Maryland Blogger Alliance

Alliance FAQs

Latest MBA Posts


August 26, 2005

"Plague species"

The relationship between environmentalists and homo sapiens is attenuated, and I'm not making a cheap joke suggesting they're not human. What I mean is that many environmentalists seem to have negative views of the position of man on earth. For example, they often speak of how humans affect the environment, as if we were not ourselves a part of it. A beaver diverts a river with a dam, and that's natural. Humans divert a river with a dam, and that's not natural; it's interfering with the environment. My daughter's high school biology textbook discussed ecosystems under an obvious premise that humans were not a part of them.

This approach to homo sapiens has led the London Zoo to set up a "Human Zoo" and to call humans a "plague species":

London Zoo unveiled a new exhibition -- eight humans prowling around wearing little more than fig leaves to cover their modesty.

The "Human Zoo" is intended to show the basic nature of human beings as they frolick throughout the August bank holiday weekend.

"We have set up this exhibit to highlight the spread of man as a plague species and to communicate the importance of man's place in the planet's ecosystem," London Zoo said.
Apparently, because we are a "plague species," we are not currently part of the ecosystem; we are on the outside trying to destroy it.

On the bright side, the exhibit gives visitors the chance to look at humans frolicking on the rocks in fig-leaf outfits, and one can never have enough people frolicking in fig leaves.