This really isn't anything new. I would venture to offer a theory of how this all came about.
I have written several essays about social systems (i) concluding that they are not the friend of the homo sapiens. Quite the contrary. My theory in this case goes back to the days when social systems were just developing. I can't put a date on it, but suffice it to say that homo sapiens prospered for ninety-percent of our time on earth without social systems. Social system began to develop with the concepts of private land, ownership, government and organized religion. Because of their superior recording systems we are most aware of this in ancient Egypt and China.
Since any expertise I might be able to claim as an historian or student of human development is going to relate to Europe, including the Mediterranean countries, and North America. I can claim a strong understanding, verging on an expertise, of the Abrahamic religions. (ii) Judaism, the parent religion of the three Abrahamic religions, appears to be the original antagonist. Even though other religions were beginning to become organized and socialized over a larger area, they still held nature in a central role.
Judaism was the most obvious to start placing people above nature and treating nature as something apart and humans as not being a part of nature. Now, I'm sure that there can be arguments made against other religions, but these other religions did not spawn the religion that would dominate Europe by the time Europeans began to colonize the world. Judaism's attitude toward nature is established in the first chapter of their Torah "fill the earth and subdue it." (iii) This is a part of what Christians call the Old Testament, and so Christianity, the first child of Judaism, took this 'other-than-nature' attitude with them on their colonial conquests.
This concept may have been present in other cultures by the time that white Europeans began to colonize the world, but a major part of that colonization was to impose their belief systems on those whom they conquered. The colonization of North America is vile litany of white Europeans destroying the culture, religion, language and history of the indigenous people. The indigenous peoples of North America felt very much a part of nature. (iv)
Enter capitalism. Actually capitalism goes back to England and the Netherlands of the 17th century. Many people believe that capitalism is an "American" idea. Sorry to break the news. (v) It was beneficial to capitalism to court government and religion. Capitalism added the concept that nature is a resource (vi) only valued for the wealth it could bring. If land could not be used to further one's wealth it was considered useless even though it might be an immensely important part of an ecosystem. A good example is how humans will drain "useless" swamp land to build or farm when in reality the swamp is critically important to all life - including human - as a source of clean water, air and food. However, to the capitalist it isn't worth anything unless it makes them money. As a result we see places like the large area along the Grand Canyon that cannot be hiked because of the old uranium mines that have ruined the land and made it dangerous to all animals, including humans. (vii)
This theory then brings the three social systems; religion, government and capitalism; together as the perpetrators of the three most egregious falsehoods that (a) humans are superior to nature, (b) that human over-population, mega-farming, lumbering and industrialization do not hurt nature and therefore all living creatures, and (c) that nature is nothing more than a resource.
Today we see that there is little regard for nature unless it is providing profits or the raw materials to make a product to make a profit. Religion, which can be argued to be the first to disregard nature, relied for a long time on good relationships with the reigning government. We have seen that, since Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (viii), government has become dependent upon the wealthy capitalist for their continued power. This, then, ties religion, government and capitalism together. Three great social systems run by an elite few for the benefit of an elite few.
Make no mistake. We are not above nature. Human history is filled with examples of nature, in little more than a blink of an eye, laying waste to humans' sad monuments to their own glory, taking back what human have endeavored to destroy or control. One of my favorite examples is how humans thought that they had taken control of the Mississippi River for the purpose of commerce on the river and farming in the low wetlands stolen from the river by a series of levees, the first being built in 1717 to create New Orleans. The first time the levees were taken out by nature was 1844 in the Great Flood. In 2005 over fifty levees failed. (ix) I happen to drive across one of the few roads and bridges that were high enough to go from the east to west side of the river. I drove for almost twenty miles with the Mississippi on both sides of me. Nature had prevailed, and nature will continue to prevail.
In her June 1st, 2020 New York Times article, Rachel Neuwer (x) reports that experts give us 10-15 years before we reach the critical point of no return. After that we will rapidly progress toward the point where the earth is uninhabitable to animals such as homo sapiens. The down side is that we homo sapiens must bear the greatest guilt in hastening this mass extinction and are killing ourselves by making no effort to change our ways. The up-side is that nature will prevail. As long as the building blocks for life still remain, nature will clean the water, soil and air that we have fouled, create new life forms, and start anew. Nature will prevail, but human will probably not be a part of it.
FOOTNOTES:
(i) See my essay on "What constitutes a social system?" https://oldconservationist.blogspot.com/2020/03/what-constitutes-social-system.html
(ii) First as a history major as an undergraduate, followed by three years of graduate school where I carefully studied the Abrahamic religions and read two of their three holy books in the original language.
(iii) Genesis 1:28
(iv) Hudson, Charles. (1976). The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville, TN. University of Tennessee Press.
(vi) resources =df a stock or supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively. Similar: assets, funds, wealth, money, riches, capital.
(viii) A copy of the actual Supreme Court opinion. http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation/cu_sc08_opinion.pdf.
(ix) https://www.mvd.usace.army.mil/Portals/52/docs/MRC/MRT_Levees.pdf?ver=2017-07-27-141912-910 -and-
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