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Should humanity bend to nature or should nature bend to humanity?
Thomas Malthus theorized that there is a limit to the size of the human population on Earth based on essential resources like food and water and on the prevalence of diseases, war and other things that cause mass death among humans. Throughout the course of history we have pushed this limit (called the Malthusian limit) back with our advances in agriculture, medicine, cleanliness, etc. However, I see our popuation quickly approaching this limit. For example, there are water shortages world wide and much of in fact most of the human population lives in a country where starvation is rampant. But it doesn't have to be that way, we have the technology to yet again push back the Malthusian limit. We can push it back farther than we ever have before using technology like vertical farming and desalination. Also, we are curing and treating diseases at a rate that has never before been seen in human history.
Unfortunately, as I see it, humans will eventually reach a point where we will have to choose to tame nature so that its sole purpose is to allow for the increase of our population or to let nature remain untamed and force the human population to reach the Malthusian limit thus causing starvation, dehydration, epidemics, etc.
My view is that eventually nature will have to bend to humanity otherwise there will be death on epic proportions. However, I want to believe otherwise so please convince me that I'm wrong or if you agree with me help me fight back the hordes of optimists.
Random Chance 30+
I'm assuming you mean 'to bow in reverence to"?
Humans should always bow to nature since many of our problems come from trying to force Nature to bow to us.
And, humans have lost their connection to natural and need to re-connect very soon if they are to save a place for a decent comment on their historical experiment as a life form.
Either that, or something or other really screwed up by placing such an unnatural being or life form into or on, a planet that is and was, all about Nature.
Such a beautiful planet has never been found or seen anywhere else that humans are aware of and they have done their best to destroy it. I don't believe in God, but if there was a Garden, this was it.
There was enough for everyone (if managed for the rights of all life), until religion came along and separated humans from nature, from God (if there is one) and from themselves, solely for power over others and the planet itself.
If I were God and returned, I would ask questions. "Who told you, you were separated from me? You weren't. Who told you it was all right to enslave based on color, beliefs, gender, orientation, geography or any other reason? It wasn't. Who told you sex was wrong or immoral? It isn't. Who told you it was all right to destroy the planet 'cause I was coming back and was going to destroy it all anyway? Who told you to create money, inequality, slavery, poverty, greed, crime, war and death?"
And the answer would be religion. "Let me speak with this religion. Well, it's not one, it's many of them. Well, who are they?"
"They are the founders, the leaders, the spokespeople and the followers and believers who continue to perpetrate and proselytize the lies."
So I speak with them and I ask where they got these ideas from? "The Bible," they say. "The Koran," and "the Torah."
"Well, says I, I know you all agree on one thing then. You know I didn't actually write them."
Debra Smith 200+
gale kooser 20+
You can't correct this issue with only a hand full of people, you need the whole kit & kaboodle.
William Ross Williams
Leo Walsh
We could, for instance, try to ignore nature. And just do what we have always done. But that really will get you nowhere. It leads to the fall of a civilization through ecological collapse. Think how the local culture completely deforested Easter Island to get an idea of what I mean here. And a lot of the "drill-baby-drill" crowd falls into this camp.
Fortunately, many individual humans are too smart for that. Instead, they notice when their tribe (or all of humanity these days) is heading smack dab into a wall. Instead of plodding on, they try new things out. And keep the more effective methods, and toss out the inefficient. Tradition be damned.
This is how we've dodged the Malthusian bullet for this long. We've noticed a pattern in nature, and exploited it to increase our crop yields and energy capture. I see some similar things happening now.
For instance, I come from Cleveland, OH. The much maligned buckle of the Rustbelt. And I just learned that Cleveland has among the largest base of urban farms, where people are making livings growing crops on vacant land, and demolished home lots in the inner city. Which is incredible.
An urban farmer can grow chickens, fresh romaine, scallions and arugula during the day. Jump in the shower, and catch a world class orchestra in the evening. Not a bad life. And a lot less boring than rural Ohio.
What a creative response to high food prices, high unemployment, a shrinking population and industrial base.I just drove by a huge operation on the once gang-infested E. 79th Street, and was amazed. Humans adapt.
Robert Winner 50+
All the best. Bob.
scott lee
When I have a garden, is it natural? I have selected the plants, planted the seeds, tilled the soil, added fertiliser, removed weeds and fought pests. However, I did not provide the sun, grant the plants the ability to photosynthesize, provide an atmosphere or create a complex ecosystem of soil microbes.
We are still part of the ecosystem. When we change the weather, we compromise our agricultural system. That's our food and the cornerstone of our economy. If we cause ocean acidification, we put at risk the fisheries one which we depend. If we pollute the oceans then we end up eating those poisons. When we pollute the air, we breath it in.
When we protect nature we protect ourselves. Destroying nature is self destructive.
Obey No1kinobe 50+
Silas Birdsell
Now I will admit that in some ways we will have to change, we will have to use clean energy, we will have to recycle everything, we will have to make sure that we are not harming what is left that is natural. But I think that it can be done and I think that it should be done. While I agree that it does seem selfish to do this, I think its happening is inevitable, human progress and development will march on till the day we go extinct.
dean crawford
We will bend to nature one way or another. Man has always trried t change naturet hasalways let us think we got her whiped just before she slams the out house door. There are many that believe man will win. We are part of nature not in charge of it and would be better off minding our place. I see your a fan of genitic enginering remember we eat the food there screwing with this to will bite our a** .
edward long 100+
Noah Crossfield
Maximilian Thomas
Stewart Gault 30+
If we over populate or ruin the environment the human race will be extinct in a matter of years or at least face a huge near extinction.
Though because we are advanced we have the power to stop this, control population growth, make better use of the land available (I would also use GM crops as they're just too beneficial not to be used) or an idea we need to give serious thought to, planetary colonization. Terraform Mars and start moving people, it's expensive but it works.
People also argue and say it's just evolution if we use the whole planet to benefit us but we've stepped beyond evolution, we're one of the few species that actually has and we're aware of it. And I think we have a duty as an intelligent species not just to preserve ourselves but to preserve the environment and the species within it as Earth unfortunately is as far as we know the only planet with life (I know the odds suggest there is other life but Earth is the only provable one). So to destroy Earth for our sake and decimate the rest of the environment just so we could survive on a massive scale seems too selfish to me. We neglect how related we are to other species, I love the idea of looking at grass and realising that I'm partly related to it.
So to conclude, cut our population by giving family planning to those in LEDCs, promote sustainable living, sustainable agriculture, prevent urban sprawl, restore habitats, save as many species as we can and save ourselves in doing so and all the while looking to the stars for our next home.
Silas Birdsell
I agree with you on family planning and you bring up a good point, a popular argument against Thomas Malthus' theory is that once a country becomes developed enough and its people are educated enough the population will stagnate this is seen in many developed countries, for example, Germany and Japan are actually showing a decrease in population. Some problems I see with this arguement though is 1 whether this will happen with all developed countries, maybe Germany and Japan are exceptions not the rule. And 2 assuming this will happen with all countries once they are developed enough, the majority of countries in the world would still have to reach this stage before we reach the Malthusian limit.
Lastly, and I should have clarified this in the explanation by bending nature to humanity we would not be destroying all trees when I said "tame nature so that its sole purpose is to allow for the increase of our population" I meant that all aspects of nature (with the exception of things that are currently out of our control like the weather) will be controlled by us, so we would have enough natural areas to ensure that we will still be able to breathe.