What point, Neocon? I thought you were originally trying to address MY point, which was a relatively simple one. And that is that some sort of distinction needs to be drawn between man & his works, or Man in Nature as against Man vs. Nature, or, to borrow your terminology, Nature and Culture.
Unlike other animals, man is a conscious actor, a creator and/or destroyer. Since he does, I believe, have free will, he can choose to build or to destroy. And sometimes he will make the wrong choice, thinking it was right. For every grandiose Nature-defying project that turned out well there is likely to be another that will create more problems than it solves.
And I do not see why you ask me to compare the destructiveness of natural disasters and human destructiveness. They are not comparable. Humans are thinking beings, they can make choices. A tornado, an earthquake, cannot.
It was the change in the world's climate that turned the once lush Sahara into a desert. It was human stupidity that dried up the Aral Sea and turned Karakalpakia into a desert. The former could not have been avoided. The latter could have been.
Personally, I think Nature's "resilience" is tested quite enough by the natural disasters she herself produces. I do not think it necessary for us humans to continue testing her with our own man-made disasters.
Joan |
