History

Chinese Beach Scene

I am currently reading a text on the history of Scandinavia. An outstanding reminder about human history came from my reading. Human settlement has always been driven by population and its stress on environments. This accounts for the progression of homo sapiens from Africa to Middle Asia and subsequently all over the globe.

 

Where does a stressed overpopulated human species go now? Migration now goes from impoverished countryside to megacity. This is population compression, not the previous human population expansion. Expansion relieves pressure on solids, liquids and gases. Compression intensifies pressure on solids, liquids and gases. Pressure in Nature is stress in human beings.

 

Is there any wonder that murder rates are up? Is there any wonder why conflict is intensifying within national borders around the world? Technology alone cannot overcome the physical realities of limited space and time. If the human population is not adjusted to the human ecology, the human species, like any other which outgrows its ecology, will suffer a collapse. That collapse could come as plague, war or starvation. How it comes is less important than realizing that it will come unless the species becomes more responsive to and responsible for its own environment.