ATTUNING AND COOPERATING 4

 PRACTICAL LESSONS

We can learn an incredible amount from nature. If you look closely at animals and plants—and also at so-called “dead” nature—you will discover more and more wisdom. It is a wisdom that has been bearing fruit for billions of years. 

Our Earth, as a satellite of the sun, formed around 4.5 billion years ago, and the first forms of life emerged around 4.3 billion years ago. It was an amazing process, in which life and death, and then new life, something ‘better’ than the previous, emerged, thus forming the enormous chain of evolution - which is still forming today.

What can we learn from all this and use now, in our time, when the health of our natural world is so endangered, to contribute to restoring that health? A health that also has a positive impact on our human society, through less pollution, healthier and more natural products, healthier air and water, less threat to livelihoods, and so on. After all, it is the poorest, who are least to blame, who suffer most worldwide from the current multifaceted assault on our natural environment.

Nature itself has the power to teach us, heal us, and save us. It is up to us to attune ourselves to and cooperate with the healing power and intelligence of nature.

FIVE EXAMPLES

* PLANT TREES AND SHRUBS

Trees and many other green plants are excellent ‘means’ of purifying the atmosphere and soil. The green of the leaves absorbs (excess) carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through photosynthesis and, under the influence of the sun and with the presence of water, converts all of this into carbohydrates and oxygen, two of the most important ‘raw materials’ for the life of the plants themselves and of animals, and therefore also of humans, who cannot live and develop without carbohydrates and oxygen.

And this is only half the story: everything that happens underground in and around the root system has a major positive impact on the quality of the soil with all the other vegetation in and on it, and thus contributes to a relatively large extent to healing the human-caused disruption and pollution of the soil.

* COMPOSTING

This is an extremely useful and important process that nature uses everywhere and has always used in a process of recycling, so that all waste is reused as a building block.

Composting is the process by which (in principle all) organic waste, such as vegetable, fruit, and garden waste in our human situation, is broken down into compost, a rich, nutritious substance that improves the soil. This occurs through natural decomposition with the help of microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi, together with oxygen, moisture, and heat. The end product of composting is a dark, crumbly substance that is often used as a soil improver in gardens and agriculture.

It is a very good way to recycle waste and convert it into a natural fertilizer, which is both environmentally friendly and very useful for plants.
In this way, we mimic what nature has been doing for millions of years and use the life force that nature has in abundance. The forest floor is perhaps the clearest example of how nature composts.

* DEALING WITH ENERGY

Nature is, you could say, very intelligent. This is evident, among other things, from the fact that it is remarkably economical in its use of energy. However, ‘economical’ must be interpreted differently than in human terms. Nature follows the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, whereby energy is converted from one form to another, such as from heat to motion, or from chemical to electrical, or from motion to sound, or from nuclear power to heat, and so on. In this process, some heat/energy is always lost. [For those interested: see the second law of thermodynamics: Heat naturally flows from warm to cold areas and never spontaneously from cold to warm. Work can be completely converted into heat, but conversely, heat can never be completely converted into work.]

So we learn from nature to waste as little energy as possible. With every conversion (e.g., gas or electricity to heat, such as in cooking, heating water, lighting, electrical equipment, etc.), some energy is always lost. Nature uses mainly solar energy, either directly or indirectly. In fact, wind energy, for example, is also solar energy (wind caused by different temperatures in different areas). Geothermal energy is heat that comes from the earth's interior: the processes in the mantle (including volcanic activity) and / or in the earth's core.

* USE OF WATER

Water is a universal prerequisite for life for all living creatures (plants and animals, including humans). Water as a building block, as a means of transport, as a cooling mechanism (e.g. through evaporation). Globally, water continuously goes through the so-called water cycle (or hydrological cycle). This describes how water continuously moves through the atmosphere, land, oceans, and biosphere. It is a cycle in which water changes between different states (solid, liquid, and gas) and moves between different reservoirs such as rivers, lakes, oceans, the atmosphere, and underground water. This cycle is driven by solar energy and gravity.

In addition, nature is able to purify water repeatedly, or at least remove toxins and other substances that damage nature.
The best-known purification process is, of course, the evaporation of liquid water (sometimes sublimation from ice to vapor) -> which then leads to condensation -> and thus produces precipitation: purified water. In this cycle, the ‘undesirable’ components are largely left behind. Unfortunately, this does not apply to certain gaseous components that attach themselves to water molecules or vice versa (e.g., certain sulfur and nitrogen compounds) and to forms of particulate matter from traffic, industry, drought, wood burning, etc., which, as it were, ‘go along’ with the water. These are largely pollutants caused by us humans.

It is now up to us to participate in this purifying cycle and contribute to the quality of the water—in particular by limiting human-caused pollution as much as possible.

DON'T WASTE ANYTHING

One of the remarkable characteristics of nature is that it is so creative and welcoming. You could also say that nature tries to use everything as much as possible. This applies to the composting process, but also to other growth processes, in which unexpected alternative solutions are sometimes found. In the animal world, too, we see amazing solutions to certain problems, such as a lack of water, light, or heat. Nature, i.e., the different species, adapts to what is possible.
Nature does not give up and persists. And ultimately, it achieves comprehensive recycling, so that the whole is sustainable.

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These are five examples of how nature works, which can teach us a lot.
If we treat our environment in this way, we are fully in line with how nature itself ensures its continued quality and then life remains possible, also for us humans.

By being open to the lessons of nature, which has continued to evolve and maintain a dynamic balance for billions of years, we can trust that there will continue to be sufficient vitality in our time for the continued existence of our environment, of which we humans are not superior but an integral part.
 

Johan Muijtjens