“The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.” This infamous quote by Ayn Rand, the champion of fierce individualism and unbridled capitalism, sounds good...until I imagine it being said by an executive of a chemical company as they're dumping toxic wastes into Onondaga Lake. And that was the problem. No one stopped them.

I think the concept of "unlimited growth and potential" is a delusional belief that humans invented to justify ourselves of the boundless plunder and exploitation we have and are still planning to inflict on Nature's creations. Nature does not and cannot support infinite growth. Nature's goal is balance, not infinite growth. When the squirrel populations begin to get out of balance, their natural food source, the pecan trees, coincidentally withhold pecan production until the population is back to balance. In Nature, there is life and death. There is expansion and contraction. We as human have forgotten the role we were supposed to play in this balanced ecosystem.

And so who's going to stop you? Well, first, hopefully, your own damn sense. And if you lack that, then hopefully some well-intentioned and well-executed environmental protection legislations. And if that doesn't work, then Nature will step in eventually. And trust me, by the time Nature has to step in, it will be too late.