Homongeny

I was feeling smug.  Our photocopy paper came from plantation farms and not virgin rain forest.  Then someone sat down in front of me and said it is a homogenised environment.  I had never thought of that.
We need farms as far as the eye can see to feed the world, but surely not at the expense of rain forests.  Apart from their aesthetic beauty and their being the earths’ lungs, they are a potentially untapped resource of medicine.
It got me thinking about homogenize.  A meaning of that word is “make uniform or similar.”  We see it everywhere in our society.  So much is made uniform so it can be mass produced.  This is not a bad thing in itself.  It sure is convenient.  I think though, I need to be careful of my motivation.  If it is just to make a quick buck regardless of the consequences, then it can be wrong.
It reminds me of peoples hunting something to extinction.  They have a family to feed.  The big picture says that resource will run out.  It is why I so admire entrepreneurs’ who employ former hunters to protect the species and habitat of the very creatures they once hunted.  This way families are fed, and the resource continues. Everyone wins except the fat cats who grew rich not caring. 
To me homogeny can be good – as long as I am not exhausting something, and when doing it a different way maintains the resource and those involved in it.
It seemed it was too easy to forget or not care.  Cars used to huge.  It was like the resources to make it were unlimited.   The thing to me though is I live on a finite planet.  What we have is what we got.  Maybe there will be mining of other planets one day, but I am not holding my breath.
But I am not for not using what we have.  We do need to use stuff smarter though.  Not every idea is a good idea.  I have heard they frac in the States, but places that never had geological movements are having them since it started.  One problem is solved, but another one that is worse is created.
There is a huge water basis under the US (like in Oz).  Farmers have been using it for years.  Indiscriminately.  The water has run out.  To me it is like travelling a long way down a road and finding it is a dead end.  There are not enough resources to retrace steps.
A lesson is learned but the price is really high.  If things were done differently in the first place, maybe the crisis would not exist.
I guess greed and self interest at others expense will always be with us.  It is one of the reasons I do not think humanity is going to solve its own problems.