Nature in Balance

 

We are part of nature.  I’m not here to tell you that we all ought to live minimalist lives.  R. Buckminster Fuller said that there is indeed abundance and that if we learn to use what is here, intelligently, we could all live like millionaires.  Bucky turned out to be right about al awful lot of things and I still think that that is potentially true that there could be plenty for all, though the population has increased a great deal since he expressed that opinion.  There ought to be far fewer of us.  What is the solution?  Not breeding like rabbits would be a start. 

 

I am deeply concerned about our species busily over-populating this planet into the ground.  2 billion, roughly a third of what we have now, seems to be the optimum number of human beings on this planet.  Google “optimum human population” and you will find a lot of interesting articles spelling out exactly why this is so.  The planet could be forced to support billions more of us than it already does.  But what is the cost?  One cost our current population already exacts on the planet though is heavy pollution of the air, water and land.  Besides the obvious negative effects of the pollution that washes through our environment in waves, I believe that many of the current ills of humankind are caused by over-crowding.  If we consider one third of our current population to be optimum, it gives new meaning to the concept of what crowding is.

 

Open space is being gobbled up at a terrifying rate for more and more development.  What little wilderness we have left shrinks with every passing day.  We are grossly out of balance with the other species with whom we share this planet. There are many ways to divide people into groups.  The one I am currently most aware of is this:  People who know that our survival and our quality of life are closely linked to the well-being of other species, and those who do not know that. 

 

Probably any species would take over the world, if it could.  We are supposed to be more intelligent though, and to be self-aware.  It is up to us to make the moral decision to live in balance with nature and all of her creatures.  Being grossly out of balance with the rest of life on this planet isn’t only bad for other species; it is making all of us a bit crazier and less healthy than we could be. 

 

History will bear me out.  Meanwhile, we have the chance to start turning this around.  We aren’t going to get back to an optimum state of balance any time soon, certainly not within this life time of mine.  We can start though, or rather contribute to the motion that has already started among the more aware people in this world. 

 

Resources and References

 

Websites of important groups:

 

            GREENPEACE – www.greenpeace.org

 

            EARTHWATCH – www.earthwatch.org 

 

            Nature Conservancy – www.nature.org 

 

 

See my book list [link] for some relevant books.

 

See also, the scary old classic film, Soylent Green (1973) for a futuristic view of the over-populated Earth.