Seyorni points out that there is a vast record of nature 'autocorrecting'.
Human history also shows this to be a recurring theme. Great civilizations buid up and fall into decay. Usually this has to do with a combination of forces, but the largest linch-pin is the environment. Humans depleate thier resources, both in terms of food production, materials, workforce and so on.
Easter Islanders caused cascading environmental degridation due to thier deforistation of their home. Eventually this lead to mass starvation, canabalism and disease.
The vikings of Greenland also suffered a similer fate, deforistation made Greenland uninhabitable for thier cattle. They added to thier fate by refusing to adopt 'barbaric' native practices and refusing to violate cultural food tabboos.
The Mayans overpopulated and also deforested the rainforests. The land became barren and mass epidemics due to overcrouding and exasperated by overcrowding lead to the abandonment of the cities and the end of the 'classical' Mayan civilization.
The Missisippian culture that predated the Cherokee refused to live nomadic lives. They built great cities and grew corn ted crops. Unfortuatly corn is nutritionally poor by itself, and is hard on the environment. Corn needs to be rotated every few years or it kills the soil. The cities land grew barren and the animals of the surrounding area were hunted out. Large scale epidemics of malnutrition and disease ended this civilization.
Ironically this later repeated itself with the European colonists who refused to follow the 'barbaric' practices of the natives. They set up European style towns and relyed heavily on corn to feed themselves. Many places at that time were going through a severe drought and that only exasperated the situation. Native villages could move to find more food and water, the Europeans refused to leave thier comfortable homes and instead blamed the natives for thier trubles. Wars broke out that raged for the next few centuries.
Today overpopulation of humans and the practice of overcrowding poultry farms is breeding a new epidemic. Its only a matter of time before a new Infulenza epidemic begins thanks to Avian flu. With the advances in travel and the crowded conditons of most major cities such a viral outbreak can spread world wide in as little as a week. Incubation time for most influenzas are several days.
We also face widescale environmental degridation. Acid rain, Mbte gassoline additives, mercury in fish and water and soil, pesticides, Radon, smog and so on are just some of the things that humans face everyday.
Not to say that we can't prevent our following in our ancestors foot steps. We realize that there is a problem and that is the first step in fixing it. If we can prevent ourselves from makeing the same mistakes over and over again we can avoid the pitfalls that clamed so many other civilizations. We can at the very least delay the 'autocorrect'.
wa:do
