Control of nature is not unique to humans. Beavers wreak havoc on their environment. We have revisionist comments regarding what they do: “Their dams create a habitat for all manner of wildlife,” when, in fact, their dams completely change the local ecology. Swarming locusts and cicadas also create imbalances in their habitats. But the worst of them all? Four billion years ago, cyanobacteria transformed Earth’s atmosphere by making O2 in the greatest ecological disruption in the history of life on Earth, killing all surface-living anaerobic bacteria.
