..and some fascinating additions to the post below

...by Jeff Lockwood:

" In particular there were three intriguing elements that you draw out from the various sources (including mine, for which I am deeply appreciative).

"First, we worry about fossil fuels when, at least in principle, these natural resources are fungible (we could conceivably shift to wind, solar, nuclear or whatever). On the other hand, we seem unconcerned about our fossil water (aquifers and glaciers) when this natural resource is NOT fungible -- there is no replacement for water. And, as you point out, the rate of renewal is far slower than the rate of consumption.

"Second, I admit that the locust-human "lessons" are something of a stretch, except that I am so very much sympathetic to the perceptions of William Blake (is being a mystic scientist an oxymoron?). I truly believe that we can see the world in a grain of sand (or the human condition in a locust). For this reason, I am not wholly averse to specialization -- when one truly looks deeply into any particular thing or process, one eventually finds the world opening up (I have the image of an hourglass -- we pass through a narrow constriction only to find ourselves dumped into a universe as wide as that from which we came). Most scientists, however, don't push deeply enough because they glimpse where their inquiry is taking them (into the realm of ethics, metaphysics, meaning, beauty, and spirit). So they become cowardly specialists, backing away from the amazement of seeing a heaven in a wildflower.

"Third, you are absolutely on the mark with your notions of environmental boundaries. We act as if we are not the makers of these barriers, as if there was an objective ecological truth to the matter (which is not to embrace an anything-goes relativism but to admit that we are world-makers in a way that is quite analogous to a woodworker crafting a chair). Environmentalists seem to have this notion when it comes to pollution, as evidenced by their concept that we have so filled the world with humans that there is no longer an "away" into which we might throw our garbage. But the other side of the coin is somehow lacking. That is, if it is nonsensical to think that we can throw trash "away" then how can it be plausible that there is a "here" in which we might contain our creatures and beauty? All of this reminds me of one of my favorite passages from Wendell Berry: "Conservationists can't conserve everything that needs conserving without joining the effort to use well the agricultural lands, the forests, and the waters that we must use. To enlarge the areas protected from use without at the same time enlarging the areas of good use is a mistake."