Nature's Economy

Photo: An Orange Jelly Fungus (Dacrymyces palmatus) I found on a recent hike.

Human history is a record of how our species has grown distant from notions of ourselves as part of nature. I realized how far when someone I was talking to said, "I'm just not into nature", as if not realizing that everything we need comes from there.

To me that is like saying that you aren't into breathing, or observing the forces of gravity.

I would die without nature. You would too. Nature is our primary economy, and one on which our lives depend.

I have also had someone proclaim to me, "I'm not into trees."

Without trees, civilization as we know it would not exist, and without the natural world, no life would exist. We fail to acknowledge these realities when we choose lifestyles that run counter to natural limits.

Nature is everything. Air, water, food, beauty, and our true economy.

Scientist Carl Linnaeus was already warning nature naysayers back in the 1700s. “Nature’s economy," he pointed out, "shall be the base for our own, for it is immutable, but ours is secondary. An economist without knowledge of nature is therefore like a physicist without knowledge of mathematics.”

Without Nature's economy there will be no human-made economy. In order to protect both we need to bring our lifestyles in line with the needs of the natural world, of which we are a part.