Environmental Unit Introduction

In regard to the environment, what does the concept of balance mean?
Throughout the introduction balance was a theme that came up a lot, environmental balance is the impartiality between humans and the natural world and how humans and the environment keep each other in line.
Expanding in the idea of balance, in this reading, it was said that, in some people's opinion, that humans are going to end the world, that we are over populating the it and are killing the environment. I don't think that it is possible to believe in this statement and to believe in environmental balance, they contradict each other. Another point of view, relayed in the reading was that the environment will adapt to what humans are doing just as it always has. This also doesn't quite answer the question of "do you believe in balance." In the reading it said that "When that balance is upset, the environment simply corrects that balance through a number of different actions, many of which are deadly to humans." This is a statement that defends the concept of balance and I also agree with this statement. I believe that balance can, at times, get out of line, but something will happen on either end to make the balance kosher. It is really interesting to think about because it kind of if you believe in fate or not when dealing with the "over populated" aspect of it. Because if the world gets over populated, how is the earth supposed to know to have an earthquake to kill a ton of people? But when talking about the pollution part of it, it makes a little more sense. But still, while I semi- agree with the idea of environmental balance, I don't exactly see how they balance each other out or do things to bring each other back into line.