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AN ECO MINDSET

Ever since the first chipped stone tool was crafted, some 2.5 million years ago, we as humans have been shaping the Universe to better suite our needs.  It’s sort of what we do, and what makes us quite special as beings. Take for example farming.  In the first early millennia of man we followed the chaotic movement of surrounding fauna and flora just as the other species did.  However as Homo sapiens began to understand the habits of wildlife and vegetation we were able to establish an order on to them.  For roughly the last 10,000 years Humans have confined specific species, altered their anatomies, and propagated their populations to desired quantities as a way to alleviate the dilemmas of hunting and gathering.   When we find chaos inconvenient to our well being we try to order it more suitable. 

The problem with this whole making ‘order of the universe’ business however is that it revolves entirely around what we perceive to be ‘disorder’.  We may not be conscious of when there is chaos and when there is not.  We may think that we are making order out of just disorder, but in fact may be reordering something, which is actually organized and beneficiary to us.   

Take for instance the 1930’s “black blizzards”, dust storms that stretched for miles wide and high, like something out of an apocalyptic action film, across the great American prairies.  The reason for these series of natural disasters was due to the extensive reorganization of the Great Plains.  Unaware European immigrant settlers plowed the virgin topsoil across millions of acres replacing the native deep-rooted tall grasses that were once apart of a natural system.  These prairie grasses would trap moisture deep below the ground keeping the soil heavy and damp through periods of drought.  However after being replaced by a domesticated crop that dried out the soil it was just a matter of time before an intense wind came along causing a storm of dust.  The damage was so extensive it forced families to foreclose and abandon their farms, with over 500,000 reported homeless.  At the time people perceived the High Plains as a blank canvass to which they could harvest what they willed, little did they understand the intricacy of the natural order already well evolved and in place. 

It is not that we shouldn’t be establishing our own order onto the universe, but rather that we need be conscious of how our ordering impacts other systems in place.   Although our planets abiotic and biotic systems may appear chaotic, if not anarchic, they in many ways are not.  Life is itself an organization of matter in the Universe.  And through a process of evolution with planetary phenomena Life becomes relatively stable.  If we are not conscious of the systems in place before altering or displacing them, then we are blindly jeopardizing Earth’s order within an otherwise chaotic universe.

One of the biggest challenges we face today is how to improve and maintain our standard of living while balancing the order of the environment.  It is about new approaches to already established technologies, such as energy, farming, transportation, etc.  However it is important to note that this education goes further as well, because as we learn how the world really works we become inspired to develop new and better ways of living.  

Article written by: Jon Krizan, Eco Rotary Club of Kaka'ako