Humans are rubbish. We are inefficient, emotional and slow
to adapt. If it wasn't for the opposable thumb we would have all been wiped out
millennia ago, killed off by something with bigger teeth and more power. I
watched a documentary last night where a spider had the ability to turn itself
into a wheel and roll down sand dunes in order to get away from dangers. It
would have developed this marvellous ability millions of years ago, while in
relative terms man only invented the wheel last Tuesday. We think we are
brilliant because we can get 80 mpg+ from the vehicles we use, but do you know
how long an Albatross can glide for, without flapping its wings once, powered
only by a couple of measly fish? Six days. They can fly for ten years without
touching down on dry land! Now that’s efficiency! Most creatures in the animal
kingdom can go for weeks or months on end without food and function perfectly
well. Yet if we miss one of our three meals a day we go all light headed and
wobbly at the knees. It’s pathetic! I'm amazed we've made it this far.
We certainly aren't the strongest or the most able bodied
species, even an Aardvark can dig faster than six men with shovels! Our
saviour, and frankly our weakness, remains our intelligence; our self-awareness
and curiosity which has meant we haven’t
needed to adapt to climates or evolve new amazing ways of doing things as we
can adjust our surroundings to suit us and invent things to do what we are
unable to do ourselves. As a result of our genius we have a remarkably comfortable
existence, but I can’t help but feel we need to stop being so cocky and
self-important and look to where the real genius lies, in nature.
Imagine if we could mimic these great feats of nature;
imagine if your car could run for months on end without needing refuelling,
much like a polar bear. Imagine if we could get great power from something
seemingly small and simple, like the ant. Car makers need to stop being
distracted by inventing new carbo-tanium compounds to shave a few grams off an
exhaust system; they need to make a drastic transformation in how we think
about getting around. Instead of trying to start wars, create religions or get
rich most living beings have spent epochs getting really, really good at what
they do. Maybe it’s time we put all of our differences to one side, take a step
back and got really, really good at what we do, because nature is showing us up.
Having said that, we did create the Bugatti Veyron.
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