○The Origin of Environmental Problems
Let's consider the origin of this senseless competition.
About 10,000 years ago, agriculture began at about the same time in various locations around the world.
About 11,000 years ago, the last ice age came to an end.
During the following 1,000 years, the temperature gradually increased.
As this happened, life on earth became more active and food became more abundant, which led to an increase in the population.
Just after that, however, the temperature once again dropped dramatically in a very short space of time, meaning that once again the earth was plunged into an ice age.
What happened is this.
As the temperature rose after the end of the Ice Age, in the north of what is now North America, a large freshwater lake was formed.
Over time this became five lakes and is now what is referred to as the Great Lakes.
About 10,000 years ago, this massive lake burst its banks and a huge amount of cold freshwater flowed into the Atlantic Ocean at once.
As freshwater has a lower specific gravity than seawater, this cold freshwater formed a thin layer over the entire Atlantic Ocean.
As a result, abnormal weather conditions were experienced on a global scale and it is thought that the temperature plummeted.
Of course people throughout the world then experienced a serious food shortage.
This in turn led to the appearance of agriculture.
The abovementioned scenario was revealed from ice cores taken from the glaciers of Greenland and these findings were presented in an NHK documentary discussing the roots of agriculture.
What are written below, however, are my own observations.
At the time when agriculture first began, by way of natural consequence, a natural imbalance was created between those who had and those who did not have food, and that was something that had never occurred before in human society.
To take this even further, those who had food had an advantage over those who did not have food, which caused senseless squabbling.
These senseless squabbles led to further conflict, which mushroomed into a tragic and vicious circle that went on and on for generation after generation.
So here we are today, ten thousand years later, and we still have these two groups: the haves and the have-nots.