Admit it, it's been quite a summer. Epic rains flooding swaths of Pakistan and China, fires ravaging Russia, while on this continent the plague of viscous black death has seeped into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's barely capped Deepwater Horizon, its true toll unlikely ever to be fully tallied.

Tragedy poses the basic questions: What is life really all about? Is nature trying to tell us something?

Funny you should ask.

The young discipline of biomimicry is coming into being based on a deep biological read of exactly these two questions. The good news is that this approach opens the door to radically hopeful new solutions to profound human problems.

As evening falls on this "G" of a day, all the action has been on the streets. Among the leaders it has all been photo-ops and handshakes. Right now, the first plenary of the G20 is only just beginning with the official opening reception featuring leaders and wives.

Guess who gave his blessings to the Financial Transaction Tax (that would take a bitsy percentage of trading bets and make billions to address global problems) and firmly supports pricing carbon? The answer is Canada's most internationally acclaimed budget balancer, Paul Martin.

I got a chance to ask Martin some one-on-one questions at a Munk Centre event on global governance yesterday and was amazed to hear him sign on to two of NOW's key G20 wish list items for world leaders (see my story here).

I hear a helicopter flying outside my window as I write this. It's a reminder of how annoying it is to live under the upcoming G20's semi-militarized thumb.

But much as the G20 is a blight on Toronto-land, it is also our best global hope on the immediate horizon. I know that's a stretch. But while we gird for the typically depressing news when world leaders gather, there are bigger forces in play that just may deliver some unexpected small steps in the right direction.

For example, one supremely smart idea the expensively gathered could move toward endorsing would address the government debt crisis, the climate crisis and the outrageous blight of poverty in the developing world.