Ramblings.

On this past weeks ride to Mae Hong Son I passed through a number of areas that had been completely deforested and burned to the ground. Looking out over the horizon the landscape was scared with these small patches of land that had been burned in the past and were now revering. Yet despite their recovery, the patches still clearly bear the scars of being burned.

Looking out over the valleys dotted with these burn scars I got to thinking about our role on this planet. We are not the only species that modifies the environment to suit our own needs. Despite long held ideas that humans were the only species able to modify the environment, many animals, plants and even alga are able to do the same. Some bacteria will change the pH of their environment to better suit their needs. Yet we as humans seem to be the only species that can modify the environment to a point that can be considered destructive. What is more disturbing is the fact that humans are not only destructive to the very thing that sustains their (our) existence, is the fact that we are conscious of the fact that we are doing it and seem to be aware of the eventual consequences of doing such.

It reminds me a very poignant point that was brought up in a book that I was reading recently. I don't have the book so forgive me if the quote is not exact but the idea comes from Michael Pollen's book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma". The quote is about sustainability. The gist of the idea is that sustainability is better defined by what it is not than what it is. A system that is not sustainable is one that is collapsing and not able to perpetuate itself. Sustainability is an idea that is thrown around a lot these days but I think that the true meaning is often lost.

This also comes back to the idea of the tragedy of the commons in that knowing that we are doing "only" a small amount of damage to the environment is often justification enough for people to act in a way that is destructive. The problem comes when six billion people on the earth are all doing the same "small" amount of damage and the small amount quickly multiplies out of control.

I am not trying to pass judgment. The burning of a hillside to have a more fertile bed to plant crops is destructive, there is no arguing that fact. However so was my being there, the fossil fuels that I consumed to get there were also destructive. When we think about the direction that we need to move as a species, we need to start thinking as a species that acts in selfish ways. We have a fundamental barrier in our thinking in that we thing our small amounts of harm can't make a difference. We all know that small amounts of good will make a big difference and yet we seldom think that cumulatively our small amounts of damage will multiply into a destructive force.