How much power do we have over nature?

Jordan Bowles    Word count:  1149

After watching the film "The Botany of Desire", the question has been raised, "How much power do we actually have over nature?".  Prior to watching the film, I would have told you that humankind has 100% power over nature.  Sure, we don't necessarily possess power over the weather, natural disasters, and so forth, however the way technology is advancing it is not unlikely for that to change in the near future.  Technological singularity is something that I have been interested in for awhile which states that by 2040 technology will have advanced so much (based on the rate at which it is advancing currently) that it will become one with humanity and we will live forever, etc.  This gave me confidence that it would only be a matter of time before we start controlling weather with the snap of a finger.  After watching this film, some of those thoughts started to change.  It occurred to me that no matter what we do, nature will always fulfill its destiny and overpower us as humans.  Living in a capitalist environment, resources get used and they get used fast.  The biggest problem is that we don't always necessarily consider the future when using something.  It is thought that with the advancement of technology, farming and agriculture will change.  There will be new ways of farming and obtaining food, but nature has shown in history that it will always prevail.  Right when we think we are one step again of nature, we get thrown a curveball as shown in the film.  When we thought that we had found the answer (apples), humanity was consumed with alcoholism.  When the Irish thought they found the answer in sticking to one type of potato, the Irish Potato Famine hit and 1 million people died.  There are countless examples of nature taking unexpected turns that humans can't account for as we are always one step behind nature and its intentions.  In the clip, "The Future of Farming and Agriculture", you can see how innovation and technology are being used and advanced to help the agriculture industry and not only make farming more efficient, but potentially not even need human help.  They are also using sensors that tells them whether or not plants are being attacked by insects and what not which could ultimately sway away from GMOs and sprayed chemicals to keep them away.  While this video makes for a potentially exciting future, it is important to remember that history shows we are never really in control of nature even when it feels like we are a step ahead.  As we saw in "The Botany of Desire", nature has a funny way of turning on us quickly and harshly.  Going towards something relevant to the film, but not necessarily to agriculture, the marijuana business is also up and coming.  The field seems to show a lot of promise and potentially bring in a lot of revenue.  This is another example of natures power over us.  In the Michael Pollen film, we hear growers talking about the process and the stress that comes along with growing marijuana.  They tend to be stubborn plants and demand a lot of TLC as some would say.  It's almost as if the plant is saying, "If you want the most pristine high, you are going to have to work for it as well as love me unconditionally".  Listening to the stories of certain growers and how hard it is to obtain well grown and quality weed is not only astounding but hilarious.  The idea of a plant almost playing hard to get with their growers is an absurd and hysterical idea.  In this clip that is attached about some of the common problems with growing marijuana, we see just how stubborn they are.  These common problems don't really contain insect breaches, watering issues, and your standard weather condition problems.  They are complicated issues that not a lot of new growers would think to look for or even understand after reading.  When we read about the weather related problems, they are minute and nitty gritty problems such as being slightly too cold, too hot, etc.  As said in "The Botany of Desire", growers must do WHAT they want and WHEN they want it.  The more we innovate and the more we expand, the more we come to realize that we are beings that are inhabiting this earth and serving it.  The earth is not here to serve it, but the exact opposite.  We are blessed to inhabit such a beautiful earth and because of the many amenities that we enjoy, there is a price to be paid.  At the end of the day, we cannot survive if all of our agriculture goes down the drain.  We even see the negative affects in that nature can have on our economy when we look at the tulip escapades shown in the film.  We discovered the beauty of tulips and specifically the Semper Augustus, and decided to make it a commodity.  The minute that humanity starts turning nature into a selling point, and uses it for our capitalist ideals, we commence our demise.  As seen in history, tulips became such a commodity and were worth so much money that people put fortunes into these flowers and when it came crashing down, it did so in a very destructive way.  People who had money out of the ear invested, lost everything essentially and one flower was the root of a huge economic downfall.  We are slowly turning marijuana into a commodity, but also realizing before it's too late that it is part of nature and should be treated as such.  It is actually for the better in a lot of ways that it is so hard to get licensed to sell.  If selling marijuana was as easy as selling phones, we would once again turn something from nature into a source of revenue.  It is being used for revenue, but the amount of people growing big and selling big is small.  This handful of growers understand the complexity and delicacy that goes into growing.  As seen in the film, it appears that it is treated better than some people (minus the fact that its burned alive or eaten of course).  Technology used to consume marijuana is advancing all the time and will continue.  As long as it brings in revenue, investing and research will continue to be done.  Many people around the world actually worship the world itself as part of their religion and as long as we keep this fear/respect relationship with the world, the good treatment will be reciprocated.  In contrary, if we treat the world in a poor way and act towards it with selfish mindsets, that type of treatment will also be reciprocated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbhKuOlifTk - What are the most common marijuana growing problems

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmla9NLFBvU-Incase the youtube video at the top does not work.