The one universal law or rule that seems to hold constant in nature is the seeking of balance. All natural systems are in a continuous state of change or process. Adjustment, compensation, contraction, expansion... an infinite number of corrective, balancing actions and reactions continuously unfold in the natural world; the world that includes us.
Visionary architect/engineer/cosmologist, R. Buckminster Fuller, recognized and identified this inherent, universal property of natural systems. He named it, tensegrity. Fuller observed that structures in nature, from the microcosm of atoms and cells, to the vastness of solar systems and galaxies, incorporate tense or rigid elements held together in a continuous web of flexible, compression members. In all of these systems, outside pressure is distributed evenly across the entire structure, giving it a resilient, continuously, self-adjusting character that helps it adapt while maintaining its integrity, and ultimately, its interconnectivity and survival. Natural systems are self-balancing and, in the case of organic systems, self-healing.
When massive, external pressures are so great as to overwhelm a systems ability to absorb, adjust, restore balance and, in the case of living, organic systems to heal, then the system collapses -- dies. This principle holds true for individual organisms and for complex, natural systems composed of diverse, interrelated, living organisms. When a "tipping point" occurs and a living systems capacity for restoring balance is exceeded, the process of adjustment, restoration and regeneration is reversed. Tensegral limits are broken and a reverse, domino effect begins. The system enters a free fall of accelerating destabilization and ultimately, due to the interconnectivity of its elements, a complete unraveling and loss of integrity occurs. The living, self healing, organic machine becomes a self-propelled, irreversible, extinction machine. Of course, nature ultimately finds a new balance -- a balance that may or may not include elements of the prior cycle.
The ecosphere of this planet is currently experiencing severe destabilization to a degree that places it on line with a point of no return. Whether or not, that point has actually been passed is not known.
The human activity driving the degradation of the planet's ability to sustain life, as we know it, has been clearly identified and publicized. Yet, that activity has not so much, as paused, skipped a beat, broken stride. Rather, it has intensified, accelerated, ramped up to new levels of high.
REUTERS
BY TOM MILES - Tuesday, September 14, 2014Global wildlife populations down by half since 1970 - WWF
The world populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles fell overall by 52 percent between 1970 and 2010, far faster than previously thought, the World Wildlife Fund said on Tuesday.
The conservation group's Living Planet Report, published every two years, said humankind's demands were now 50 percent more than nature can bear, with trees being felled, groundwater pumped and carbon dioxide emitted faster than Earth can recover.
"This damage is not inevitable but a consequence of the way we choose to live," Ken Norris, Director of Science at the Zoological Society of London, said in a statement. The report also measured how close the planet is to nine so-called "planetary boundaries", thresholds of "potentially catastrophic changes to life as we know it".
"Given the pace and scale of change, we can no longer exclude the possibility of reaching critical tipping points that could abruptly and irreversibly change living conditions on Earth,"
The scientific community, conservative as it is, nestled within the embrace of national and global political/commercial interests, is industriously churning out report after report, complete with charts, graphs, computer modeled timetables and forecasts, plotting the course and rate of the earth's environmental collapse. The world's leading economists and financial experts are now on board, quantifying the economic side effects of environmental meltdown. Which path does the money point to: short-term profits and prosperity (for the already rich minority), or the future of life on the planet?
The operational perspective of the global power structure, at play here, now -- in this critical moment of evolutionary history, is larval at best. The window of opportunity for awakening is closing rapidly. Whether or not, the human species will make a metamorphic jump to a level of awareness leading to survival is unclear.
Awakening is a spontaneous, evolutionary, adaptive response, triggered by environmental change. Human activity has caused severe, environmental imbalance, which may potentially be the instrument propelling its own rapid adaptive change, i.e.,to survive a disaster of its own making. It has, in a sense, engineered the scenario to potentially trigger its own awakening and emergence, as a viable species.
The human world is neither bad nor wrong. It is dysfunctional -- disconnected from and in opposition to the larger world or universe that contains it. This disconnection and opposition are only temporary. Nature will reclaim and re-balance all of its elements. This can occur as a process of extinction, reabsorption into the flux of universal process -- or it can happen by adaptive, evolutionary adjustment, leading to continuity of the current cycle of life.
A more developed version of this perspective can be found in Joseph Carlisi's book, "Playing God on the Eve of Extinction", available from Amazon.