The “Blue Economy” Model: Simplicity and Creativity for Sustainable Change
A balanced mix of energy sources (fossil and renewable) and a more efficient use of resources by eliminating wastage, are not enough to cover the great need for energy while respecting the environment.
The use of renewables is still expensive and not within the reach of all.
As Gunter Pauli explains in his book Blue economy, the solutions for a green economy are too expensive. If access is limited to rich people only, the world cannot change, pollution will continue, as will global warming and the destruction of ecosystems (Pauli, 2010).
The blue economy model, instead, looks different: everything that is good for us and covers living necessities can be available with no expense, just by using the available resources, as in the ecosystems.
Cultivating mushrooms on coffee grounds, using a mobile phone without its battery, exploiting the heat produced by the body and the vibrations of the human voice, or even imitating the water supplying system a beetle uses, in order to reduce global warming, replacing the “throw-away metal blades of razors with silk threads. Science fiction? No: reality.
In nature there’s no unemployment nor waste. Everyone plays an important role and one’s wastes become raw material for the others, in a “cascade” system where nothing goes wasted (The Blue Economy.mov, 2010). In a recent interview Pauli said: “We must make better use of the energies we have, without wasting any more time. And we’ll do that faster if we look at the world through the eyes of children.”