THE LAW OF MEASURE IN THE USE OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE PROTECTION OF NATURE

Man, according to biologists, is an animal that belongs to the order of mammals, and within its framework, to the hominids family. Within this family he includes the species homo sapiens. As a creation of nature, he is a part of it. As a part of it, he actually represents human nature. He is born, grows, develops, reproduces, ages and dies according to natural laws. “Man is the measure of all that exists and of all does not exist”, says Protagoras.“ To have measure in everything is the first condition for achieving happiness,” says Democritus. For Aristotle, “two extremes are dangerous in human action: what is excessive and what is lacking. Our very nature suits exactly what is in the middle, neither too much nor too little.” Man, as a part of nature and a measure of everything that exists in it and of what did not exist, using its resources to create it in order to exist and use it, is obliged to respect the law of measure, as a law of nature. Respecting that law, man must take care to use the natural resources to a limit that will not lead to an unwanted change in its quality, and thus to the disruption of the conditions for his life. Unfortunately, man does not act like that, but mercilessly exploits and destroys nature. The thesis that the nature of Planet Earth has lost its self-regulating mechanisms is not true. On the contrary, the self-regulatory mechanisms of nature are increasingly coming to the fore. Global warming followed by unprecedented dry periods in certain parts of the Planet, the hunger of millions of people caused by them, catastrophic floods, hurricane-ravaged winds, increased mortality due to polluted air, epidemics and pandemics whose spread is facilitated by dense living in cities are nothing else, but regulatory mechanisms of nature by which it reduces the human population and tends to exterminate it. Man, ie, humanity, is the one who has lost self-regulatory mechanisms. Endless industrialization driven by the whip of profit, intoxicated by consumer obsession, with uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources, mercilessly destroys the ecosystem of Planet Earth. Due to the absence or ineffectiveness of self-regulatory mechanisms, Planet Earth, as the global natural environment of man, is facing a severe ecological crisis. Characteristic of this crisis is not only the destruction of living conditions by destruction and pollution of the natural environment, but also by the destruction of the entire ecosystem of the Planet, the maintenance of which is a vital condition for human life and the survival of civilization. Nature is omnipotent and inexorable when it comes to breaking its laws. Man, as humanized nature, can never be her master, as he imagines, but her servant and slave. The French philosopher Paul Holbach writes about this in his work “System of Nature.” Humanity must find self-regulatory mechanisms and strengthen the existing ones to the maximum. Otherwise, as Thomas Eliot says, “it comes to an end, not in a brutal detonation, but gradually and with a peaceful exhalation.