What other species has changed the chemistry of the oceans and the atmosphere and the biosphere, in only a couple hundred years?
What other living critter has so successfully transformed entire landscapes to our desires?
We are so badass!
We're masters of all we survey. We totally dominate. Avatar aside, what could possibly stand up to the mechanized might at our disposal? What could stop us?
Mow down a rainforest? Can do.
Mow down a mountain? Can do.
We're also masters of the art of externalizing the costs of any damage to natural systems. We make nature pay for what we do to it!
What's the $ cost of the continent-sized plastic soup gyring in the Pacific? What's the cost of farming practices that constantly loses topsoil? What's the cost of fishing out the ocean, even as we acidify it with our excess CO2? What's the cost of heavy metals spewn out of burning coal?
Nobody knows the cost -- or cares!
Because it's the economy, stupid, and nobody gets reelected by bringing up bad news, or framing complicated transformations. CEOs don't get hired to initiate long-term stability. Everyone's happier with simplicity, the status quo, and the next quarterly report. Those bottom lines we understand.
And we are also badasses when it comes to denial of responsibility. A bull may demonstrate disregard of responsibility by walking away from the china shop -- but no other animal demonstrates willful disregard like we do!
And no other species in the solar system has constructed organizational systems that prevent coordinated beneficial actions. We have lain artificial lines around "sovereign nations" whose borders are roundly ignored by most of what we spew: CO2, endocrine disruptors, heavy metals, extreme weather. But we each worry about our own private economies, because the pie is only so big.
And Copenhagen made it clear: we totally rock at dithering via bureaucratic attenuation.
Some days I can't believe how much we dominate.
We are kicking Nature's green butt, and nobody can stop us.