Aprender a sentir, pensar, actuar con la naturaleza | Javier Collado | TEDxCuenca

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Translator: Patricia Velado Reviewer: Claudia Sander

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I have a message for your children and grandchildren

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and I need your help to send it to them.

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It's very simple.

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We need to learn how to feel, think and act

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in sustainable harmony with nature.

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Some years ago, when I was diving in the Lombok Strait, in Indonesia,

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98 feet below the water, with that feeling of weightlessness,

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surrounded by a great biodiversity of reefs, corals, sea turtles,

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ocean sunfishes and fishes of all colors,

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I had an intense feeling of connection with nature.

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It was a very deep mystical and spiritual experience.

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At that moment I observed how a small fish with black and yellow stripes

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came out of a school of fish and stayed right in front of me.

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We were looking at each other

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and I felt that our consciences were communicating telepathically.

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Yes, the fish recognized me and he was talking to me.

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It was an intense and spiritual feeling.

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I know what you are thinking,

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"This professor is crazy, he talks with fishes."

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That's exactly what my students at the university think

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every time I tell them this story.

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They look to each other

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and say, "Cucuu! The professor is crazy!"

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But I'm not crazy.

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And that's why I bring you a scientific proof of the blowfish,

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who is an artist.

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It works 24 hours a week

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to draw the piece of art that we are going to see.

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Otherwise, the sea current would take it.

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That mandala that we see

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proves that nature has a conscience.

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And that I'm not crazy.

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And if I'm able to talk to the fish,

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will it be true that the indigenous people

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can talk to birds or plants,

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to stones, to the mountains and to other natural phenomena?

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I think they can.

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In fact, I bring you more scientific proofs.

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Last year the Science magazine published a study

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where 2,200 ecosystems of diverse nature were analyzed.

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Scientists said that there is a mathematical pattern of 3/4

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between preys and predators.

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In other words, for every four gazelles there were three lions,

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otherwise it wouldn't be sustainable, right?

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Paradoxically and amazingly, this same mathematical pattern

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is reproduced within us, in our organic physiology.

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According to Kleiber's law,

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an elephant, which is 1,000 times larger than a mouse,

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doesn't need to eat 1,000 times more than a mouse,

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but 3/4.

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If you think about it, the planet in which we live

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is covered by 3/4 of water, right?

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So I ask myself, is this just a coincidence?

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Or nature really has an inherent consciousness,

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after thousands and thousands of years of inter-systemic co-evolution?

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That problem led me to study

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Big History during my doctoral research.

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That is, all those sciences that integrate and unify

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the history of the universe, the history of planet Earth,

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the history of life and the history of the human being.

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Then I realized that nature has principles and strategies

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that we must imitate and improve to achieve a sustainable development.

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And here I bring you a summary.

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(Video)

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According to the scientific consensus,

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with the explosion of the Big Bang, the universe arose 13.7 billion years ago.

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The planet Earth was formed between 4,5 and 5 billion years

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and the miracle of life, between 3,8 and 3,5 billion years.

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During the first half of this period

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the first life forms of the Earth

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had very simple complexity levels.

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The appearance of free oxygen in the atmosphere

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originated the first complex cells, the eukaryotes.

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With the Cambrian explosion of metazoans,

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the biological diversity has increased at high speed,

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forming a wide range of multicellular organisms,

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which have been developing survival strategies

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with very unique energy flows,

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such as the food chain.

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While everything seems to indicate

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that life arose in the depths of the oceans,

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it could not reach the mainland until about 450 million years ago.

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With the disappearance of dinosaurs of the Jurassic period,

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66 million years ago,

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the hegemonic period of mammals began,

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from where later emerged the first bipedal hominids.

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Thanks to the fossil remains found to date,

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it's known that Australopithecus are about four million years old,

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the Homo Erectus about two million,

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the Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens about 200,000 years.

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Currently Homo Sapiens is the only survivor of the human species

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that cohabitates and co-evolves on planet Earth

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together with a rich biodiversity.

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Since the agricultural revolution,

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which domesticated animals and plants about 10,000 years ago,

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and especially since the Industrial Revolution

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of about 250 years ago,

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the human being is adapting the environment transcendentally.

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But the socioeconomic system imposed by neoliberal globalization

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has proved to be unsustainable.

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(End of the video)

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Humans are a species between species.

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In a parliament of 30 or maybe 100 million species,

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a single species, just one,

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is destroying the processes of co-evolution of the rest of species.

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That is to be crazy.

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And all of us are responsible.

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Life is a cosmic miracle

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that we must preserve and conserve at all costs.

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But the human being still wants to destroy everything that surrounds it.

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Since the mid-20th century, for the first time in the history of mankind,

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the human being has the technological and nuclear potential

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to destroy everything that surrounds it.

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Although it seems that we have forgotten Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

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we have already built the hydrogen bomb,

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which is 100 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb.

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To have an idea, it's equivalent to the thermal fusion of the stars,

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that can reach 65 million Celsius degrees.

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And if that were not enough,

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future generations are also threatened for the great ecological footprint

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that we left in Pachamama, our Mother Earth.

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Since the mid-90s,

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the human being has exceeded the limits of biophysical regeneration of the Earth.

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From 1990 to 2020

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it's predicted that we will lose 40% of the planet's biodiversity.

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According to the World Forum of Nature,

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if all of us, all citizens of the world,

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imitate the models and styles of life that occur in the United States,

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we would need four planets like ours.

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But we don't have four planets, right?

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That's why it's urgent that we learn to cooperate,

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that we learn to feel, to think

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and to act in harmony with nature.

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In addition, the use of fossil fuels,

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such as oil, gas and coal, has generated great global warming.

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And what does this mean?

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Imagine that we closed the doors and windows of this theater

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and set fire to the seats where you are sitting.

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Yes, imagine it.

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You already know the disaster, right?

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Well, that's the scenario we are leaving

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to our children and our grandchildren.

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A scenario of chronic shortage of natural resources.

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They won't be able to thrive in a dignified way.

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That's why it's urgent that we learn to cooperate.

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Darwin told us that only the strongest survives,

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those that best adapt to the environment.

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But he forgot to define the concept of cooperation.

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While it's true that there is violence and predation

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and excesses of all forms,

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what defines life, nature

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it is not competition, but cooperation.

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I'll give you an example.

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Imagine millions of sperm running, fighting, competing

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to reach an egg, to fertilize it.

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What defines life it's not that competition,

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but the symbiotic union between a sperm and an egg,

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between two different entities that create a new one.

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That defines life: cooperation.

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Football, for example.

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We all know that a team compete against another,

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but what we do not realize is that what defines a team's victory

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is the ability to cooperate between eleven players

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along with the entire coaching staff that's behind.

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Our body is a multicellular organism

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where millions of cells cooperate

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to make us what we are.

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Paradoxically, nature is the best model to imitate and perfect

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to achieve sustainable societies.

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After 3,8 billion years of coevolution

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nature knows what works and what lasts in time.

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It has suffered catastrophes of glaciations, meteorites

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and constant trial and error processes.

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But the human being continues to create ideologies of linear thinking,

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political doctrines like anarchism, which failed,

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communism, which also failed,

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socialism and capitalism, that failed as well.

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An Oxfam study from last year said

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that 1% of the richest people on our planet

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have more money than the remaining 99%.

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That is crazy.

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And that is the message that I have for your children and your grandchildren,

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do not adapt to this socioeconomic system

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which is pathologically ill;

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and which is psychopathic because it kills nature

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to obtain economic benefit.

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We have sent rubbish to outer space

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and nuclear waste to the bottom of the sea.

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Money has colonized life.

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And that's why it's fundamental that we learn to feel,

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to think and to act in harmony with nature.

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Biomimicry is a new science

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that mimics nature to solve human problems.

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"Bio", life; "mimicry", imitation.

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Imitation of life.

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But this is not new.

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This has already being done by indigenous people

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for thousands of years.

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And it's something that's within all of us.

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We all have that ability.

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And I invite you to make a game of imagination.

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What do you think of this beluga?

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How could it inspire engineers, architects or economists?

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They came up with a plane.

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What would you think of the beak of a kingfisher?

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The Japanese made the bullet train.

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And with this bat?

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We could make a drone, right?

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And with this flying squirrel?

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We could learn to fly.

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With termites

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we could make bioclimatic buildings.

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With this sunflower,

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a plant of solar panels.

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As we know, there are millions of species in nature,

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therefore, bio-inspiration, it is practically infinite.

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But we keep thinking that nature will be there forever.

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And we have to overcome the cognitive fallacy of GDP.

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What does GDP mean?

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Many economists tell us that we have to manufacture and build,

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and raise a few percent of the economy every year.

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Although that means killing the nature

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to bring raw material for the industry.

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We have to become aware that the world we live in is not a gift from our parents,

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but a loan from our children and our grandchildren.

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And what will they think if we do not do everything that is within our reach

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to change the consequences of a climate change

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that has already begun.

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Imagine a future dialogue with your children and grandchildren.

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I would like them to tell me,

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"Daddy, at least you tried, you fought."

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What would you like to hear?

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)