The answers to our questions are everywhere; we just need to change the lens with which we see the world.

Biologically inspired materials could revolutionize materials science. People looking at spider silk and abalone shells are looking for new ways to make materials better, cheaper, and with less toxic byproducts.

For 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.

Water is at the center of every chemical reaction, and therefore should be the earths most precious gift.

Green chemistry is replacing our industrial chemistry with nature's recipe book. It's not easy, because life uses only a subset of the elements in the periodic table. And we use all of them, even the toxic ones.

There are three types of biomimicry - one is copying form and shape, another is copying a process, like photosynthesis in a leaf, and the third is mimicking at an ecosystem's level, like building a nature-inspired city.

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.