[Opinion] Humans and Nature

Urban dwellers carry things urban even when they take trips to countryside. They have bottles of shampoo, rinse and rolls of toilet paper in the trunks of their cars, while saying they miss relaxation and simple life in harmony with nature. Then when they get there, they just complain, “It’s all the same.” Even if people choose not to take those inventions with them, they go to convenience stores nearby and talk on the phone all the times using their mobile handsets. After doing almost the same things, they return and grumble – It’s exhausting. We should have known that it wasn’t worth trying.

▷Former Soviet Union earth scientist Bladimir Vernadski made an insightful remark some 70 years ago, “Just as earthquakes changed the shape of the earth in the past and just as the flows of rivers will change the future of this planet, men themselves are becoming geological elements that bring changes.” This means it is not nature that influences men, but it’s men that affect nature.

The car I drove during this summer vacation emitted global warming gas, a main culprit of the abnormal climate patterns, all the way through. To mass-produce toilet paper I take for granted, forest trees in Indonesia are being cut down. And aliens might regard men and volcanoes just the same, as elements of climate changes in the planet called Earth.

▷Earth Summit was kicked off in Johannesburg, South Africa on August 26, and the gathering is officially called ‘World Summit for Sustainable Development.” Sustainable development is planting new trees while cutting down grown ones for next-generations. The World Wildlife Fund says that 20% of forests in the world will do enough to meet global demand if countries know how to properly use them. Human pursuit of self-interest, however, makes it almost impossible to preserve virgin forests. Humans, armed with technology that turns everything it touches into gold, have become aggressive exploiters, while nature keeps its silence on the other side.

▷Everyone knows what nature means to us. As people who once suffered from miserable poverty, we have been taught that environmental protection is something comes after development for wealth. The rub is, however, that human greed never knows when to stop. They always seek things bigger and better. They have long forgotten how to say, “That’s enough.” Delegates from 174 countries will adopt a joint declaration aimed to solve such problems as environment, population, water and poverty, but it will do little. That’s why we need to change the way we think. We must think that men are nature and nature is men. If it does not sound convincing enough, you may think that you buy an insurance program for your children. Then you will be able to put up with inconveniences.

Kim Soon-duk, Editorial Writer yuri@donga.com