ABSTRACT
In recent years, it has become possible to work out the various kinds of damage that different technologies impose on the living world. But it is worth keeping in mind that a comprehensive scientific understanding of the natural environment only emerged in the second half of the twentieth century, and that back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was relatively little insight into the complex and often irreversible destruction that human activities could cause. It is also important to remember that over the thousands of years of agricultural civilization preceding industrialization, chronic overpopulation leading to frequent episodes of devastating famine and disease had produced a psychology of grim desperation in our ancestors who often had to live in a permanent state of insecurity about whether they would be struck down by famine or disease. Over time, this state of mind became a deep-seated cultural value that made it seem almost natural to overlook impacts such as the disappearance of native plant and animal populations, the wastage of topsoil due to over-cropping and over-grazing, or the massive pollution of water, air and soil.
