More on Man and Nature

I’ve been getting a lot of comments on the Shell/Economist Essay Contest, mostly involving the fact that, the distinction between humanity and nature is pretty arbitrary. Now, I should point out, to be fair, that the essay isn’t actually supposed to answer the question “do we need natur?” The idea is to explore the relationship of interdependence between human beings and the natural world around them, and especially to discuss the idea of balancing immediate human needs with the longer-term health of the planet.

Nonetheless, I’m tempted to open with the famous words of C. Montgomery Burns:

“Oh, so Mother Nature needs a favour? Well, maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys. Nature started the fight for survival and she wants to quit because she’s losing? Well, I say hard cheese!”