Principles of Environmental Science

One of my favorite classes in college was "Principles of Environmental Science." The instructors had written a book by the same name, and the premise of both was novel and  interesting, sparking my imagination into viewing the natural world--and the people world--in a new way. They used principles typically applied to natural systems and applied them to human systems, and voila! ---it all fit. Principles of competition, distribution, carrying capacity, cycles and such. If you see it in nature, you can most likely see it in human systems. Maybe even in a specific human system, but I have yet to investigate this. And I digress. 

Contrary to textbooks by the same name now being promoted, this book was not about man's (mankind's) impact on the environment. But more about how the environment (nature) can teach us about mankind's behavior. Not so much the relationship of environment and man, but the way humankind behaves in like manner as the natural world. For instance, the distribution of health services relative to population, or the dispersal of influence based on environmental changes. Opportunism. Symbiosis. Parasitism. 

I was reminded of this by my strawberry patch this morning. For some reason the strawberry plants are moving into the garden path and the weeds(some of my favorites) are infilling the areas left behind. The strawberry plants may be moving farther from the Rose of Sharon, which, having grown, may have increased the shade or, who knows, could have emitted some toxins beneath the surface of the soil,  and thus changed the microclimate or growing conditions in general. 

I was listening to the news this morning while gazing out onto the meadow and the woods beyond, and  thought of the push and pull of species in the garden, in the wild, and in society. Nature reaches for a place of balance, though on this side of eternity it does struggle to stay there. I am hoping at least the same for the human system. 

Ah, you say. She has written her first political post. 

Not so, I say.

I'm still talking about the strawberry patch. ;-)

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