Prevent Forest Fires.

Nature has mechanisms to cope with excesses and imbalances, which though often unpleasant and destructive, tend to be necessary and ultimately beneficial to the long term health of any ecosystem. In the case of forests, where old trees tend to become an obstruction to new growth, fires act as a remedy of sorts, allowing the forest to replenish itself. Call it creative destruction. Nature, however, like its almost infinite creations, isn't perfect, and so one must cope with, so to speak, collateral damage, where fires not only destroy old plant life, but a lot of old (and not so old) animal life as well.

Recently I was pondering the many ways in which mankind has seemed, the operative word being seemed, to skirt naturally occurring corrective processes, and what the consequences are likely to be. The short answer is there are far too many examples outside my understanding to answer my own question. However, an educated guess tells me that if the premise that imbalances in nature, and for that matter, outside of nature, are destined to be corrected, is rock solid, then every sea wall ever built is a goner, perhaps spectacularly so, as in the case of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In the realm of economics, a man made phenomenon that intersects with nature, as everything man made ultimately does, it seems apparent to this observer that the powers that be have successfully avoided natural corrective processes in markets through the seemingly endless creation of debt.

Imagine, if you will, a giant, water tank located right next to an enormous forest. The water tank not only has a vast, apparently inexhaustible supply of water, but an elaborate and far reaching sprinkler system with which to douse the forest should even the mere hint of a fire arise. Of course it's all a nonsense, since outside of sunlight, which majestic as it is, is itself not eternal, there can be no inexhaustible source of water. The terrifying upshot is that at some point, who knows when, all the old growth that has been propped up by the elaborate water tower system is going to go up in smoke, almost certainly with more collateral damage than would have been the case had the system been allowed to naturally restore itself. So, while playing with matches, as per Smokey the Bear's warning, is a no no, a bigger no no might be not allowing any conflagration at all.