And Thats A Wrap

Class number 2 at UPeace, Ecological Foundations for Sustainable Land Use, is finished. Paper is handed in and I should have my grade by May...thats how slow things can work around here. It's tico time. I find it important to reflect on what I learned from this class. If my interests continue to take me down the road of food security and sustainable agriculture, then this class will have great implications for my career. Moral of the story, the earth has everything figured out. The process by which life happens is perfect and self regulated. It's the humans that come in and throw off the natural cycling of the earth and its non human species. However, due to our 'great' cognitive ability, humans will continue to be the center of everything for as long as the earth allows. The "Ishmael Ideal" seems unachievable with the nature of human kind. But in a very real sense, The Party's Over. We, as a species, can not continue with life as we know it. With or without global warming, we are exhausting valuable resources, such as oil, endangering the agricultural areas of origin and the food security of millions with genetically modified crops, destroying biodiversity and the undiscovered wonders that could exist and aid human advancement, and the list goes on. And despite these depressing realities, the potential solutions all have roots in ecology. Alternative energies, sustainable agriculture, and even urban planning can all be modeled and taken from natural processes. Unfortunately, in the society we live in, the only language understood on a large scale is the language of money and profit. Until alternative methods become the cheaper option, the vast majority of people will not change their thinking or their actions. In the meantime, I am fascinated and excited by the possibilities of mimicking nature's processes in the creation of sustainable development to create a world in which humans and the rest of the earth can peacefully coexist. Soon, the rest of the world may have no choice but to follow. And if it's not too late to correct the damage humans have wrecked on the planet, then we still have a chance to improve the quality of life for all humans, and not just the affluent.

All in all, I think it was a pretty good class.