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What becomes evident from the two contrasting scenarios of devolution versus development, is the rather surprising coincidence that the level of applied technologies always corresponds directly to achieved population densities. Where population levels are very low, only the most primitive technologies can be be supported, and in an age where increasingly higher technologies are required to sustain human existence, increasingly larger populations are needed to support these technologies. The same direct relationship also exists between technological development, and mankind's standard of living and life-expectancy. In early ages where population densities were extremely low, life was hard and short. In the Paleolithic era the average life expectancy of a human being just barely exceeded twenty years. Today, it's in the high seventies. An average life-span of a hundred years may well be in the range of the achievable in the years to come.
Should anyone ever force the clock backwards, however, from where we stand today. The resulting self-denial may cause the entire system that defines humanity today, to collapse in unto itself, never to rise again. On the other hand, should mankind choose to revive its Renaissance that the Venetians had interrupted, of a scientific self-appreciation, mankind will be on its way to the stars to replenish them with life, even as it replenishes the earth.
This promise for ever greater development that gives meaning to life, doesn't have to result in environmental destruction or pose a threat to the myriad forms of life that inhabit this planet. If one looks at the layers of history one will readily notice a constantly increasing sensitivity to issues of life, which corresponds directly to man's scientific and technological progress, and inversely to its unfolding oligarchism. Many tears are shed today over the ancient forests that once covered Europe and the eastern North American continent. However, it should also be realized that these forests were obliterated in a low technology age as a means to support human existence because the development of man has been artificially restricted through the yoke of feudalism. As a result, wood was used for literally anything. It was the primary heating and cooking fuel. It was needed for smelting, building, transportation, even ship-building. Vast hardwood forest went into the construction of ships, which later on became the backbone of the slave trading era. There was little concern for the natural world and human life throughout the low technology ages. Today, the destruction of the forests and ecosystems occurs primarily in the most economically depressed areas of the world, where wood is still the primary fuel, and where forests are cleared for primitive slash and burn agriculture. Thus, the obvious solution for achieving the hoped for environmental goals, lies with a rapid global economic and technological development.
Contrary to popular belief, advanced technologies pollute less and are less destructive to the environment, nor do they alienate man from the natural world. Nuclear power plants do not create the poisonous gases and acid rain that coal fired plants produce. Even today's relatively primitive natural gas technology has turned the once coal heated, smut laden cities of earlier ages into clean dwelling places. Automobile emissions, too, could easily be reduced to zero with nuclear powered hydrogen fuel technology. All we need to do, is mobilize ourselves to do it.
Most of today's productive forests are scientifically managed, which already keeps the pressure of the still untouched systems. Likewise, today's high intensity usage of lands, allows huge areas to be set aside for the preservation of nature and for its appreciation by the public. These natural parks are visited by a much greater proportion of the population today, than such areas were sought out in the low technology ages. Transportation advances has enabled access to wilderness areas on a scale that never existed before. The modern electronic media also has enabled the entire whole world to appreciate vastly more of the treasures of nature than anyone in the earlier ages had even known about. Without human development which brings the impact of intelligence onto the scene, the Earth remains an eco-dessert shifting with the winds of climatic change.
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