Problem of Scale

Like most problems with technology, pollution is a problem of scale. The biosphere might have been able to tolerate our dirty old friends coal and oil if we burned them gradually, but how long can it withstand a blaze of consumption so frenzied that the dark side of this planet glows like a fanned ember in the night of space.

~ Ronald Wright (1948 age:69) Massey Lectures in a 2004 Massey Lecture