In this technological age, is there a fix for everything? The answer is clearly no. Unfortunately, people still die from diseases we haven't found a cure for yet, though many more live much longer than in times past due to the advances we have made. In fact, this latter observation has been in the news in fairly recent weeks in that there has been much discussion about helping people suffering with terminal and degenerate conditions to die. Don't most (all?) in this unfortunate position live so long largely because of our technological, medical and social advances?
Hadn't really intended to start that way but was thinking about the way we (humans) separate ourselves from the ecology of planet Earth and wondered whether this was largely because of our technology. In ecology, we talk about carrying capacity. That is, the number of individuals an area can sustain with available resources. We overcome this by, for example, moving food around the country, or across the globe. As far as humans are concerned, I suspect we can live at far greater densities, exceeding the 'natural' carrying capacity, than would be the case without technology.
With population increases, the pressure on available resources will increase - will our technology allow this to take place so that we put even greater pressure on the Earth's carrying capacity? There must come a point when technological solutions fail to squeeze yet more from the Earth. With each passing day the need to develop sustainably becomes even more pressing, though I doubt most governments will tackle this in any meaningful way, though I live in hope!
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