Like all other living organism we are part of a larger system (or environment). However, unlike many other organisms, when we encounter a limiting factor we use our peculiar intellect to try and "cheat" the system. While systems are obviously never static, our "cheating" often causes drastic shifts in the system, thus causing many other elements in the system to teeter precariously (occasionally unable to right themselves quickly enough before the system takes on a different shape). The question then becomes whether humans adapt to their environment or do they rather try to adapt their environment to it? How do humans modify their environment? Quite simply by doing something different, or by continuing to do that something different before the system has managed to right itself again (something some people like to call "cumulative effects", or a bit of a spiral scenario in this case where each is playing catch up to the other for who knows how long). Since each individual human is equipped with his/her own intellect, and thus by extension his/her own capacity for changing the environment, the likelihood that humans will ever again live in a "stable environment" is unlikely in my opinion. The question I'm left wondering is more whether the capacity of the human intellect is truly up to the challenge to take on a run away freight train of an environment (i.e., how long can we keep trying to change the rules before the tide overtakes us and washes us out to sea).