Chris

"In true symbiosis there is a mutually beneficial relationship between two associated organisms. The distinguishing mark of parasitism, on the other hand, is that one organism lives at the expense of another. In the end this one-sided relationship proves fatal to both parties; for the death of the host cannot but result in the death of the parasite by which it has killed. The relationship between modern man and the planet, of which, until so recently, he regarded himself the master, has been that, not of symbiotic partners, but of a tapeworm and infested dog, of fungus and blighted potato. Ignoring the obvious fact that his devastation of natural resoursces would, in the long run, result in the ruin of his civilization and even in the extinction of his species, modern man continued, generation after generation, to exploit the earth."... from "Ape and Essence", by Aldous Huxley