Whenever a particular species gets overpopulated, nature steps up to balance things out. Abruptly there’s a virus or plague that infects most of the population and a huge portion of them die, the ultimate act of nature. The purpose of a diverse ecosystem is so that nature doesn’t need to act so dramatically, life takes care of itself by way of ‘everybody is somebody’s dinner’ with the exception of the giants who help in other ways. Humans have destroyed much of this essential ecosystem at this point and we’ve even caused permanent damage; we don’t really fit in the cycle of life and our primary predator is often each other.
There is truly so much wisdom to be gathered from our own stories and a quote from The Matrix comes to mind;
Mr. Smith {to Morpheus}, “...when I tried to classify your species and I realized you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.”
Our species seems to have been taught to believe that we are somehow above the natural law of life and death, of nature's balance. We have dug deep underground and harvested nutrients or materials, leaving great pockets of nothing or toxic water behind—yet somehow we are surprised when massive sink holes show up or when earthquakes devastate cities.
Generations ago our ancestors cut down massive trees, trees that might have protected California forests from such raging fires because of how deep and wide-spread those roots would have been. During times of limited rainfall, deeper roots can still carry moisture which prevents the soil from drying out as much.
Generations ago our ancestors harvested the monster fish who would have given us all a desperately needed balance in the oceans. It’s obvious that I don’t know even a small fraction of all there is to know about bio-diversity and the importance of various levels of life.
What I do know is based on something my mother taught me as a teenager who was prone to yeast infections because I really like my sugars.
“It is better to limit your intake and allow your body to balance than to simply flush out all the bacteria in your body with antibiotics” and no, she didn’t talk like that but I claim the right to paraphrase. The problem of treating a yeast infection with antibiotics is that our bodies are full of essential bacteria and the antibiotic doesn’t differentiate.
This planet was full of helpful bacteria, which are way bigger for such a bigger body; the mother trees, for example, that were mostly cut down during the many human expansions. Also those monster fish, great beasts weighing in at over 100 pounds, which likely did for the waters what mother trees do for the land. We killed so much helpful bacteria during our centuries on this planet and now we have problems like: coral reefs are dying in huge quantity, ice shelves are melting, massive storms, droughts, wildfires and dramatic shifts in temperature around the world.
Essentially, theoretically, this planet was in complete balance and then humans moved in and began to create imbalance. We often treated problems of imbalance with the same thinking that created the imbalance; like pouring toxic chemicals down toilets and complaining about the water problems. One country embraces fuel efficient, 'clean' cars...but yet the rejected gas guzzling toxic beasts are shipped and used in another country.
No other creature on this planet has created the damage we have, so perhaps this is why so many people think we’re exempt from the laws of balance. Perhaps we are exempt from these laws and instead of having our numbers reduced by 60% or more like other species requiring balance, we’ll simply succeed in taking too much from this planet and we’ll all die. I, and others who share my school of thought, believe this to be unlikely because we believe this planet is so much more than a great blue marble floating in space.
It continues: There is No Planet B
