The folks over at Unreasonable Faith have a wonderful illustration about the arbitrariness of "natural" vs. "artificial."
As a pagan, I'm constantly hearing about how wonderful the natural world is and the corruption of urban life. But why are man-made things suddenly "unnatural"? Are they not ultimately made from natural substances? Are they not shaped by natural intellect?
Sure, humans screw up. We sometimes muck about our planet as if cause and effect somehow doesn't apply to us. But that doesn't mean everything we do sucks. The gods gave us these amazing brains for a reason. I simply cannot believe they would be offended simply because we strive to better ourselves.
I always thought we were a part of nature, our cities no different than the anthill or the prairie dog "town" but for some reason so many "environmentalists" have a view of man and nature as separate.
I don't know why that is. We're so arrogant that we believe that not only can we, infinitesimally small and unimportant to the billions of year old vastness of earth, can in some way irreparably harm the Earth but that we can also "fix" the Earth as well. It's a sad grasp at greatness from people who don't understand their ultimate meaninglessness in the yawning depths of time and space.
This distinction is part of the Jeudo-Christian mindset, which seeks to mark humans as separate and above the rest of nature.
Of course its important to keep in mind that we are not the only animal liable to exhaust or pollute our environment to the point that we can no longer live in it. That is after all how the Earth got an oxygen rich atmospere in the first place.
Here in OZ the cute and lovable Koala has feeding practices which sometimes kill the trees it need to survive.