Environment and Futility

What can we say about our home? We only have one planet to live on and we are undeniably reaching a breaking point. I used to be upset about the Earth, pollution and other factors that are wiping out species, corrupting the air and water and turning the world into a place that will eventually prove to be unpleasant. I also used to think that we were smart enough as a species to figure things out and reverse not only the damage that we have caused over time but to continue to accelerate in causing. Not anymore.
When I hear people get upset about not recycling, poisoning water, trading credits for pollution, green friendly solutions, and so on, I smile and simply shrug my shoulders for a very simple reason, it makes no difference to the planet. I've come to the conclusion that no matter what we do it will not make one hill of beans difference in the end. The rationale here is the same reason I don't get too interested in getting greedy over resources jewelry, metals, and so forth. The Earth will get it all back.
What in the Sam Hill do I mean? Do I care that chemicals are poured into drinking water and that air is becoming unbreathable? That the increasing temperature is going to cause food belts around the world and power centers to shift? Yes I do. I find it very sad to see primeval forests disappear, numerous flora and fauna vanish into the night and the world grow choked with the droppings of human beings. We are a very dirty species and one that is severely out of balance with the surrounding world. We have transmogrified from a relatively benign tribal group into a parasitic monster that is worse than any leech imaginable. For a good discussion on this refer to Leonard Shlain - Sex Time and Power. But, the Earth has been around a long long time, we have not. I am not at all confident that we will survive as a species because we simply are undisciplined and unwilling to do what is necessary to ensure that end. When large celestial visitors slammed into the Earth and climates changed, large extinctions occurred. But, despite the energy unleashed, destruction and devastation, life found a way to survive, recover, and move forward in a meandering path that lived where it could, died where it could not and changed when it had to. Nature has other goodies in store too besides asteroids and hulking meteors. The phrase most often understood is sustainable limits. Any species that lives must have certain basic elements e.g. food, water, and shelter. With the human population growing at a phenomenal rate, those fundamental resources will become more of a question. Take for example the Burgeoning nation of China. with 1.3 Billion or so people, China is gobbling down oil, cranking out the gases, losing arable land, and at the verge of a drinking water crisis. Read the news and history. People do very unusual and generally unpleasant things when faced with dire circumstances such as lack of water. Our nature is to fight one another to survive and with more people and fewer resources or lopsided distribution, conflict would seem to be a mathematical certainty. There is also another trick in natures hat called virulent aggressive submit. Take any species that grows to such large numbers that the population is unsustainable. Generally, a disease will solve the problem. Rabbits in Australia grew to proportions that were out of control. A disease introduced into the rabbit community to control them killed off more than 99.5 percent; the plan seems to have worked. Most of the time, it is not in the interests of an organism to wipe out all the hosts since this will generally preclude its own survival. With aggressive symbiots however, the disease is trying to find a balance and, given enough hosts find a situation of detente or symbiosis. As I mentioned, the human population is growing at such a rate as to question the sustainable limits on Earth. That limit is an arguable one and is unknown but given the general agreement on global warming that will reduce land through flooding, change growth areas and spread tropical diseases into populated areas because of friendlier climate...sustainable limits would likely be reduced rather than helped.

So then end point is this: I am not worried about the Earth. The Earth has and will continue to amble on at its own pace and life will generally find a way to recover and survive whatever is thrown at it even if reduced to the most severe of circumstances. The only real question seems to be whether we as a species will be part of it. I do not think this will be the case. Despite our ingenuity, creativity, and flexibility, it is transparent that we care so little about our own future that the end seems guaranteed. That is truly a source of shame. So with the passage of time, and the emergence, decline, extinction and emergence of different species, Earth will get all the little treasures we create and hold dear back. All our creations will be swept away and the world will likely continue on as if we had never existed. The only question is how long before we pull the knife across our own throats.