Nature Doesn't Need Our Help to Destroy the Earth

For me, the most paralyzing news was that Nature was no conservationist. It needed no help from us in taking the planet apart and putting it back together some different way, not necessarily improving it from the viewpoint of living things. It set fire to forests with lightning bolts. It paved vast tracts of arable land with lava, which could no more support life than big-city parking lots. It had in the past sent glaciers down from the North Pole to grind up major portions of Asia, Europe, and North America. Nor was there any reason to think that it wouldn't do that again someday. At this very moment it is turning African farms to deserts, and can be expected to heave up tidal waves or shower down white-hot boulders from outer space at any time. It has not only exterminated exquisitely evolved species in a twinkling, but drained oceans and drowned continents as well. If people think Nature is their friend, then they sure don't need an enemy.

Notes:

Observation by Kurt Vonnegut that nature does a fine job of making the Earth uninhabitable regularly on its own.

Folksonomies: nature environmentalism

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 Ladies & Gentlemen of A.D. 2088
Periodicals>Magazine Article:  Vonnegut , Kurt (1988), Ladies & Gentlemen of A.D. 2088, Time Magazine, Retrieved on 2014-02-22
  • Source Material [www.lettersofnote.com]
  • Folksonomies: environment letters