When we think of something as never ending or unlimited, we take it for granted. We can be careless, wasteful and oblivious. When we see the world as huge and limitless we cannot imagine life any other way. We can only imagine that things will go on forever.
But when a population of organisms grows wildly in an environment of plenty and key resources are exhausted. There is only one outcome, population crash.
Every closed system behaves this way. Humans have averted crashes with technology, fossil fuel and ancient water sources. We feed massive populations with massive food production. We have and continue to displace and destroy countless other species.
The planet seems unlimited when we stand on it and look around with our eyes. But the planet is a closed system, like a test tube or Petri dish. Fill a small container with sugar water and a few yeast cels. The number of yeast will skyrocket and then crash to zero. It is an inevitable and repeatable cold hard fact.
The Amazon forest is burning at amazing rates. Glaciers are disappearing at unprecedented rates. Rain falls like we have never seen before. Heat levels rise and sustain. Permafrost melts and releases more carbon and methane. Species will disappear forever. Forever!
It’s not a big unlimited world when it’s covered with billions of people reproducing beyond it means. It’s a small world full of small minds.