The more our world functions like the natural world, the more likely we are to endure on this home that is ours, but not ours alone.
Janine BenyusWhen the forest and the city are functionally indistinguishable, then we know we have reached sustainability.
Janine BenyusTrees and bones are constantly reforming themselves along lines of stress. This algorithm has been put into a software program that's now being used to make bridges lightweight, to make building beams lightweight.
Janine BenyusNature works with five polymers. Only five polymers. In the natural world, life builds from the bottom up, and it builds in resilience and multiple uses.
Janine BenyusIn reality, we haven't escaped the gravity of life at all. We are still beholden to ecological laws, the same as any other life-form.
Janine BenyusFor a long time we have thought we were better than the living world, and now some of us tend to think we are worse, that everything we touch turns to soot. But neither perspective is healthy. We have to remember how it feels to have equal standing in the world, to be "between the mountain and the ant . . . part and parcel of creations," as the Iroquois traditionalist Oren Lyons says.
Janine Benyus