In the other scale we have to weigh neolithic deforestations in Wales, the fact that most of the forests of Europe are gone, the loss of many species from ancient Roman times. Much more benign, as far as I know, was the maintenance of the North American prairie, but that too was made by man, and it's likely the mammoth and the mastodon fell to human predation. The horse was originally North American, but humans drove it extinct until its reintroduction. Less foresighted than their European cousins, they ate it.
From the days we learned to smelt, we have made slag heaps. We have thrown our refuse into rivers without caring where it went. I agree that the problem is really bad only now that there's more of us and we are more intensively civilized, but we're the same people we've been all along.
Including the enlightened few who practice sustainable forestry in the middle ages and who try to make recycling pay to make it possible.
I'm just sayin' . . .
BTW, still looking for an email if you wouldn't mind.
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Date: 2005-12-12 06:47 pm (UTC)In the other scale we have to weigh neolithic deforestations in Wales, the fact that most of the forests of Europe are gone, the loss of many species from ancient Roman times. Much more benign, as far as I know, was the maintenance of the North American prairie, but that too was made by man, and it's likely the mammoth and the mastodon fell to human predation. The horse was originally North American, but humans drove it extinct until its reintroduction. Less foresighted than their European cousins, they ate it.
From the days we learned to smelt, we have made slag heaps. We have thrown our refuse into rivers without caring where it went. I agree that the problem is really bad only now that there's more of us and we are more intensively civilized, but we're the same people we've been all along.
Including the enlightened few who practice sustainable forestry in the middle ages and who try to make recycling pay to make it possible.
I'm just sayin' . . .
BTW, still looking for an email if you wouldn't mind.