What Would Nature Do?

The twentieth century seemed to offer an unwavering path to prosperity: deadly diseases were disappearing, and breakthrough technologies were starting to solve many problems. But today, certainty about the course of civilization is giving way to doubt and disbelief. The world seems less comprehensible, less predictable, and more prone to surprises from cascading consequences like drought, raging fires, political upheaval, and financial collapse. This book argues that a few counterintuitive strategies can help twenty-first-century civilization weather these uncertainties. The time-tested strategies come from nature itself. They evolved with the grand success of life over billions of years on Earth: networks patterned on leaf veins that provide multiple routes when one gets clogged; decentralized decisions that emulate how ants build their nests; self-correction, a strategy that’s pervasive in nature; and diversification, the hallmark of both financial investors and the natural world. These are nature’s telltale tactics that maintain life through unknown futures and cycles of renewal. Through narratives and examples, the book makes the abstract science of complexity accessible and tangible–