Equilibrium Is Everything.
What is Equilibrium? It’s more than balance, though balance plays it’s part. Equilibrium is the law. It’s the universal distribution of Matter and Energy, bound by the fact that neither can be destroyed, only changed in form.
Meet Auggie. 
Auggie just got here, and you’ve probably already guessed that he made points just for showing up. Auggie will exhale about 686,200,000 times over 80 the next years. That’s a lot of nitrogen and oxygen converted to carbon dioxide.
This is the maple tree in the backyard of Auggie’s home. Using Auggie’s CO2, the water falling from the sky, and the organisms and minerals in the soil, it will produce twice the oxygen Auggie needs.
It’s a perfect system. An illustration of symbiosis. It’s equilibrium.
Auggie grows up and fathers children of his own.
In the years to come, his children will have children…
…and so on.
Soon, there are a lot of people and a lot of trees…
More CO2 means more trees grow. More trees mean more oxygen. More oxygen means more people can be born. Equilibrium.
People reach equilibrium with each other. Its not always pretty.
This is Eric.
Eric is a farmer. He used to be a raider.
Eric used to have 3 brothers. They’re dead now because they weren’t as good at taking other people’s stuff as their brother Eric.
Eric has 6 sons, Bjorn, Rollo, Ragnar, Knute, Gunnar, and Leif.
Eric’s farm has only enough land to support him and his oldest son, Bjorn.
Rollo, Ragnar, Knute,Gunnar and Leif become raiders and decide to try to take stuff from other people.
Rollo finds a really good farm that he likes, and kills the owner. Now Rollo is the Owner.
Ragnar finds a tract of land that no one else has claimed. Now Ragnar is an owner, too.
Knute and Gunnar get killed while trying to take someone else’s stuff. No one knows what happened to Leif.
Now everyone has enough land on which to live. Equilibrium has been reached.
Yeah, It’s No Always Fair.
Meet the Akkadians.
Meet the Uruks.
This is the well they share.
This year, both tribes had lots of babies.
Too many babies for a single well. The mommies tell the daddys that many babies will die of thirst if nothing is done.
The daddies of the Akkadians and the Uruks fight. The Akkadians win. Most of the Uruks die. So do some of the Akkadians.
Now no one dies of thirst. Equilibrium can sometimes be harsh.
At the edge of the desert, live the Kikuyue Tribe. One Summer, lots of babies are born.
At harvest, many of the crops fail and there is not enough food to go around. The famine lasts for a year and many people starve to death.
The next year, there are not so many people, and the crops don’t fail.
The problems of over-population and famine have cancelled each other out. As they always do. Equilibrium.
It Can’t Be Reasoned With.
Earth, population 7,500,000,000 people.
In some areas, food and water can not sustain a growing population. So the population will not grow past a certain point. In other areas, people have figured out how to grow lots and lots of food and distribute it. In those places, the population grows. Sometimes the people who know how to grow food really well try to give their extra food to those who are having problems. Unfortunately, that is food is often stolen and never gets to the people who really need it.
Wherever food production is maximized, the population will stop growing. The population might even pull back a little. Again, Equilibrium.
But Over-all, It’s Beneficial.
Let’s go back to the example of trees and people. Again, there are lots of trees on Earth. There are lots of people, too. Sometimes people cut down trees.
But then people exhale. A lot. Lots and lots of people exhaling. Which causes more tress to grow. Which causes more people. People who exhale and cause more trees to grow.
You get the idea.
Sometimes there are so many trees, producing so much oxygen, that it becomes poisonous. So much oxygen, that a single lightning strike can start a fire which burns up a lot of trees. The fire will burn up this extra oxygen and also clear away old dead wood to make way for new growth.
The carbon released from from the wood goes to feed these other, newer organisms.
It’s like it was designed this way.
Equilibrium is a law, not a suggestion. It is impossible for us to violate this law. No matter what actions we take, the Earth will cycle its way back to equilibrium. It applies to everything. These are just a few methods by which the Earth achieves equilibrium.
There are infinitely more.
Selah.
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