Its difficult to imagine a more pleasant site than a forest of large trees beside a lake teaming with fish and wild life. In my mind, I am especially drawn to an oak or maple forest of large trees beside a lake. The deer, moose, bears and other wildlife roam freely within their natural enironment and enjoy the bounty of what nature in its methods has sustained. Where do humans fit in? How can we retain this world of beauty and strength while creating our own exciting world of man-made structures, sports, and good fun?
For a start, we have to understand the economies of scale built into the natural world, especially the forests of large trees. These economies are storage economies. We can use large trees, the very tall oaks and forests of big trees to store energy coming from the sun. Whenever we store the suns energy this frees us to use some energy from the earth without destroying the delicate balance of total heat on earth. The problem is that if we use too much of the earth's stored energy, as in the case of nuclear energy, gas, coal or oil energy, we create heat greater than the heat the earth can tolerate.
We see the destructive power of sunlight on the earth's atmosphere. We don't want to add to the destruction by creating too much heat from what is already on earth. If we do, we will overheat he planet. We not only create more heat, but we release lots and lots of toxic substances into our atmosphere beyond what the earth's present ecosystems can tolerate. This results in premature deaths of species of living organisms, and perhaps the premature death of humanity. So, we must wake up and see the potential for damage to our precious world.
For the most part, the earth is protected from cosmic rays and the sun's rays by an atmospheric shield. When that shield is weakened as with a solar storm, cancerous mutations and genetic mutations can result as excessive radiation is absorbed into the flesh of living creatures, plants, animals, and other forms of life. Owing to scaling technologies, humans can destroy the shield and life itself, or make it unrecognizable through mistakes, errors and abuses.
Life on earth is sustained by a steady inflow of heat and light from the sun and cosmic rays. We can, but should not add to this inflow. Presently, we are adding heat to the earth at an alarming rate increasing exponentially. If this continues, life on earth will not be nearly as bountiful as it has been, and we could end all life but the most heat resistant forms.