The "ecological balance" believers are the same folks who, in any other context, would argue that there is no "objective truth" and that all presumed truths are artificial cultural impositions. Yet, scientifically-illiterate that they are, and historically-illiterate too for that matter, they presume that there is some optimal ecological balance we should aspire to, whether than be 1955, or 1899, or 1491, whenever.

Climate changes. Species evolve. Species go extinct because their better-adapted cousins prosper while they unadaptable fail when climate changes from Medieval Warming to Little Ice Age.

Have the elite eltite ever been bossier or less knowledgeable about their world?

They are arrogant fucking morons is what they are. There is no balance, only change.

The horse crap idea is a fine example of the conclusion that any present trend will continue, probably on a straight-line basis. This is a disease of intellectuals. If a trend can be blamed on someone truly loathesome, e.g., Republicans, so much the better for the crucial countermeasures.

Luddite/Rousseau-ian nonsense. North America has more trees today than in 1900. Post-industrial society has a better relationship with the environment than hunter-gatherers did.

I don't think they realize everywhere prehistoric hunter-gatherers went, mass extinctions followed.

"New York would be buried in horse crap..."

And sometime around 1900 Bell Telephone projected that as the number of telephones grew everyone on Earth would have to be a phone company employee in order to simply maintain the system

Instead engineers invented automatic switches, and amplifiers, and eventually direct dialing.

Oddly enough I didn't find the telephone story in Google. But no matter.

Correct, there is no natural state of balance for the Earth. But even the most fanatical activists know that, they are after something else.

And that something else is the age old dream that a small nucleus of ultra smart people should direct the activities of all other people. For the good of everyone, of course.

And amazingly enough activists, a better term is intellectual, are almost universally convinced they will be among those doing the directing, not among those taking orders.

Er, you do realise that everyone on earth *is* a phone company employee, don't you? Or at least, every phone user is an operator, because instead of having a human operator connect your call, the phone companies have very cleverly shifted the responsibility to you.

Mind you, this is a good thing, and the same is true of of travel. Previously, you went to a travel agent, and he'd figure out everything for you. Now, you're your own travel agent - heck, you even print out your own tickets and check yourself on board the plane.

Too bad if customer service fell by the roadside in the process.

Gregory,

You can still pay extra for the service. Not many do.

I love that horse thing (my family didn't, since the wind kind of went out of hay farming in Conn. around WWI). Petroleum saved the whales, cars saved the horse. And yet b'Goil is humanity's worst enemy. Huh.

There are more horses in the US today than there were in 1900, with nary a road apple to trip on. It's looking more and more like New York is the problem. Everyting they do there ends up toxic. Why would that be?