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The lesson of Japan isn't about the shortcomings of certain designs of nuclear reactors, or that automobile production can be stopped when a single part only comes from a single source and that source is disrupted, or that catastrophic events can overwhelm emergency services (Didn't we learn that ourselves during 9/11 and Katrina?). And it isn't any sort of economic lesson about world markets and major economic powers and oil supplies. It isn't even about disaster capitalism. The lesson is that Nature is objective. It cannot be bought. It cannot be influenced by fear. It doesn't respond to public opinion polls. It doesn't listen to "leaders." Nature doesn't care what happens in Kyoto, Rio, Montreal, or Copenhagen.
What the U.S. must learn (and I'm sure it will insist on learning the hard way) is that nature cannot be legislated. Lobbyists can twist scientific conclusions; school boards can legislate Creationism as equal to evolutionary biology; Congress can subvert efforts to turn good science into good policy and regulations to address real environmental problems. But ultimately Nature will decide things.
The laws of Nature cannot be legislated or ignored. The complexity of ecosystems cannot be taken for granted. Our dependence on Nature cannot be prayed away; and the capacity for self destruction of a species that has acquired the ability to destroy itself while retaining a dominant world view and social hierarchies developed thousands of years ago by goat herders with one foot still in the Stone Age cannot be underestimated.
Nature is in charge. We do not "conquer" mountains. We do not "defy" gravity. We are specks. Nature did fine, probably better, without a human presence for most of natural history. We will not be judged by Nature because Nature doesn't judge, it just selects those most in tune with the environment for survival.
As a general rule, biologist reject the notion of "group selection." But I can think of no better case of a group being selected for extinction than the human species. It's happened at the local level, and now that humans have infested the planet it can happen at a global level.
Humans have no importance in any cosmic sense. Our only importance is self importance. We will not be missed.
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