Man's relationship with nature has gone wrong: expert

“We’ve just been stealing, stealing, stealing from our children, and it’s shocking. But is it true that there’s nothing that can be done? No absolutely not”

This is nothing but wishful. She has been doing a wonderful job, but.... Saying something like this about Africa is a bad mistake, because that continent is the biggest proof that nothing can be done.

"The realization that many of the problems faced by African populations stemmed from exploitation of natural resources, first in the colonial era and then by multinational companies..."

She sees the truth, but refuses to accept it, which psychologically is easy to understand, but that does not change reality. I wish for her that she may die before the day when there is no longer any denying the truth..... What a wonderful woman.

The notion that there's a "relationship" between humankind and Nature that's "gone wrong" is a purely modern idea, probably no older than the late 19th century. Humankind has always exploited Nature as much as possible, we just weren't as good at it as we are now.

That said, if we don't develop a better relationship with Nature in the 21st century and beyond, we're all in serious trouble - but doing so will be a NEW THING; something we've never done before. History is rife with examples of civilizations and cultures that exploited their environment nearly to, or past the breaking point, and suffered, or collapsed because of it.

Even the vaunted harmonious nature of the North American Indians is a myth, modern archeology is just beginning to understand how much Pre-Columbian Americans changed their environment; we just didn't recognize it until recently, because it didn't look familiar.

Doing something new on a massive human scale, like engaging a new paradigm species wide, is something that usually takes us a long time - on the order of centuries. It's a big question: whether we'll be able to correct our approach before we ruin our own welfare; it's a race that if we lose - game over for us.

Nature will persist, just differently - it doesn't really care, it adapts; goes off in another direction. We, on the other hand, could well end up being long past caring...

Our relationship with nature has gone wrong but not out of hands and future generations will be busy repairing our big mess.

Looking at the way people are glued to a screen of some form or another, 24/7, I'd say it's a big stretch to say considerable portions of the world's population even have a 'relationship' with nature at all.

Nietzche called it one of man's 'four errors' in - we have placed ourself in a false rank with nature.

Failing to see the connect is certainly one of our biggest follys.

I think Nature can take care of herself. It's just that she can end up taking care of us too, in a not so nice way.