When I was younger I used to think of Mother Earth as a delicate orchid. In many ways she is. But it is easy to forget first just how massive she is (more on this soon) and second just how resilient she is. Here is one example. This is the same oil jack that I posted about a few weeks ago.
Seeing this reminded me of the first time I started to calm down about the world coming to an end. When I was little growing up in NYC and seeing nothing around me but concrete I simply could not get my mind around the fact that we might not be wrecking the planet. How could I? All I saw were teeming masses of (sometimes mean) people, millions of cars, congestion, smoky air from cars … and then I remember reading in the Daily News about a pair of nesting Peregrine Falcons who happened to like the NYC skyscrapers. I never saw them, but I suspect they and others are still there, enjoying the Pigeons as much as the visitors to the parks do.
Most of the planet is not just uninhabited, but uninhabitable, or, at least, non-arable. And yet, as intense as The City is, you could just as easily seen therein the resilience of human action. I am not saying that your perception of Earth’s fagility was wrong, only that it was not inevitable: other conclusions were possible. I often pass a cell phone tower with an eagle’s nest in it. The birds should have been properly appreciative, but probably just took it as their due. Here in Austin, I know from my patrols as a security guard, that owls and hawks take advantage of the skyscrapers we erect: “Hello! How are you? Bye!”
I have read of beekeepers (apiarias) in NYC selling local honey. (Buy local!)
Society within The City brings together people from many cultures. We abandon our distrusts. Yes, in NYC, you have Jewish, and Arabic, and Italian, and Etc., neighborhoods, but the City could not exist if they did not agree implicitly to co-existence.
It may well be true as in science fiction that the last brick will replace the last wildflower. Use your search engine on Cambrian oceans and you will see that large changes (and small) are as natural as organic yogurt grown in huge vats.
Great brain food, both Mikes!
Did not Hayek say we do not know Jack?