Nature vs Technology in aid of the world

We think of nature and technology at the opposite ends of a spectrum. The word nature inspires imagery of trees and wildness. Think of you technology and you get images of silicon chips, circuitry, robots, gadgets and perhaps a wheel and a pickaxe.

Technology is defined as “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes.” If I applied my understanding of chemistry to leave fossil fuels in the ground for the practical purpose of managing global warming, does that count as technology? Or if I apply my knowledge of biology to stop deforestation and restore natural habitats to suck the carbon out of the atmosphere, isn’t that advanced applied sciences?

Biomimicry is great and all but with significantly less effort we can possibly work with bio rather than recreate it to achieve many of the so called practical results. A friend used to speak of psychedelics as technology of the future in the context of mental health. The recent rise in psilocybin trials to treat depression and anxiety doesn’t come as a surprise. Indigenous folk have been addressing mental health issues with naturally occurring substances for millenia. As a bird watcher I am convinced that we can rely on birds to reliably predict weather events, and indigenous folk have done exactly that.

The problem however is that if we start thinking of nature as technology in the current paradigm we are doomed to make things worse for us and the planet. This catastrophe is most evident in the mindless efforts to plant trees to offset carbon in the last two decades. If we could change the paradigm perhaps we can get better at wielding human made technology more sustainably too.