Tuesday, July 3, 2012

How much is too much?

We know that everything on this planet is based on balance. From the largest whales to the tiniest insect and even the ecosystem itself relies on cycles and a balance of nature. Too much of this or that and it's the end of a species or a river for that matter. It's so easy to see and understand. Too much dry sunny weather and there's drought. Too much rain and there's floods. But we leave the observations to the nerds who get some type of pleasure from gathering such statistics. Say what you will about a volcano spewing out more ash and toxic gases than what a country produces in a year but the fact is with 7+ billion of us on the planet all producing some type of waste on a daily basis, nature doesn't stand a chance.

It was just reported that 40,000 record high temperatures were recorded just since the start of this year. If that doesn't say something's going on then I don't know what would. What would convince the deniers of climate change that something ain't right? An anomaly they'd say. Nothing to see here move along. It doesn't take a genius to figure things out though. Just look at how efficient we've become at trashing our planet. A hundred or so years ago it took a couple of guys an entire day to fell a tree and now entire swatches of land are cleared in a day. Someone was finally smart enough to figure out that you can't keep dumping toxic waste into rivers without consequences. Even the lowly plastic grocery bag has turned into a major problem. And yet we slough it off, it's only my one bag I dumped on the ground. We forget how many more might think the same way in the millions or billions.

Our biggest problem is that we try to fight nature rather than work in conjunction with her. She will always win in the end. But it seems that in the process we are slowly killing ourselves. Look no farther than the increased rates of respiratory illnesses in just the last 40 or 50 years. Childhood asma was a rarity many years ago. In fact many of the childhood diseases are making a come back with a vengeance from an over use of antibiotics and lack of vaccines. Again nature is winning.

We always think more is better but that's not always the case. Because with more comes more waste and the consequences to the environment. We waved the flag over massive dam projects never realizing what the eventual damage to the rest of the eco system would be. So it will take broader thinking to solve ever and ever larger problems as we push forward. The days of the single family farm are about dead, replaced with factory farms and a new set of problems. To their credit the old farmers knew how to live in balance with nature and not suck every last nickel of profit from the land. Not so today with genetic engineering that's opened a Pandora's box of problems. Just ask the farmers of India who went bankrupt when their new high tech crops failed. All in the name of progress.

So to all who have experienced our country's current bout of blistering hot weather, this is just a preview of things to come. Deny it all you like but you know nature wins in the end.

2 comments:

Randal Graves said...

At least I won't have to cut the grass much before everything turns into a glassy, desert wasteland.

The Blog Fodder said...

Actually, the "old" farmers brought you the dust bowl of the Dirty Thirties and were responsible for the desertification of much of the earth. You need to see the port cities of ancient Turkey such as Ephesus and Mira now inland as silt filled the rivers and estuaries. Modern farming is far more sustainable regardless of what the anti-food "Luddites of the Loony Left" tell you. And childhood diseases are making a comeback because another crowd of Luddites of the Loony Left believe vaccinations are harmful. And people accuse the Right of not believing in science...Doh!