High on the fringes of the Atacama desert in southern Bolivia lie the rusted remains of steam locomotives once used to transport salt and precious mineral ores to the outside world. Less than 100 years later has not only the steam engine been replaced by the diesel motor and railways replaced by roads, but the abundant natural resources which were once in high demand have been replaced by more economical sources. And so the workhorses of a rich but forgotten past are left to rust in the cold, dusty winds which have brought the residents of this lonely outpost a poorer and uncertain existence.
Not surprisingly, this cycle repeats itself wherever Western society's insatiable demand for economic growth and an ever-higher standard of living requires the extraction and utilisation of finite natural resources. Whether it be the defunct coal mines of America's Appalachian Mountains, the exhausted off-shore oil rigs of the North Sea or the dying diamond mines of western Australia, the pattern is always the same - enormous initial investments and subsequent re-investments in newer extraction technologies permit the extraction for a few decades of a natural resource which took millions of years to produce.
Just as a bacteria culture is doomed to extinction once its sustenance is depleted, humanity is likewise doomed to extinction once its sustenance is depleted. Our planet is finite and our so-called "needs" infinite. The human race must devour ever more resources, perhaps someday of other planets, in order to keep the motor of growth and progress running. We are like a cancer run amok on our mother Earth, devouring everything in our path, not realising that once we have consumed our host that also we must die.
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