The other commonality between our environmental problems is that their historical arc is the same. We’ve told ourselves that all of our environmental problems are recent. We believe they’ve been created in the last few decades through an exploding population and greed. In reality, nearly all of them have a long history. Humanity’s environmental impacts date back hundreds of thousands of years. This damage was not deliberate – our ancestors often had no other option. But their actions had consequences for the environment and the species we shared it with.
