Humanity Has Consumed All Of Earth's Resources In Eight Months

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SilverSliver said:
You can't reset thousands of years of consume mentality back to zero and go to some egalitarian utopia share-a-thon next week. We are too far down the river for that.
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Look, I'm not saying it's going to happen, but again, saying "it's human nature" just isn't correct. Greed is just as much a part of human nature as is compassion and understanding. It's what people are raised from birth believing and reinforced culturally that gets us where we are now. My point it's not intrinsic to human condition, that's just what our culture rewards. I wasn't advocating it could be changed overnight and I don't think we will see it change short of some sort of apocalyptic event that would permanently change humanity's outlook on things. My point was it's not human nature. Did you know sociopathy in America is approximately 4% of the population, but in Japan, China, and Tawain, it's closer to 0.10%? Research suggests that's because their cultures are more community-oriented where a budding sociopath simply couldn't get away with the same crap they could in the USA, which rewards individualism. Same concept. Human nature only applies to a narrow range of things, everything else is what the culture rewards or punishes.

The only hope to support the needs of a never ceasing population expansion is near unlimited energy that is universally available. If we don't get to that point before demand far outstrips supply, things will get bad.
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Well that's not going to happen, so yeah, things ARE going to get bad.

Discovering unlimited energy is more plausible than socially conditioning hundreds of millions of people that having 2 kids makes more sense than having 10 kids, in societies where losing 2 kids out of 10 is just the way things are.
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You keep harping on this like I'm proposing it as a realistic solution. I'm not. We're fucked, I know that. I was pointing out that it's not "human nature", it's our current way of thinking that gets us here.
 
TwistedAegis said:
That's the thing though. Across the earth, as societies become richer, less violent, less uncertain, more female equality, etc, birth rates go down substantially. Europe, Japan, the US, all are experiencing birth rates below the replacement point.

Get everyone up to a reasonable standard of decency, and it isn't too unreasonable to expect that trend to continue, outside of specific smaller religious groups, aka Mormons.
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Yeah, but the trend wouldn't be enough to offset the resources needed to even sustain that. By the middle-class standard of living, we can only support about 2 billion people on earth. Basically our only road to sustainability is everyone doing with less AND population reduction.
 
tetris42 said:
I hear so many people state that this is just human nature, but it's really not. Granted, SOME wanting more is simply survival. Why take food just for today when you can have enough food for the month? That's a survival instinct. However more of EVERYTHING isn't. It's because of cultural conditioning. We live in a world where people are celebrated on the sole basis of having lots of money and using it however they want. That's because those are the values our culture instills. If we were raised in an environment where decadence was considered shameful and taking more than your share of a resource was taboo, it wouldn't be human nature any more than rape or incest would. Instead of celebrating people bettering society, we put too much focus on tycoons and the Kim Kardashians of the world, that's why endless greed is "human nature." Human minds are very malleable, it all depends on what values are instilled in the culture from birth.
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History isn't your Forte is it?
 
Er, just to avoid confusion, by Indians I mean Native Americans. Afterall, they only have a reputation of making big decisions only after considering how it will affect the next 7 generations. In any event, they were living sustainably for thousands of years, knowing not to deplete their resources.
 
tetris42 said:
I hear so many people state that this is just human nature, but it's really not. Granted, SOME wanting more is simply survival. Why take food just for today when you can have enough food for the month? That's a survival instinct. However more of EVERYTHING isn't. It's because of cultural conditioning. We live in a world where people are celebrated on the sole basis of having lots of money and using it however they want. That's because those are the values our culture instills. If we were raised in an environment where decadence was considered shameful and taking more than your share of a resource was taboo, it wouldn't be human nature any more than rape or incest would. Instead of celebrating people bettering society, we put too much focus on tycoons and the Kim Kardashians of the world, that's why endless greed is "human nature." Human minds are very malleable, it all depends on what values are instilled in the culture from birth.
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But if human's society has for the most part/overall developed/turned into that.....then isn't that proof itself it IS human nature?
 
staknhalo said:
But if human's society has for the most part/overall developed/turned into that.....then isn't that proof itself it IS human nature?
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It really depends on language...how do you define "nature?" If you believe that as soon as the universe began, everything was pre-destined from that first moment, and everything that happens from the beginning until the end is in and of itself "nature," then sure, that is a valid point.

But even if you believe in universal predestination, how do you know humans are not predestined to improve themselves and society and become better? At one time, there were only a bunch of monkeys that had no higher language function. It was only "natural" for them to not intellectually communicate in any way. Just because that was the way it was in that moment of time did not mean they were predestined to forever be that way.

With or without predestination, there is nothing genetic that requires humans to continue to act the way they do. As others have pointed out, at this point in time, at this stage of evolution, our bad behavior that causes the vast majority of unhappiness and suffering in the world is caused by a self-replicating cycle of bad culture.

If a society would reject selfishness en masse and raise their children the same way, assuming the society has the resources necessary to defend itself against other societies that refuse to do the same, ensuing generations will naturally grow up unselfish.
 
Another fallacy that I see people keep bringing up in this thread: in order to achieve a reasonable standard of living for all humans while allowing the population to continue to exist as it is (or larger), we need to consume massive amounts of more resources.

There are billions of people not working at highly productive levels due to poor education/training, poor infrastructure, and poor mental/emotional/physical health. Not to mention we have no idea how many genetic geniuses capable of amazing innovations that are born in third world countries and eventually die without having ever known of what they were capable, and no one else ever knowing about them either.

Also, I love when free-market-fanatics use this argument, yet fail to recognize a basic economic truth: economy of scale. Not only do things become more efficient the more they are mass produced, but if humans were to recognize that all people deserve a basic quality of life and refocused the trillions of dollars in annual GDP globally that goes into extreme luxuries and trivial entertainment, instead using that money on infrastructure, renewable energy, cutting edge scientific and technological R&D, all of that will become exponentially more efficient and productive as well.

Now population control policies might be necessary for a time, who knows. But I can guarantee this: humans are capable of supporting a comfortable life of FAR more than we currently are, without depleting the planet's resources or otherwise destroying it. But instead humans waste endless amounts of resources on utterly-wasteful super luxuries in the modern age, along with the endless competition and conflict that has been going on since the beginning.
 
Going to have to post again, no edit button. I am sure there are plenty of genetic geniuses that never get an opportunity to contribute those amazing innovations even in first-world countries, either due to being born in the wrong circumstances or being limited by various forms of educational/governmental/business corruption.
 
tetris42 said:
Er, just to avoid confusion, by Indians I mean Native Americans. Afterall, they only have a reputation of making big decisions only after considering how it will affect the next 7 generations. In any event, they were living sustainably for thousands of years, knowing not to deplete their resources.
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Well, Native Americans at the time had a much lower population density and standard of living. I completely agree with you that people who later arrived and colonized North America had a much bigger ecological impact per person, but in addition to that impact there are lots and lots more people AND expectations for living standards are different. Most people expect to own a home that's a lot larger than they strictly _need_ to survive. They live in those homes in places that are pretty far from where they work so they drive long distances and expect to do so in excessively comfortable conditions. They use objects they own as symbols of status so even those things like cars and houses are even more excessive than necessary. They demand energy-intensive comfort so there's air conditioning, heating, and indoor plumbing -- all of which have a larger resource impact than like just energy consumption because there's like product manufacture and shipping along with raw materials harvesting. They have energy-intensive entertainment expectations as well, wanting wasteful home theaters, excessive numbers of computers, brighter than necessary indoor lighting operating in unoccupied areas at all times. There's just a ton of reasons why people are no living in excess and that's without leaving their living space to take into account stuff like vacations or excessive intake of food items that are energetically inefficient and ecologically damaging to produce.

So like, you've got choices. Humans can individually reduce their standard of living and their expectations by making major changes to their lives that will reap ecological benefits but have far-reaching negative impacts on business growth and probably cause the collapse of far-flung, smaller bedroom communities (among other things). Or they can keep their standard of living and reduce overall population so that the consumption of resources doesn't overrun estimates of what the planet can handle. Ooooor they can keep blabbing on their phones, driving oversized cars long distances to and from huge climate-controlled homes while producing lots more children than is sustainable and eventually deal with whatever results from their actions. Personally, I advocate low-impact living and population reduction through like a lack of people smushing their disgusting reproductive parts together (and through mandatory breeding control programs including stuff like preventing criminals and drug abusers from being able to reproduce at all to help benefit the overall gene pool), but that's just because I don't really like the alternative. In fact, instead of just armchairing it, I actually try to live out some of that stuff by shedding unnecessary, energy and resource consuming things...though I admit that I kinda wanna quit trying since all it feels like I'm doing is helping to keep resources available for wasteful redneck morons and their huge pickup trucks who probably don't deserve it to begin with.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Well, Native Americans at the time had a much lower population density and standard of living. I completely agree with you that people who later arrived and colonized North America had a much bigger ecological impact per person, but in addition to that impact there are lots and lots more people AND expectations for living standards are different. Most people expect to own a home that's a lot larger than they strictly _need_ to survive. They live in those homes in places that are pretty far from where they work so they drive long distances and expect to do so in excessively comfortable conditions. They use objects they own as symbols of status so even those things like cars and houses are even more excessive than necessary. They demand energy-intensive comfort so there's air conditioning, heating, and indoor plumbing -- all of which have a larger resource impact than like just energy consumption because there's like product manufacture and shipping along with raw materials harvesting. They have energy-intensive entertainment expectations as well, wanting wasteful home theaters, excessive numbers of computers, brighter than necessary indoor lighting operating in unoccupied areas at all times. There's just a ton of reasons why people are no living in excess and that's without leaving their living space to take into account stuff like vacations or excessive intake of food items that are energetically inefficient and ecologically damaging to produce.

So like, you've got choices. Humans can individually reduce their standard of living and their expectations by making major changes to their lives that will reap ecological benefits but have far-reaching negative impacts on business growth and probably cause the collapse of far-flung, smaller bedroom communities (among other things). Or they can keep their standard of living and reduce overall population so that the consumption of resources doesn't overrun estimates of what the planet can handle. Ooooor they can keep blabbing on their phones, driving oversized cars long distances to and from huge climate-controlled homes while producing lots more children than is sustainable and eventually deal with whatever results from their actions. Personally, I advocate low-impact living and population reduction through like a lack of people smushing their disgusting reproductive parts together (and through mandatory breeding control programs including stuff like preventing criminals and drug abusers from being able to reproduce at all to help benefit the overall gene pool), but that's just because I don't really like the alternative. In fact, instead of just armchairing it, I actually try to live out some of that stuff by shedding unnecessary, energy and resource consuming things...though I admit that I kinda wanna quit trying since all it feels like I'm doing is helping to keep resources available for wasteful redneck morons and their huge pickup trucks who probably don't deserve it to begin with.
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Well in fairness, we only have so many statistics on the Indians. In 1492 the population of Europe was about 60 million, the population of the Indians was anywhere from 40-100 million. They did have large cities, they just weren't built to be as long-lasting as most other cultures, so there's less lasting evidence. I'm not trying to glorify how they were living more modestly and lacking more developed technology. I'm saying they made it thousands of years and had a philosophy of environmental sustainability, so endless greed and depletion of resources isn't human nature any more than any other other practice specific to a certain culture. It's just a matter of what we decide should be our priorities. Right now, in modern culture, sustainability certainly isn't one of them.
 
the earth has been warming since the end of the last ice age...and will continue to warm until the beginning of the next ice age
 
maverikv said:
Semantics. The point is, we are the main factor
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Not semantics at all. Are we causing the climate to warm 5% more than normal, 10% - 50%? What would normal have been without our influence? Tree ring and ice core data can do a pretty good job in some respects, but still lacks the resolution to predict what normal would have been and precisely how much effect we have had compared to previous cycles. Our observational window is simply too small.

That's not to say we are not damaging the environment and need to change our ways in respect to that.
 
TechLarry said:
Oh, and while I'm not a tree hugger by any means, I do agree. We need to leave the rain forests the fuck alone. They are our air scrubbers and producers.
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I assume you are American, or Canadian. I just want to point out that in the USA we slaughtered most of our forests. Seriously fly over this country during the day time and just look around. All you see pretty much everywhere are land plots that are clearly broken up into agricultural or sprawling cities and suburbs very little of it is actual forests or natural lands. No one in a tropical country is going to take the word of the rich hypocrites from the north when they are poor and living day to day while we bask in 2000 sq foot homes with our farting SUVs and steak dinners. In their view they have just as much of a right to burn down the rainforest as we had a right to clear our land. If the people of developed nations wish to return the land to nature they are will have to lead by example.
 
tetris42 said:
Well in fairness, we only have so many statistics on the Indians. In 1492 the population of Europe was about 60 million, the population of the Indians was anywhere from 40-100 million. They did have large cities, they just weren't built to be as long-lasting as most other cultures, so there's less lasting evidence. I'm not trying to glorify how they were living more modestly and lacking more developed technology. I'm saying they made it thousands of years and had a philosophy of environmental sustainability, so endless greed and depletion of resources isn't human nature any more than any other other practice specific to a certain culture. It's just a matter of what we decide should be our priorities. Right now, in modern culture, sustainability certainly isn't one of them.
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Actually they had large cities and they collapsed. Indicating something went wrong. We know what went wrong in some but don't really know in others. What you believe is BS that was taught to you probably out of the hippy movement of the 60s and 70s. The reality is Native American culture does not have this magical one with nature mentality so many Americans and even people of the world believe now days. If it did we wouldn't see Native Americans with so many problems like addiction to drugs, living in shambled poverty and their reservations are a mess. You also have all the casinos, and other illegal activities they make money off of. Go spend some time reading up on the great native American civilizations and you will see plenty of evidence of ones that collapsed prior to the arrival of Europeans. There are cases where they destroyed their environment beyond repair. People love to glorify the mystical native American society but the reality is they were just people full of all the same flaws any other people had.
 
rudy said:
Actually they had large cities and they collapsed. Indicating something went wrong. We know what went wrong in some but don't really know in others. What you believe is BS that was taught to you probably out of the hippy movement of the 60s and 70s. The reality is Native American culture does not have this magical one with nature mentality so many Americans and even people of the world believe now days. If it did we wouldn't see Native Americans with so many problems like addiction to drugs, living in shambled poverty and their reservations are a mess. You also have all the casinos, and other illegal activities they make money off of. Go spend some time reading up on the great native American civilizations and you will see plenty of evidence of ones that collapsed prior to the arrival of Europeans. There are cases where they destroyed their environment beyond repair. People love to glorify the mystical native American society but the reality is they were just people full of all the same flaws any other people had.
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Come in, say everything I believe is BS from hippies, don't provide any counter examples, and then claim because modern Native Americans influenced by Western values are different, that's proof all of them in the past were the same way? Don't see the problem with that logic? That's like saying because Greece is economically devastated, they couldn't have possibly been one of the most prosperous nations and center of knowledge thousands of years ago.

I'm not claiming every single Indian tribe was "at one with nature", I'm saying as a whole, their lifestyle didn't devastate the landscape and annihilate the ecosystem. I mean hell, look at one of their largest sites:

http://discovermagazine.com/2004/feb/uncovering-americas-pyramid-builders

From the article: "archaeologists have uncovered no evidence of invasion, rampant disease, overpopulation, deforestation, or any of the other hallmarks of the decline and fall of civilization"

As for disappearing cities, again, evidence is spotty, although 96% of Indians getting wiped out by disease after the Europeans later on didn't exactly help with preservation of sites.
 
tetris42 said:
Come in, say everything I believe is BS from hippies, don't provide any counter examples, and then claim because modern Native Americans influenced by Western values are different, that's proof all of them in the past were the same way? Don't see the problem with that logic? That's like saying because Greece is economically devastated, they couldn't have possibly been one of the most prosperous nations and center of knowledge thousands of years ago.

I'm not claiming every single Indian tribe was "at one with nature", I'm saying as a whole, their lifestyle didn't devastate the landscape and annihilate the ecosystem. I mean hell, look at one of their largest sites:

http://discovermagazine.com/2004/feb/uncovering-americas-pyramid-builders

From the article: "archaeologists have uncovered no evidence of invasion, rampant disease, overpopulation, deforestation, or any of the other hallmarks of the decline and fall of civilization"

As for disappearing cities, again, evidence is spotty, although 96% of Indians getting wiped out by disease after the Europeans later on didn't exactly help with preservation of sites.
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You are absolutely right. Ready to pull the trigger and exterminate ~97% of the world population to get back to the population levels sustained during that period?
 
GearChoices said:
It really depends on language...how do you define "nature?" If you believe that as soon as the universe began, everything was pre-destined from that first moment, and everything that happens from the beginning until the end is in and of itself "nature," then sure, that is a valid point.

But even if you believe in universal predestination, how do you know humans are not predestined to improve themselves and society and become better? At one time, there were only a bunch of monkeys that had no higher language function. It was only "natural" for them to not intellectually communicate in any way. Just because that was the way it was in that moment of time did not mean they were predestined to forever be that way.

With or without predestination, there is nothing genetic that requires humans to continue to act the way they do. As others have pointed out, at this point in time, at this stage of evolution, our bad behavior that causes the vast majority of unhappiness and suffering in the world is caused by a self-replicating cycle of bad culture.

If a society would reject selfishness en masse and raise their children the same way, assuming the society has the resources necessary to defend itself against other societies that refuse to do the same, ensuing generations will naturally grow up unselfish.
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If it occurs, it is occurring in nature; it is thus natural. Not in any predestined sense; in a Muprhy's Law sense - whatever can happen will happen. And we have seen what has happened up to this point. We can only say human nature and society is what it has shown us it is. It might have the potential to be something else, but until it is that/takes that form, it is not that. Therefore, if current human society (overall) is greedy and destructive, it is human nature (overall) to be greedy and destructive.
 
staknhalo said:
If it occurs, it is occurring in nature; it is thus natural. Not in any predestined sense; in a Murphy's Law sense - whatever can happen will happen. And we have seen what has happened up to this point. We can only say human nature and society is what it has shown us it is. It might have the potential to be something else, but until it is that/takes that form, it is not that. Therefore, if current human society (overall) is greedy and destructive, it is human nature (overall) to be greedy and destructive.
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Well if that is the definition we are going to use for "nature," OK, then let's use it that way. By that definition, that humans have the potential to be something else, means that "it's human nature" is in of itself not a logical or valid argument that humans should not try to change society around them in order to simultaneously improve life for everyone and save the planet from destruction.
 
GearChoices said:
Well if that is the definition we are going to use for "nature," OK, then let's use it that way. By that definition, that humans have the potential to be something else, means that "it's human nature" is in of itself not a logical or valid argument that humans should not try to change society around them in order to simultaneously improve life for everyone and save the planet from destruction.
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I never said they shouldn't try. I personally feel they should. But just because they/we try to achieve something, or have the potential to become something else, doesn't mean we actually can or will. Potential only means 'possibility of', not 'definitely can'. Therefore, it doesn't matter what human's society or nature can be or has the potential to be when talking about what human's society or nature actually is. All that matters is what it actually is. Which, as the world around us and all throughout history has shown - greed and destruction are apparently it; hether we strive to be something else or not.
 
staknhalo said:
I never said they shouldn't try. I personally feel they should. But just because they/we try to achieve something, or have the potential to become something else, doesn't mean we actually can or will. Potential only means 'possibility of', not 'definitely can'. Therefore, it doesn't matter what human's society or nature can be or has the potential to be when talking about what human's society or nature actually is. All that matters is what it actually is. Which, as the world around us and all throughout history has shown - greed and destruction are apparently it; hether we strive to be something else or not.
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I agree on recognizing and acknowledging what we currently are as a society. You cannot fix a problem without first acknowledging it. I'm just saying that normally in these discussions, there are always people (not you) that bring up that nihilistic argument, that humans are genetically incapable of being better, which has been proven false by psychology, sociology, etc..

We might never actually become better before we destroy ourselves, but the only thing that can stop us from becoming better are people that ascribe to the notion that we genetically cannot or intentionally should not become better. The people that support that notion are always those that benefit from the destructive society as it is and those that do not yet but think (most of the time mistakenly due to stupidity) they eventually will.
 
rudy said:
I assume you are American, or Canadian. I just want to point out that in the USA we slaughtered most of our forests. Seriously fly over this country during the day time and just look around. All you see pretty much everywhere are land plots that are clearly broken up into agricultural or sprawling cities and suburbs very little of it is actual forests or natural lands. No one in a tropical country is going to take the word of the rich hypocrites from the north when they are poor and living day to day while we bask in 2000 sq foot homes with our farting SUVs and steak dinners. In their view they have just as much of a right to burn down the rainforest as we had a right to clear our land. If the people of developed nations wish to return the land to nature they are will have to lead by example.
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Could you please name 1 forest in say the last 50 years we've "slaughtered" in America. I'm curious.
 
Climber said:
Could you please name 1 forest in say the last 50 years we've "slaughtered" in America. I'm curious.
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It doesn't matter because we slaughtered them all before that, you are trying to set up a question to give you a desired answer which is irrelevant. So what if we didn't cut down new major forests in the last 50 years if we have hardly any to cut down because they were cut down 100 years ago? This is the whole point Americans can never seem to grasp. The USA went through a lot of bad times. We went through a mafia and labor movement, we went through a complete pillaging of our natural areas, we abused the living shit out of the work force, we had horrible pollution. All of these things were part of our growth and expansion into a world super power. When other countries look at us they are going to point to that and say who are you to tell us what to do, and most Americans don't seem to understand that. We can all feel warm and fuzzy because we aren't cutting down a forest, na we are just building an expansive subdivision, on a piece of farmland, but what stood on that farmland before it was a farm? How did it become farmland? That's right we cut down a forest or a natural area. See if any great herds of buffalo can move through our plains now days? Why is the Missisippi river rated one of the most polluted large rivers in the world? Oh, its because we are all so busy arguing about global warming we don't even give a shit that we are still filling landfills at astronomical rates, that everything is disposable now days, its so funny how quickly Americans forget anything.

Here is a map showing % forest coverage by country what you will notice is that the USA is not one of the darker countries. If you are a person from lets say Brazil you would probably say I have a lot more forest I can cut down before I match America.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.FRST.ZS/countries?display=map
 
Climber said:
Could you please name 1 forest in say the last 50 years we've "slaughtered" in America. I'm curious.
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I was going to say basically what the poster above me did, most of our forest slaughtering was done in the past 150 years:

b7c9a05a10972b9194f1c88122bdf319.JPG



More recently, we're still losing forest, not gaining. I found this from 2000-2012 (from the University of Maryland):

mapping_world_cropped.jpg



It shows us intense usage in the southeast, so we're replanting about as much as we're clearing (though I don't know how much old forest is still being cut down there). There's still some loss on the edges, the northwest, and a bunch of loss in Alaska. So no worries, we're still chipping away at it.
 
Guy, guys, guys. Stop with all the 'charts' and 'facts' and such. Look into your soul, What does God tell you? I'll tell you what he tells me: It's all these immigrants and gays and democrats that are causing this! That is, if it is even true in the first place! They are probably making it all up! I wanted to ask God how doe He no know if they are making it up or not, but I do not question The Word. He said the only way we can fight this is with tax breaks, more fracking, more deforestation more overfhishing and to dump even more and the most pollution in the air and water as we possibly can! He said if we do this, he will take care of it all and prove the nonbelievers wrong! Can I get an AMEN?!
 
you latest post shows your complete stupidity...well , and the fact that you have been indoctrinated and let down by todays public school system...and when you leave mom's basement you find a whole world of reality out there and you may learn something , please...learn something
 
Gabriel said:
No more than 2 children per family, please. The world population is increasing too fast.
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Most first world nations have too few children not too many. The biggest population increases are driven by Africa and middle east.
 
Killahurtz said:
you latest post shows your complete stupidity...well , and the fact that you have been indoctrinated and let down by todays public school system...and when you leave mom's basement you find a whole world of reality out there and you may learn something , please...learn something
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Fellow believer, I am agreeing with you it was the immigrants as you previously posted. I did not see His spirit flowing through your words at the time, but I do now. And maybe the public school system did let me down - I bet it was the work of those darn rascally gays if that was the case!

Now come brother! Let us walk hand in hand as we continue on and show these fools the folly of their ways! PRAISE HIM!
 
tetris42 said:
Come in, say everything I believe is BS from hippies, don't provide any counter examples, and then claim because modern Native Americans influenced by Western values are different, that's proof all of them in the past were the same way? Don't see the problem with that logic? That's like saying because Greece is economically devastated, they couldn't have possibly been one of the most prosperous nations and center of knowledge thousands of years ago.

I'm not claiming every single Indian tribe was "at one with nature", I'm saying as a whole, their lifestyle didn't devastate the landscape and annihilate the ecosystem. I mean hell, look at one of their largest sites:

http://discovermagazine.com/2004/feb/uncovering-americas-pyramid-builders

From the article: "archaeologists have uncovered no evidence of invasion, rampant disease, overpopulation, deforestation, or any of the other hallmarks of the decline and fall of civilization"

As for disappearing cities, again, evidence is spotty, although 96% of Indians getting wiped out by disease after the Europeans later on didn't exactly help with preservation of sites.
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You can use basic logical deduction to know something went wrong. People did not just pick up and leave major native American civilizations for no reason. Cherry picking a civilization we know almost nothing about doesn't really support any point. They were driven out by something. We do know a little more about other civilizations and war and conquest were typically a large part of their societies. This does not sound like being one with nature, it sounds like people fighting for resources and control of resources.
 
"Fellow believer, I am agreeing with you it was the immigrants as you previously posted"

and you continue to prove the point , and your stuff isn't even funny...dang , you just can't win
 
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