Man's expansionism

The list of natural disasters in recent months is incredible, the tsunami in
the northern Pacific (200,000 killed), hurricane Katrina in New Orleans
(2,000 killed), Hurricane Wilma in Yucatan and Florida (1,000 killed), the
earthquake in Pakistan and Kashmir (50,000 killed). And the numbers killed
don't begin to tell the story of the destruction of homes, towns and
societies. Is this the cost of man's expansionism, the result of the
extension of human societies into unsuitable environments, pushed further by
growing numbers and competition for space.
There is a question whether New Orleans should ever have been built as a
city below sea level and surrounded on all sides by water (the Gulf, the
Mississippi River, Lake Ponchartrain). One reason for its settlement was
the search for a safe haven by the French Acadians when they were expelled
by the British from what is now Newfoundland, and they eventually settled in
the Louisiana bayoux, where they became the Cajuns. Together with some
French colonialists and many Negro slaves, they constituted the basis for
the settlement of the city of New Orleans. What folly building a city of 1
million people below sea level, protected only by earthen levees.
In Kashmir, known as a paradise, people are living on the edge of survival,
up in the mountains in the cold of winter, with no homes and no food. Tens
of thousands more will die. Around the Pacific rim, not only was there
death and destruction on an unimaginable scale, but in some places, such as
Aceh in Indonesia and the Andaman Islands (part of India), whole communities
were wiped out.
Of course, in some seasons these areas all appear like paradise, but if you
have to live there permanently they can be terribly destructive. Can it be
that nature is giving us a message, reminding us who is in charge? We can
clamber over the earth like so many ants, we can populate regions that
appear suitable, but in the end we have no means to pacify nature and we are
at its mercy.
As the population rises and the range of habitation expands a new Malthusian
competition arises, a new Darwinian survival of the fittest. The result is
that the population in those areas that remain safe will become denser and
the struggle to hang onto every part of the earth that is habitable will
become even more acute. Countries like the US and Israel, where the
population continues to rise from immigration, must take care to guard their
borders and their sovereignty.