A schema is a configuration within the brain, either inborn or learned, against which the input of the nerve cells is compared. ...the conscious mind… - Edward O. Wilson

Few will doubt that humankind has created a planet-sized problem for itself. No one wished it so, but we are the first species to become a geophysical force, altering Earth's climate, a role previously reserved for tectonics, sun flares, and glacial cycles. We are also the greatest destroyer of life since the ten-kilometer-wide meteorite that landed near Yucatan and ended the Age of Reptiles sixty-five million years ago. Through overpopulation we have put ourselves in danger of running out of food and water. So a very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.

The mosquito is an automaton. It can afford to be nothing else.

We seem to be able to be fully comfortable only when the remainder of humanity can be labeled as members versus nonmembers.