52 - If Only The World Would Remain Flat…

Summary

Where do litterbugs come from? By litterbugs, I mean anyone who leaves trash, wastes or pollutants behind for others to dispose of. Actually, I mean everybody.

Let us also ask, in what kind of world would such behaviour not matter? Well, conceivably, there was a time in human history when our wastes were of no great consequence to the Earth.

This was a time when we had little to throw away; when we humans were not as incredibly numerous as we are now; when our rubbish was infinitely less toxic and not as long-lasting; and, most importantly, when the world was endlessly big in relation to our ability to intrude upon its processes.

In short, this was during a time when we acted as if the world were flat – flat meaning it effectively went on forever – the world had no end and there was no cliff that marked the beginning of nothingness.

This was psychologically the time of the hunter gatherer, when everything he consumed was easily broken down, and because he never stayed in one place for long, Mother Nature could in most cases heal herself from whatever damage he had caused.

He had the luxury of not having to care – and the habit of not caring – about his own effect on his ecology. So even if he was one who would wander back to familiar places seasonally, the forests or plains would have recovered each time.

When we conceptually move on to the agriculturalist, what we then imagine is a person whose original body of knowledge was about predicting the weather and the movements of heavenly bodies and how these affected him. He had to nullify the whims of Nature, and he had to irrigate or drain his fields to suit his crops. He had to think in ecosystemic terms, even though on a geographically limited scale.

And then we have the city dweller, whose understanding of cycles and of nature in his daily life is highly fragmentary. He is the spoiled being who does not have to hunt for his food, or grow his own crop, or catch his own fish, and therefore, does not have to experience the consequences of his daily actions.