Evolution is remarkable, it has allowed life to thrive on this planet for hundreds of millions of years. It has created a hugely diverse collection of flora and fauna in a variety of different environments. It is the mechanism by which all living survive. And we are killing it.
Let's look at how evolution works first. Picture a lush plain. Healthy grasslands and trees. This plain is inhabited by horse like animals that thrive in the environment. One year there is a terrible drought and the grass doesn't grow as thick across much of the land. This causes starvation among the horses and many die. However some horses naturally have taller legs or necks than others and they can reach the leaves on the lower branches of the tree to sustain them. More of these horses survive the drought and go on to breed. Their genetic predisposition to being tall is passed on to their offspring and more tall horses are born. The droughts continue sporadically over the centuries and each time they happen it's the taller horses that are better suited to survival. Eventually these horses become something new, they have long legs and necks and can reach even the highest leaves on the trees. They have become giraffes.
This process happens all over the world to millions of different animals and plants and as there are changes to the land and sea, the plants and animals in them change too. These changes also caused monkeys to evolve into man and that's were things started to go very wrong.
In the beginning man continued to evolve in the same way that all animals do but as they became more and more advanced they ceased to evolve. Instead of adapting to suit our environments we started changing our environment to suit us. We cut down not just a few trees but entire forests. We dammed rivers bringing water to where we needed it and depriving other areas that died without it. We built vast cities that few wild animals could approach. And these things were just in the beginning.
Eventually we advanced to the point that we poisoned the oceans with plastic and chemicals. Deforested continents on an industrial level. And even poisoned the air that we and all other living creatures need to breath and live.
But we haven't just interfered with our own evolution in doing these things. The most vital part of evolution is that it takes time, thousands sometimes even millions of years. But man is changing the world so rapidly now that other species of animals and plants have no time to adapt to the devastation that we are causing.
Unfortunately I don't see us changing as a species. I don't believe that we will cease the destruction that we started and I think that we are doomed because of that. The only question on my mind is will we leave the natural world intact enough to recover from our excesses? I'll never know the answer to that, none of us will, but I hope we do.