I'd like to start with a couple of quick examples. These are spinneret glands on the abdomen of a spider. They produce six different types of silk, which is spun together into a fiber, tougher than any fiber humans have ever made. The nearest we've come is with aramid fiber. And to make that, it involves extremes of temperature, extremes of pressure and loads of pollution. And yet the spider manages to do it at ambient temperature and pressure with raw materials of dead flies and water. It does suggest we've still got a bit to learn. This beetle can detect a forest fire at 80 kilometers away. That's roughly 10,000 times the range of man-made fire detectors. And what's more, this guy doesn't need a wire connected all the way back to a power station burning fossil fuels.
Započeo bio sa par kratkih primjera. Ovo su bradavice žlijezde na paukovom trbuhu. One proizvode šest različitih vrsta svile, koje su zatim ispredene u vlakno, čvršće od bilo kojeg vlakna koje su ljudi ikada proizveli. Najbliže što smo uspjeli proizvesti je aramidno vlakno. A da bi se to proizvelo, moramo uključiti ekstremne temperature, ekstremne pritiske i gomilu zagađenja. A ipak, pauk to uspijeva proizvesti na temperaturi i pritisku okoline sa sirovinama mrtvih muha i vode. To nam sugerira da još uvijek imamo ponešto za naučiti. Ova buba može detektirati šumski požar na udaljenosti od 80 km. To je ugrubo 10.000 puta bolje od detektora požara koje su ljudi izradili. I štoviše, ovom liku nije potrebna žica koja je cijelim putem povezana sa električnom centralom koja sagorijeva fosilna goriva.
So these two examples give a sense of what biomimicry can deliver. If we could learn to make things and do things the way nature does, we could achieve factor 10, factor 100, maybe even factor 1,000 savings in resource and energy use. And if we're to make progress with the sustainability revolution, I believe there are three really big changes we need to bring about. Firstly, radical increases in resource efficiency. Secondly, shifting from a linear, wasteful, polluting way of using resources to a closed-loop model. And thirdly, changing from a fossil fuel economy to a solar economy. And for all three of these, I believe, biomimicry has a lot of the solutions that we're going to need.
Dakle, ova dva primjera nam daju osjećaj što biomimikrija može polučiti. Kada bismo mogli naučiti izrađivati stvari i raditi stvari na način na koji to priroda radi, postigli bi faktor od 10, faktor od 100, možda faktor od 1.000 puta u uštedi resursa i korištenju energije. A ukoliko želimo postići napredak sa revolucijom održivosti, vjerujem kako postoje tri doista velike promjene koje moramo provesti. Prvo, radikalna povećanja u učinkovitosti resursa. Drugo, prebacivanje sa linearnog,rasipnog, zagađivačkog načina korištenja resursa na model zatvorene petlje. I treće, promjena sa ekonomije fosilnih goriva na solarnu ekonomiju. A za sve tri, vjerujem, kako biomimikrija ima mnogo rješenja koja će nam biti potrebna.
You could look at nature as being like a catalog of products, and all of those have benefited from a 3.8-billion-year research and development period. And given that level of investment, it makes sense to use it. So I'm going to talk about some projects that have explored these ideas. And let's start with radical increases in resource efficiency. When we were working on the Eden Project, we had to create a very large greenhouse in a site that was not only irregular, but it was continually changing because it was still being quarried. It was a hell of a challenge, and it was actually examples from biology that provided a lot of the clues. So for instance, it was soap bubbles that helped us generate a building form that would work regardless of the final ground levels. Studying pollen grains and radiolaria and carbon molecules helped us devise the most efficient structural solution using hexagons and pentagons.
Možete promatrati prirodu kao katalog proizvoda, a svaki od njih se okoristio 3,8 milijardi dugačkim periodom istraživanja i razvoja. I uzimajući u obzir taj nivo investicija, ima ga smisla koristiti. Stoga ću pričati o nekim projektima koji su istraživali te ideje. I započnimo sa radikalnim povećanjima u učinkovitosti resursa. Kada smo radili na projektu Eden, morali smo stvoriti veoma velik staklenik na lokaciji koja, ne samo da je bila nepravilna, već se i stalno mijenjala jer su je još uvijek iskopavali. Bio je to ogroman izazov, i zapravo su nam primjeri iz biologije pružali mnogo tragova. Na primjer, mjehurići sapuna su nam pomogli u generiranju oblika građevine koji će funkcionirati neovisno o konačnim temeljima. Proučavajući zrnca peluda i radiolarije i molekula ugljika, pomoglo nam je u osmišljavanju najučinkovitijeg strukturalnog rješenja koristeći heksagone i pentagone.
The next move was that we wanted to try and maximize the size of those hexagons. And to do that we had to find an alternative to glass, which is really very limited in terms of its unit sizes. And in nature there are lots of examples of very efficient structures based on pressurized membranes. So we started exploring this material called ETFE. It's a high-strength polymer. And what you do is you put it together in three layers, you weld it around the edge, and then you inflate it. And the great thing about this stuff is you can make it in units of roughly seven times the size of glass, and it was only one percent of the weight of double-glazing. So that was a factor-100 saving. And what we found is that we got into a positive cycle in which one breakthrough facilitated another. So with such large, lightweight pillows, we had much less steel. With less steel we were getting more sunlight in, which meant we didn't have to put as much extra heat in winter. And with less overall weight in the superstructure, there were big savings in the foundations. And at the end of the project we worked out that the weight of that superstructure was actually less than the weight of the air inside the building.
Sljedeći nam je potez bio maksimizirati veličinu tih heksagona. A da bismo to napravili, morali smo pronaći alternativu staklu, što je veoma ograničavajuće u terminima veličine njegove jedinice. A u prirodi postoji mnogo primjera veoma učinkovitih struktura koje se baziraju na membranama pod pritiskom. Stoga smo počeli proučavati taj materijal zvan ETFE. To je polimer visoke čvrtoće. A ono što napravite jest, da ih stavite zajedno u tri sloja, zavarite ih oko rubova i zatim ga napuhnete. I odlična stvar u tome je da ga možete proizvoditi u veličinama od otprilike sedam puta veće od veličine stakla. I teži samo jedan posto težine dvostrukog stakla. Dakle, to je faktor uštede od 100 puta. I ono što smo otkrili jest da smo ušli u pozitivni krug u kojem je prodor na jednom području olakšao prodor na drugom. Dakle, sa tako velikim, laganim jastucima, imali smo puno manje čelika. Sa manje čelika, dobivali smo više sunčevog svjetla, što znači da nismo morali toliko grijati po zimi. A sa manje ukupne težine u superstrukturi, ostvarili smo velike uštede u temeljima. A na kraju projekta smo izračunali da je težina te superstrukture zapravo manja od težine zraka u toj građevini.
So I think the Eden Project is a fairly good example of how ideas from biology can lead to radical increases in resource efficiency -- delivering the same function, but with a fraction of the resource input. And actually there are loads of examples in nature that you could turn to for similar solutions. So for instance, you could develop super-efficient roof structures based on giant Amazon water lilies, whole buildings inspired by abalone shells, super-lightweight bridges inspired by plant cells. There's a world of beauty and efficiency to explore here using nature as a design tool.
Stoga mislim kako je projekt Eden prilično dobar primjer kako ideje iz biologije mogu voditi do radikalnih povečanja u učinkovitosti resursima -- obavljajući istu funkciju, ali sa djelićem ulaznih rsursa. I zapravo postoje tone primjera u prirodi kojima se možete okrenuti za slična rješenja. Na primjer, mogli biste razviti super učinkovite krovne strukture koje se baziraju na Amazonskim lopočima, cijele zgrade inspirirane školjkama petrovog uha, super lagane mostove inspirirane biljnim stanicama. Postoji svijet ljepote i učinkovitosti koji možemo istražiti koristeći prirodu kao oruđe dizajna.
So now I want to go onto talking about the linear-to-closed-loop idea. The way we tend to use resources is we extract them, we turn them into short-life products and then dispose of them. Nature works very differently. In ecosystems, the waste from one organism becomes the nutrient for something else in that system. And there are some examples of projects that have deliberately tried to mimic ecosystems. And one of my favorites is called the Cardboard to Caviar Project by Graham Wiles. And in their area they had a lot of shops and restaurants that were producing lots of food, cardboard and plastic waste. It was ending up in landfills. Now the really clever bit is what they did with the cardboard waste. And I'm just going to talk through this animation.
Sada, dakle, želim prijeći na govor o ideji prijelaza sa linearne na zatvorenu petlju. Način na koji koristimo resurse jest da ih izvlačimo, pretvaramo ih u kratkoročne proizvode i zatim ih se rješavamo. Priroda funkcionira veoma drugačije. U ekosustavima, otpad jednog organizma postaje hranjiva tvar za nešto drugo u tom sustavu. I postoje neki primjeri projekata koji su namjerno pokušali oponašati ekosustave. A jedan od meni najdražih je nazvan projekt Karton do kavijara od Graham-a Wiles-a. U njihovom području bilo je mnogo trgovina i restorana koje su proizvodile mnogo hrane, kartona i plastičnog otpada. To je završavalo na odlagalištu. Sada, uistinu pametan dio je ono što su učinili sa kartonskim otpadom. Pričat ću dok traje ova animacija.
So they were paid to collect it from the restaurants. They then shredded the cardboard and sold it to equestrian centers as horse bedding. When that was soiled, they were paid again to collect it. They put it into worm recomposting systems, which produced a lot of worms, which they fed to Siberian sturgeon, which produced caviar, which they sold back to the restaurants. So it transformed a linear process into a closed-loop model, and it created more value in the process. Graham Wiles has continued to add more and more elements to this, turning waste streams into schemes that create value. And just as natural systems tend to increase in diversity and resilience over time, there's a real sense with this project that the number of possibilities just continue increasing. And I know it's a quirky example, but I think the implications of this are quite radical, because it suggests that we could actually transform a big problem -- waste -- into a massive opportunity.
Dakle, bili su plaćeni da ga sakupe po restoranima. Zatim su isjeckali karton i prodali ga konjičkim centrima kao posteljinu za konje. Kada se to zagnojilo, ponovno su plaćeni da ga sakupe. Stavili su ga u sustave rekompostiranja pomoću crva, što je proizvelo mnogo crva, kojima su hranili sibirskog jesetra, koji je proizveo kavijar, koji su zatim natrag prodali restoranima. Dakle, transformirao je linearni proces u model zatvorene petlje, i stvorio je više vrijednosti u procesu. Graham Wiles je nastavio dodavati sve više i više elemenata tome, pretvarajući potoke otpada u sheme koje stvaraju vrijednost. I isto kao i prirodni sustavi koji se šire u raznolikosti i otpornosti kroz vrijeme, tako postoji pravi smisao s ovim projektom jer se broj mogućnosti samo nastavlja povećavati. I znam da je zeznut primjer, ali mislim kako su implikacije toga prilično radikalne, jer navodi kako bismo zapravo mogli transformirati veliki problem, otpad, u masovnu priliku.
And particularly in cities -- we could look at the whole metabolism of cities, and look at those as opportunities. And that's what we're doing on the next project I'm going to talk about, the Mobius Project, where we're trying to bring together a number of activities, all within one building, so that the waste from one can be the nutrient for another. And the kind of elements I'm talking about are, firstly, we have a restaurant inside a productive greenhouse, a bit like this one in Amsterdam called De Kas. Then we would have an anaerobic digester, which could deal with all the biodegradable waste from the local area, turn that into heat for the greenhouse and electricity to feed back into the grid. We'd have a water treatment system treating wastewater, turning that into fresh water and generating energy from the solids using just plants and micro-organisms. We'd have a fish farm fed with vegetable waste from the kitchen and worms from the compost and supplying fish back to the restaurant. And we'd also have a coffee shop, and the waste grains from that could be used as a substrate for growing mushrooms.
I naročito u gradovima -- mogli bismo promatrati čitave metabolizme gradova, i promatrati te prilike. A to je ono čime se bavimo na slijedećem projektu o kojemu ću pričati, projekt Mobius, gdje pokušavamo spojiti zajedno određen broj aktivnosti, sve unutar jedne zgrade, tako da otpad jedne zgrade može biti hranjiva tvar za drugu. A vrste elemenata o kojima pričam su, prvo, imamo restoran unutar produktivnog staklenika, pomalo nalik onome u Amsterdamu zvanom De Kas. Zatim bismo imali anaerobni probavljivač, koji bi brinuo o ukupnom biorazgradivom otpadu sa lokalnog područja, pretvorio to u toplinu za staklenik i struju kojom bi se zatim napajala električna mreža. Imali bismo sustav za pročišćenje vode koji tretira otpadnu vodu, pretvarajući je u svježu vodu i generirajući energiju iz krutina koristeći samo biljke i mikroorganizme. Imali bismo farmu riba koje bi hranili otpadnim povrćem iz kuhinje i crvima iz komposta i ponovno opskrbljujući restorane sa ribom. Ujedno bi imali i kafić, a zrnca za otpad bi se mogla iskoristiti kao podloga za uzgoj gljiva.
So you can see that we're bringing together cycles of food, energy and water and waste all within one building. And just for fun, we've proposed this for a roundabout in central London, which at the moment is a complete eyesore. Some of you may recognize this. And with just a little bit of planning, we could transform a space dominated by traffic into one that provides open space for people, reconnects people with food and transforms waste into closed loop opportunities.
Dakle, možete vidjeti kako spajamo krugove hrane, energije i vode i otpada sve unutar jedne zgrade. I samo za zabavu, prredložili smo ovo za kružni tok u središnjem Londonu, koji je trenutno potpuni trn u oku. Neki od Vas će prepoznati ovo. Sa samo malo planiranja, mogli bsmo transformirati prostor kojim dominira promet u neki koji pruža otvoreni prostor za ljude, ponovno spaja ljude sa hranom i transformira otpad u prilike zatvorene petlje.
So the final project I want to talk about is the Sahara Forest Project, which we're working on at the moment. It may come as a surprise to some of you to hear that quite large areas of what are currently desert were actually forested a fairly short time ago. So for instance, when Julius Caesar arrived in North Africa, huge areas of North Africa were covered in cedar and cypress forests. And during the evolution of life on the Earth, it was the colonization of the land by plants that helped create the benign climate we currently enjoy. The converse is also true. The more vegetation we lose, the more that's likely to exacerbate climate change and lead to further desertification. And this animation, this shows photosynthetic activity over the course of a number of years, and what you can see is that the boundaries of those deserts shift quite a lot, and that raises the question of whether we can intervene at the boundary conditions to halt, or maybe even reverse, desertification.
Dakle, posljednji projekt o kojemu želim pričati jest projekt Sahara šuma, na kojemu trenutno radimo. Neki od Vas će biti iznenađeni kada čuju da su prilično velike površine onoga što je trenutno pustinja, bile zapravo pošumljene prije prilično kratkog vremena. Na primjer, kada je Julije Cezar stigao u sjevernu Afriku, velike površine sjeverne Afrike su bile prikrivene šumama cedra i čempresa. I tijekom evolucije života na Zemlji, kolonizacija zemlje od strane biljaka je pomogla stvoriti dobroćudnu klimu u kojoj trenutno uživamo. Isto vrijedi i u suprotnom smjeru. Što više vegetacije gubimo, to je izvjesnije da ćemo pogoršati klimatske promjene što će voditi do daljnjeg opustošenja. A ta animacija, ona prikazuje fotosintetičku aktivnost tijekom niza godina. A ono što možete vidjeti su granice tih pustinja, one se poprilično mijenjaju. A to postavlja pitanje možemo li utjecati na uvjete granica da zaustavimo, ili možda čak preokrenemo, opustošenje.
And if you look at some of the organisms that have evolved to live in deserts, there are some amazing examples of adaptations to water scarcity. This is the Namibian fog-basking beetle, and it's evolved a way of harvesting its own fresh water in a desert. The way it does this is it comes out at night, crawls to the top of a sand dune, and because it's got a matte black shell, is able to radiate heat out to the night sky and become slightly cooler than its surroundings. So when the moist breeze blows in off the sea, you get these droplets of water forming on the beetle's shell. Just before sunrise, he tips his shell up, the water runs down into his mouth, has a good drink, goes off and hides for the rest of the day. And the ingenuity, if you could call it that, goes even further. Because if you look closely at the beetle's shell, there are lots of little bumps on that shell. And those bumps are hydrophilic; they attract water. Between them there's a waxy finish which repels water. And the effect of this is that as the droplets start to form on the bumps, they stay in tight, spherical beads, which means they're much more mobile than they would be if it was just a film of water over the whole beetle's shell. So even when there's only a small amount of moisture in the air, it's able to harvest that very effectively and channel it down to its mouth. So amazing example of an adaptation to a very resource-constrained environment -- and in that sense, very relevant to the kind of challenges we're going to be facing over the next few years, next few decades.
I ako promotrite neke od organizama koji su evoluirali da žive u pustinjama, postoje neki izvanredni primjeri prilagodbe nestašicama vode. Ovo je Namibijska buba sakupljač magle, i evoluirala je na način da prikuplja svoju vlastitu svježu vodu u pustinji. Način na koji to radi jest da izlazi van tijekom noći, puže na vrh pješćane dine, i zato jer ima oklop crne mat boje, sposobna je zračiti toplinu van prema noćnom nebu i postaje malo hladnija nego njezino okruženje. Dakle, kada vlažan povjetarac zapuše s mora, na oklopu bube se formiraju kapljice vode. Tik pred izlazak sunca, ona postavi svoj oklop prema gore, voda poteče prema njenim ustima, dobro se napije, ode i sakrije se preko cijelog dana. A genijalnost, ako to možete tako nazvati, ide čak i dalje. Jer ako pobliže promotrite oklop bube, postoji mnogo malih kvržica na tom oklopu. A te kvržice su hidrofilne: one privlače vodu. Između njih postoji voštani završetak, koji odbija vodu. A učinak toga je, kako se kapljice počinju formirati na kvržicama, one ostaju u uskim, sferičnim zrncima, što znači da su puno mobilnije nego bi to bile kada bi na cijelom oklopu bube bila tanka prevlaka vode. Dakle, kada postoji čak i mala količina vlage u zraku, još uvijek je sposobna vrlo učinkovito prikupljati i usmjeriti vodu prema svojim ustima. Dakle, izvanredan primjer prilagodbe okruženju koje je veoma ograničeno resursima -- i u tom smislu, veoma važno za vrste izazova s kojima ćemo se suočavati tijekom idućih nekoliko godina, idućih nekoliko desetljeća.
We're working with the guy who invented the Seawater Greenhouse. This is a greenhouse designed for arid coastal regions, and the way it works is that you have this whole wall of evaporator grills, and you trickle seawater over that so that wind blows through, it picks up a lot of moisture and is cooled in the process. So inside it's cool and humid, which means the plants need less water to grow. And then at the back of the greenhouse, it condenses a lot of that humidity as freshwater in a process that is effectively identical to the beetle. And what they found with the first Seawater Greenhouse that was built was it was producing slightly more freshwater than it needed for the plants inside. So they just started spreading this on the land around, and the combination of that and the elevated humidity had quite a dramatic effect on the local area. This photograph was taken on completion day, and just one year later, it looked like that. So it was like a green inkblot spreading out from the building turning barren land back into biologically productive land -- and in that sense, going beyond sustainable design to achieve restorative design.
Radimo sa čovjekom koji je izumio staklenik morske vode. Ovo je staklenik dizajniran za suha obalna područja, a način na koji radi jest da imate cijeli taj zid od rešetki isparivača, i kapate morsku vodu preko toga tako da vjetar puše kroz to, i kupi mnogo vlage i u tom procesu se hladi. Dakle, iznutra je svježe i vlažno, što znači da biljke trebaju manje vode za uzgoj. I zatim, u stražnjem dijelu tog staklenika, velike količine te vlage se kondenziraju kao svježa voda u procesu koji je po učinku identičan onome u bube. Ono što su otkrili kod prvog staklenika morske vode koji je bio izgrađen jest da je proizvodio malo više svježe vode nego što je to bilo potrebno biljkama unutra. Stoga su to počeli nanositi na zemlju okolo. Kombinacija toga i povišene vlažnosti je imala prilično dramatičan učinak na lokalno područje. Ova fotografija je snimljena na završni dan, i samo godinu dana kasnije, izgledalo je ovako. Dakle, bilo je poput mrlje zelene tinte koje se širila izvan zgrade pretvarajući neplodnu zemlju ponovno u biološki plodnu zemlju -- i u tom pogledu, išli su iznad održivog dizajna kako bi dostigli restorativni dizajn.
So we were keen to scale this up and apply biomimicry ideas to maximize the benefits. And when you think about nature, often you think about it as being all about competition. But actually in mature ecosystems, you're just as likely to find examples of symbiotic relationships. So an important biomimicry principle is to find ways of bringing technologies together in symbiotic clusters. And the technology that we settled on as an ideal partner for the Seawater Greenhouse is concentrated solar power, which uses solar-tracking mirrors to focus the sun's heat to create electricity. And just to give you some sense of the potential of CSP, consider that we receive 10,000 times as much energy from the sun every year as we use in energy from all forms -- 10,000 times. So our energy problems are not intractable. It's a challenge to our ingenuity. And the kind of synergies I'm talking about are, firstly, both these technologies work very well in hot, sunny deserts. CSP needs a supply of demineralized freshwater. That's exactly what the Seawater Greenhouse produces. CSP produces a lot of waste heat. We'll be able to make use of all that to evaporate more seawater and enhance the restorative benefits. And finally, in the shade under the mirrors, it's possible to grow all sorts of crops that would not grow in direct sunlight. So this is how this scheme would look. The idea is we create this long hedge of greenhouses facing the wind. We'd have concentrated solar power plants at intervals along the way.
Bili smo željni to povećati i primjeniti ideje biomimikrije kako bismo maksimizirali pogodnosti. A kada pomislite o prirodi, često mislite kako se cijela priča vrti oko završetka. Ali zapravo u zrelim ekosustavima, imate iste izglede pronaći primjere simbiotičkih veza. Dakle, važno načelo biomimikrije je pronaći načine spajanja tehnologija u simbiotičke klastere. A tehnologija koju smo odabrali kao idealan partner za staklenik morske vode je koncentrirana solarna energija, koja koristi zrcala koja prate sunce kako bi usmjeravala toplinu sunca za stvaranje energije. I samo da Vam da neki uvid u potencijal koncentrirane solarne energije, uzmite u obzir da mi primimo 10.000 puta više energije od sunca svake godine nego što koristimo energiju u svim oblicima -- 10.000 puta. Stoga naši energetski problemi nisu tvrdoglavi. Oni su izazov našoj genijalnosti. A vrste sinergije o kojima ja pričam su, prvo, obje tehnologije funkcioniraju jako dobro u vrućim, sunčanim pustinjama. Koncentrirana solarna energija treba dobavu demineralizirane svježe vode. To je upravo ono što staklenik morske vode proizvodi. Koncentrirana solarna energija proizvodi mnogo nepotrebne topline. Moći ćemo sve to upotrijebiti kako bismo isparili više morske vode i unaprijedili restorativne pogodnosti. I konačno, u sjeni ispod ogledala, moguće je uzgajati sve vrste usjeva koje ne bi rasle na izravnom sunčevom svjetlu. Dakle, tako bi ta shema izgledala. Ideja je da kreiramo tu dugu ogradu staklenika usmjerenih prema vjetru. Imali bismo elektrane za koncentriranu solarnu energiju na intervalnim točkama uzduž.
Some of you might be wondering what we would do with all the salts. And with biomimicry, if you've got an underutilized resource, you don't think, "How am I going to dispose of this?" You think, "What can I add to the system to create more value?" And it turns out that different things crystallize out at different stages. When you evaporate seawater, the first thing to crystallize out is calcium carbonate. And that builds up on the evaporators -- and that's what that image on the left is -- gradually getting encrusted with the calcium carbonate. So after a while, we could take that out, use it as a lightweight building block. And if you think about the carbon in that, that would have come out of the atmosphere, into the sea and then locked away in a building product.
Neki od Vas se možda pitaju što ćemo učiniti sa svim tim solima. A kod biomimikrije, ako imate nedovoljno iskorišten resurs, ne mislite, "Kako ću se riješiti ovoga?" Mislite, "Što mogu dodati sustavu kako bi stvarao više vrijednosti?" I ispostavlja se da se različite stvari kristaliziraju u različitim stadijima. Kada isparujete morsku vodu, prva stvar koja se iskristalizira je kalcij karbonat. A to se nadovezuje na isparivače -- a to je tema ove lijeve slike -- postupno postaje optočena sa kalcij karbonatom. Stoga bismo nakon nekog vremena, mogli to uzeti van, i koristiti kao lagani gradbeni blok. I ako razmišljate o ugljiku u tome, on bi uzeo ugljik iz atmosfere i vratio ga u more i zatvorio ga u građevinski proizvod.
The next thing is sodium chloride. You can also compress that into a building block, as they did here. This is a hotel in Bolivia. And then after that, there are all sorts of compounds and elements that we can extract, like phosphates, that we need to get back into the desert soils to fertilize them. And there's just about every element of the periodic table in seawater. So it should be possible to extract valuable elements like lithium for high-performance batteries. And in parts of the Arabian Gulf, the seawater, the salinity is increasing steadily due to the discharge of waste brine from desalination plants. And it's pushing the ecosystem close to collapse. Now we would be able to make use of all that waste brine. We could evaporate it to enhance the restorative benefits and capture the salts, transforming an urgent waste problem into a big opportunity. Really the Sahara Forest Project is a model for how we could create zero-carbon food, abundant renewable energy in some of the most water-stressed parts of the planet as well as reversing desertification in certain areas.
Iduća stvar je natrijev klorid. Isto tako ga možete sabiti u gradbeni blok, kao što su to napravili ovdje. Ovo je hotel u Boliviji. A nakon toga, postoje različite vrste smjesa i elemenata koje možemo izvaditi, poput fosfata, koje moramo staviti natrag u pustinjska tla kako bi ih oplodili. I svaki element periodične tablice postoji u morskoj vodi. Dakle, trebalo bi biti moguće izvaditi vrijedne elemente poput litija za baterije visoke izdržljivosti. A u dijelovima Arapskog zaljeva, morska voda, slanoća stalno raste zbog ispuštanja otpadne slane vode iz desalinacijskih tvornica. I gura ekosustav blizu ruba propasti. Mi bismo mogli iskoristiti svu tu otpadnu slanu vodu. Mogli bismo je ispariti kako bismo unaprijedili restorativne pogodnosti i uhvatili soli, pretvarajući hitan problem otpada u veliku priliku. Doista, projekt Sahara šume je model kako bismo mogli proizvesti hranu bez ugljika, obilnu obnovljivu energiju u nekim od najugroženijih dijelova planeta po pitanju vode kao i preokretanje opustošenja u određenim područjima.
So returning to those big challenges that I mentioned at the beginning: radical increases in resource efficiency, closing loops and a solar economy. They're not just possible; they're critical. And I firmly believe that studying the way nature solves problems will provide a lot of the solutions. But perhaps more than anything, what this thinking provides is a really positive way of talking about sustainable design. Far too much of the talk about the environment uses very negative language. But here it's about synergies and abundance and optimizing. And this is an important point.
Dakle, vraćajući se na velike izazove koje sam spomenuo na početku: radikalna povećanja u učinkovitosti resursima, zatvarajući petlje i solarnu ekonomiju. One nisu samo moguće, one su kritične. I čvrsto vjerujem kako proučavajući način na koji priroda rješava probleme će pružiti mnogo rješenja. Ali možda više od svega, ono što takvo razmišljanje pruža je uistinu pozitivan način pričanja o održivom dizajnu. Previše govora o okolišu koristi veoma negativan jezik. Ali ovdje se radi o sinergijama, obilnosti i optimizaciji. I to je ključna točka.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said, "If you want to build a flotilla of ships, you don't sit around talking about carpentry. No, you need to set people's souls ablaze with visions of exploring distant shores." And that's what we need to do, so let's be positive, and let's make progress with what could be the most exciting period of innovation we've ever seen.
Atoine de Saint-Exupery je jednom rekao, "Ako želite graditi flotu brodova, nemojte samo sjediti i pričati o stolariji. Ne, morate zapaliti ljudske duše sa vizijama istraživanja udaljenih obala." I to je ono što trebamo raditi, stoga budimo pozitivni, i učinimo napredak sa onim što bi mogao biti najuzbudljiviji period inovacija koje smo ikada vidjeli.
Thank you.
Hvala Vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)