Man and his Environment

This article from the Jakarta Post illustrates the challenges that exist for getting environmental reforms passed, but also the potential to change course if the public can be activated.

Every country on the planet is facing environmental challenges at present. Human beings have always attempted to change their environment(s). We want things to work our way. If water runs in the wrong direction we divert it, if mountains are too tall we shorten them, if there's oil in the ground we dig it out. When Nietzsche said that "God is dead, and we have killed him" he could have been speaking not just about the metaphysical deity but also the understanding of god as existing within the essential processes of nature. The basic gods of Greek mythology were earth, air, fire, and water. By the 19th Century the Germans and the rest of the developed world had mastered these elemental forces. They had indoor plumbing and water towers, massive furnaces for making steel and indoor gas heating to keep old man winter at bay, hot air balloons and steam powered ships, and lastly massive civil engineering projects and railroads that vastly altered peoples essential understandings of time and space. In short, the gods of old were dead because man had mastered their powers.

Or so he thought. In the 21st Century humanity is gradually arriving at the understanding that controlling nature is impossible. We cannot make the earth do our bidding without suffering serious consequences as a result. We will have to learn to live in harmony with the earth in order to survive on this planet. Like Faust we do not understand the power before us when we conspire with the devil. Man can never know, see, or understand all. Our talents are vast, but we are not gods. Our future is not self-determined no matter how much we might wish otherwise.