Elf Sternberg

How about them? You're right, humans aren't to blame for them. They were deeper and more destructive than anyone's worst nightmare. It took millions of years for life to recover from them. Does that sound like something we'd like to emulate?

I don't know what the original article was trying to say, but personally I'm not interested in calling humanity names or making moral pronouncements about what we're to blame for. Until quite recently, human beings had no idea that they could do permanent damage to the planet. We were just doing what all species do: try to survive and thrive.

But now that we do know what we're doing, do we want to continue to wipe out species right and left, until it's just us and our commensals, like rats, roaches, English sparrows, squirrels, pigeons, crabgrass, and ailanthus trees? Do we want our descendants to inherit such an impoverished world? Are we even sure that we'd be able to survive widespread destruction of ecosystems and their life-supporting services? Do we want to find out?

If you only have one of something, and you don't know exactly how it works, it's stupid to take it apart. Even stupider to throw away some of the pieces. We have no guarantee we'll be able to put it back together.