Humanity versus Mother Nature

More isn’t better…it’s never enough. That seems to be the prevailing human motto. I think there must have been a brief time period when more reached a point of comfortable balance. When technology and nature might have peacefully coexisted, if people had said “Enough.”

We decided being the grasshopper was far more fun than being the ant though—we’ve enjoyed years of more and more and more. Our world-wide population, carbon footprint and love of excess have reached the boiling point—none of us needs statistics to underscore that message.

As I watch ocean storms threaten below-sea-level cities, drought hit mega cities growing in arid climates, tornados destroy towns built along their thoroughfares, I’m amazed by our perpetual desire to override nature.

Other species find niches within the natural world, forming symbiotic relationships with Mother Nature, ensuring their continued existence. Humans abhor niches, finding them stifling. The challenge is rising above them, altering environments to suit our whims, sustaining our intellectual superiority. The other challenge is ignoring common sense, riding the wave of prosperity until the earth begins collapsing around us.

Then the real challenge begins…how do you fix a planet so overrun and altered by humanity that we literally “manage” all other species, maintaining the image of a bio-diversified world?

Honestly? Maybe we can’t. Maybe the qualities that make us human, that guided bipedal posture, that drive continued intellectual growth, also make it impossible for us to embrace satisfaction. Maybe our escalated climb up the evolutionary tree was destined to be a dead-end branch.

Only time will tell, and we’re running short of that. Reality dictates that you reap what you sow…humanity dictates that there must be a way around that. My money’s on Mother Nature…in the grand scheme of time, we’re just a blip on her radar screen.