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Learning from Nature with System Dynamics
We have left the Holocene and entered a new epoch, the Anthropocene, in which the biosphere is rapidly changing due to human activities. We do not need to decide to address these issues. They are already addressing us: grabbing us by the collar, so to speak. Our only choice is how to respond.
In the process we can learn a lot from nature, which has had far more time than human civilization to develop flourishing complex systems, and has successfully weathered many crises. Nature has many lessons to teach us, which we are just beginning to learn.
In what follows I’ll talk about a few aspects of this: biomimetic technologies, ecological economics, ecological engineering, and the theory of leverage points. I’ll explain how most of these are connected to "system dynamics": a modeling tradition that applies to interacting social and biological systems. And I’m including a ton of references, to learn more.
The Anthropocene
Climate change is just one part of a much broader process where humans are destabilizing the biosphere that supports us. For example:
• About 1/4 of all chemical energy produced by plants is now used by humans [KEGH].
• Humans now take more nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it into nitrates than all other processes on land [GK]
• 8-9 times as much phosphorus is flowing into oceans than the natural background rate [RS].
• 24 times as much sediment is flowing into the oceans due to mining than the amount created by natural erosion [Co]
• The rate of species going extinct is 100-1000 times the usual background rate [dV].
These changes are not isolated "problems" of the sort routinely "solved" by existing human institutions. They are part of a shift from the exponential growth phase of human impact on the biosphere to a new, uncharted phase. Institutions and attitudes will change dramatically, like it or not. Before, western civilization tended to treat "nature" as distinct from "civilization". Now there is no nature separate from civilization. Before, economic growth could be our main goal, with many side-effects ignored. Now, many forms of growth are pushing the biosphere toward tipping points [RS], and we are groping for new goals that take this into account.
We’ve gotten into this situation because our current civilization is extremely crude in many ways. Ironically, this is good news, since it means that plausible changes in our technology—and more importantly, our culture—can dramatically change the path we have been on.
For example, currently the largest human activities of all, measured in sheer mass, are burning carbon and making concrete. In 2025, our civilization extracted about 10.4 gigatonnes of carbon from the Earth, burnt it to power our technologies, and put 38 gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere [FoS]. We also dug up over 40 gigatonnes of rocks, gravel and sand [P], making about 30 gigatonnes of concrete [XZ]. This is just a snapshot; it is also good to take a longer view. Over the course of history we have burnt about 700 gigatonnes of carbon [FoS]. Since the dawn of agriculture we have also reduced the total biomass of the planet, mainly plants, from about 900 gigatonnes of carbon to 550 gigatonnes [BPM].
Thus, viewed from afar as a biological and geological process, current-day human civilization consists largely of killing plants, burning carbon, and building structures out of concrete. If these activities defined us — if this is what truly made us human — we would be in real trouble. But if they are merely a means to our deeper goals, perhaps goals not clearly formulated yet, then perhaps we can change course in a way that leads to a flourishing of both civilization and the biosphere.
In seeking to reorient our goals, we have a lot to learn from nature. Nature has been successfully growing complex systems for billions of years, while we have been doing it for only thousands.
Our methods of production typically create useless or even harmful byproducts: "waste". When the final product wears out, it too becomes waste. This waste is typically ignored until its causes so much damage that we cannot turn our heads away. Nature works differently. One organism’s waste is another’s food, and most chemicals get recirculated and reused.
It is important to note that natural systems developed this remarkable ability to recycle only through millennia of trial and error. For example, when some bacteria first began to photosynthesize, the highly reactive free oxygen they produced was toxic to all living creatures. As it built up in the atmosphere, this led to a crisis known as the Oxygen Catastrophe. In response, new organisms evolved that could not only tolerate oxygen but even use it in their metabolism. But this took about 400 million years.
Humans are affecting the biosphere at a much faster rate, so we do not have the...