It’s official. Climate change has opened a new frontier. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recently announced the Pentagon’s first ever “Arctic Strategy,” which is designed to protect American security interests as rising global temperatures melt polar ice. He noted that climate change is “transforming what was a frozen desert into an evolving navigable ocean.” This increased access will heighten tensions in the region as nations compete for newly-accessible natural resources and trade routes.

We are creatures from different ends of our nation’s cultural spectrum — one from the military and one from Greenpeace. Even so, we share a vision for the United States in order to safeguard our environment and best provide for the future security of the nation. We call it Mutually Assured Survival, and we are encouraged that Secretary Hagel asserts his intention to address the long term in his short-term Pentagon decision-making. But he did not mention the most important piece of a long-term strategy — the R&D funding necessary to eliminate American dependence on oil — not just fossil fuels from foreign sources. This will prevent the need to engage in conflict in the Arctic (and elsewhere) as well as help prevent runaway climate chaos.

Responding to this threat requires decisive action and consistent funding. Melting ice caps and the corresponding rise in sea levels will increase global

Social impact: the Guardian’s top 5 stories of 2013

Amy’s column “How West’s throwaway culture destroys basic freedoms in China” was listed as one of the Top 5 social impact stories of 2013 by the Guardian Sustainable Business.

See all of Amy’s contributions to the Guardian here.