Digesting Information

Yesterday in class we digested a lot of information from the readings and documentaries we've read and watched over the first few weeks of the new semester. Information that spanned the pros of hunting and gathering and the cons of agriculture to the squandering of exhaustible resources.
A really good point a fellow student brought up was about human productivity. Our reading reflected on these ideas, for instance when humans were hunter-gathers we worked a lot less to meet individual needs and bands, or groups of people, never exceed 50 or so, so there were less needs to meet. At that point the human race didn't put a lot of pressure on their environment. Until agriculture reared is ugly head and forced people to labor in dirt and mud until little plants popped out, feeding their empty bellies. This dynamic allowed for stronger people to exploit weaker ones, basically developing a class system. Those who are stronger eat better, those that aren't work harder. In some sense this dynamic still exists today, some circumstances are more extreme then others.
Another idea I gave a lot of thought too outside of class was the idea of cycles. The Cartoon Guide to the Environment is just packed with cyclic examples and chapters devoted to the explanation of cycles. Some of the ideas we discussed in class are entirely cyclic, for example the farm subsidiaries for corn leading the the obesity epidemic which strains our health care industry to the point of government interference. I'm now trying to see and understand that a lot of the issues discussed in class are cycles and cycles are hard to break especially if humans are the ones to have to intercede, because humans are creatures of habit. The thing about cycles, when they happen naturally, is there are feedback mechanisms that allow for homeostasis to occur, a kind of give and take balancing act. Humans are uninhibited by this mechanism, in our interactions with the earth, we take and take and take rarely being forced to give back, we consume like there's no tomorrow. There are an uncountable number of cycles that delicately interact with each other on this earth and then there are humans whose consumption sees no end in sight