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RE: Some principles of the Blue economy

in #nature7 years ago

Thank you for bringing the Blue Economy principles and examples to Steemit!

I'm struck by the parallels to the story that Elisabet Sahtouris relates in her book Earth Dance. In the early days of life on Earth, the blue-green bacteria "discovered" photosynthesis and, because of the abundance of CO2 and sunlight, were phenomenally successful, becoming the dominant life-form for nearly 2 Billion years (almost half the entire history of life on Earth1). But their very success created a planetary crisis. Because the highly poisonous "waste-product" of their photosynthesis -- oxygen(!) -- was being pumped into the atmosphere in volumes that were threatening life on Earth. It was, perhaps, our first planetary crisis caused by living creatures. In a story that has now been repeated many times, the evolutionary process spontaneously generated responses to this crisis and, lo, creatures emerged that could use oxygen as fuel to create food molecules (via the process known as respiration).

Crisis averted by turning waste into a nutrient stream! And an entirely new diverse explosion of life-forms was the result.

Roll the clock forward and we find another species creating a planetary crisis that threatens life on earth -- human beings.

If there is one thing our predominant economy knows how to create, it's waste! By encouraging us to shift our perspective to a living systems approach --recognizing there is no waste in nature, only nutrient streams -- Blue Economy is tapping into huge potential. As such, it seems a powerful evolutionary response to our current crises.

Much gratitude to you for bringing news of the Blue Economy to Steemit!

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@evomimic Thank you for reading my article and for your comment, I appreciate it!

"I'm struck by the parallels to the story that Elisabet Sahtouris relates in her book Earth Dance" I did not know about her actually, thank you for sharing, I will check her writing out.

Yes indeed billions of years ago oxygen was very poisonous as you pointed out. In fact, oxygen remain the most poisonous element on the history of the earth so far, even ahead of radioactive chemicals as we know them today! As you pointed out also, nature is very resilient and know how to cope very well in periods of crisis. So if you think about it, the people that we should be the most worried about are us the human beings. Nature will always learn how to adapt but will we adapt? That's the question.

Yeah I totally agree with you the Blue economy has a huuuuuge potential and more people need to know about it. I will write new posts about the Blue economy soon.

Thank you again for reading and commenting!