13 Jul We’ve Upset The System of Nature

People often talk about the balance of nature; delicate ecosystems, energy and nutrient flow, and life or reproductive cycles. But I also see it as much more than that. It’s an intricate balancing act juggling abundance and scarcity. A constantly swinging pendulum of life, one that we’ve swung too hard one way, and nature currently has no choice but to force it back the other way. Today we’ll talk about how our explosive population, over abundance, and frankly, selfishness has gotten us in the situation we’re currently in.

Death Is The Facilitator of Life

It all starts with death. Without death there can be no life. What I mean is everything eats something; something that was once living and is no more, giving way to sustenance and nutrients for something else. Death is a natural part of life and a vital rebalancing tool in nature. It regulates populations, supplies nutrients to ecosystems, and keeps the whole ship going.

There’s A Whole Lot of Humans

However, in today’s over populated 8 billion strong human Petri dish, science and technology have not only allowed more life, but also longer age. With low mortality rates and longer lifespans, we are upsetting the cycle of life and death of the system that supports us. The thing that astonishes me is that most never think twice about this like there would be no consequences of this imbalance and that it can go on forever. I think it’s because most are too preoccupied with their head in the sand.

Everything has a cost, especially living, and the irony is that too much life equals a balancing amount of death. So the point, too many people equals eventual death of equal (or more) proportions.

Natural Human Greed vs Tribes

Next let’s get into people being greedy as hell with resources. Every ecosystem has a finite amount of resources; and no there isn’t enough pie for everyone. Nature doesn’t work that way. With energy flow, resources taken out must be replenished some way for the ecosystem to continue. You must balance the force.

A good example of this is the phenomenon of warring tribes. There may be a tribe of 100 people in their natural environment. Food is so abundant that population explodes and now there are 200 tribe members. However, the resources haven’t increased. Tribe members begin to go hungry with only half the resources for the doubled tribal population. As the resources are further depleted, the resource output drops exponentially with less and less resources being returned to the system. With resources becoming scarce, tribe members begin fighting with each other until the tribe splits into two groups. With two tribes in the same environment with the limited resources, they resort to the usual human solution over limited resources and difference of opinion, war. The two groups fight with each other until one group is killed, and now only one group remains. The tribe of 200 is now back to their original number of 100 members or less. The resources there can provide for the 100 members and begins to replenish itself with the original maximum population it can support returned to normal. Things returned to the balance it once had before over abundance that produced over consumption and over population. Nature always rebalances itself, sometimes by force.

This is a great representation of people we see today. Through an over abundance due to the advent of agriculture, our population exploded, and lead to an over consumption of resources. People are fighting, groups are becoming smaller and more individualized, and many are unhappy with warring opinions. Only when the maximum population that can be supported by earth’s ecosystem will this tension and warring be elevated. Earth and our psychological and social structures have simply not evolved to sustain this level of over abundance and overpopulation long term.

The Magic is in The Poop

The real magic however is poop. Yeah, I know, no one likes to talk about poop, but without it we die. This actually touches on the purpose of people, plants, animals, and soil. The nutrient cycle works a bit like this. An animal poops, bacteria and decomposing bugs dive in and begin breaking down the poop (yes, by eating it). Their poop enters the soil and becomes nutrients for plants. Plants take up these nutrients from their roots to their leaves and flowers or fruit with sunlight being converted to energy and food from photosynthesis via sun.

These plants become food for a prey animal just strolling along and grazing to their delight. One of these prey animal gets a little lazy with checking his rear and a predator sneaks up behind it to make it its breakfast and possibly lunch and dinner.

With all that food being eaten in one sitting, the predator needs to poop something fierce and leaves a nice little trail as it’s strolling along looking for more prey sneak up on. With all that poop which is waste from the nutrients of the prey, the plants, the soil, the decomposers, and bacteria; the cycle starts all over again. The poop from the predator becomes food for the bacteria and decomposers, and so on and so on.

I know you’re thinking “What does this have to do with humans?”. Well, do we contribute to this cycle? Is our excrement contributing to natures nutrient producing system by becoming food for decomposers or bacteria in the soil? Or do we flush it into waste processing plants with chemicals that actually kill bacteria and decomposers? Sounds to me like this doesn’t contribute to the cycle that allows our ecosystems to produce the very food that gives us nutrients, whether directly through plants or indirectly through prey.

Delicate Balance of Nature

The point in making is that nature has a delicate system in place that rebalances over abundance, provides a check for over population, and recycles nutrients into an ecosystem through waste. To put it as a pun, nothing is wasted. Humans have upset this perfectly balanced system that replenishes, restores, and recycles energy and resources itself. Until we correct this imbalance, we will continue to deal with the pimp hand of nature forcing balance on us through what we are seeing happen in nature now. Balance is survival.

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