…Doesn’t Just Look Unique and Function Well; it Follows the Laws of Nature
Guest Blog by Anaïs Passera of Grown.Bio with an update by Claire Attkisson
Carbon is not the problem. Carbon is not the enemy. Carbon is a key building block of all life. It belongs. It belongs in our soil. It belongs in our bodies. It does NOT belong in such huge quantities in our atmosphere and air. This may sound insane at first. You see, sustainability has a narrative problem. The sustainability community focuses on the “moral” narrative too much and at our peril: “do good”; “be less bad”;“do the right thing”; “zero carbon”; “net zero”….It’s easy to get caught up in this language. I do too. We see climate change as a moral cause because we are finally seeing the true cost of designing and powering an economy outside of the laws of nature: our very own human existence is hanging in the balance. It’s not “save the polar bears” time. It’s “save the humans” time. Now we’re awake. Well, at least some of us are.
Why I take issue with the moral sustainability narrative is that it makes some of us “good” and others “bad”. This division will never lead to global change and success. Instead, McDonough (founder of cradle-to-cradle design) and Benyus (founder of biomimicry) argue that nature has already figured out how billions of species can thrive together over billions of years.
