The headline reads "Hurricanes Shape New Natural Order" and the article says, "Last year's record hurricane season didn't just change life for humans.   It changed nature, too."   Scientists worry that "Nature might not be able to rebound so quickly" due to "the human factor."   One says "The problem is when we try to control nature, rather than letting her do what she does."   The Associated Press concludes, The seas are rising, the planet is getting hotter and commercial and residential development is snowballing.   Add those factors to a predicted increase in nasty hurricanes and what results is a recipe for potentially serious natural degradation, some say."

The last I checked hurricanes were a natural phenomenon over which human beings have absolutely no control and very little real understanding.   The last I checked human beings were animals, as much a part of nature as the earth, the seas, the skies.   Relative to their biomass, human beings change the landscape no more than ants or elephants.   Ants create huge colonies beneath the ground which alter everything from the way rainwater runs off to the types of plants which can survive in a particular place.   In fact, some ant colonies actually cultivate specific trees in whole forests.   They have been known to poison certain trees so their favorite kinds can thrive.   Elephants similarly alter the landscape by indiscriminately knocking down whole forests and wiping out whole species of trees they like to eat.   But we think of ants, elephants and all the rest of the flora and fauna to somehow be members of an exclusive club to which human beings are not permitted entry.   That club is called nature.

Now apparently hurricanes are not permitted in the club either because we have decided that human caused global warming makes them more severe.   Hurricanes aren't a natural phenomenon.   They are the result of human activity.   And what they do to the landscape is somehow, by extension, now a part of what human beings do to the landscape.

Nature is the victim in all this "unnatural" destruction of the natural world.   She is pretty resilient.   She has been bouncing back from horific blows for millenia.   But now it seems she may have met her match.   She'll try to clean up her destroyed house.   She'll try to put everything back into place.   But, just so you know, the evil forces are working hard to disrupt her.   She may not have the strength to make things whole again.

When did we get to the place where our thinking changed to this point?   How are we supposed to try to live in harmony with nature if we consider the human animal to somehow be separate and apart, perhaps above, nature.   We kid ourselves into believing that "native Americans" somehow lived in harmony with nature in an ideal way we could try to emulate but we are just too stupid to achieve.

Do we honestly think we have become so powerful that Mother Nature could not wipe us all out in a single blow?   If we think that, we're wrong.   Mother Nature is still strong enough to mold human civilization any old way she wants.   We can alter one or two hairs on her head but we will never be able to even make her blink.

The hurricanes did nothing to change nature.   Nature is not a static phenomenon.   What ever occurs by the hand of humans is nature.   Whatever occurs by the hand of hurricanes is nature.   A specific forest, species of plant or animal, or entire gulf is not nature but merely a dog in it.   if Mother Nature wants to change the contours of her garden or what grows in them, she will do so.   Our thinking about nature is silly folly which leads to poisoned reasoning.