i've long argued that there is no - can be no - principled distinction between the natural and the artificial. our pride in human amazingness and distinctiveness - understood theologically or in terms of evolution - is matched by our self-loathing (beautifullly developed in the monotheistic traditions and environmentalism), and we regard our own interventions primarily as destructions. ''pollution' is a nice site of this struggle: pouring artificial poisons of our own invention into a pristine nature. so think about this: the gummy black toxic slop pouring into the gulf of mexico is an entirely natural substance: it hasn't been refined or processed at all; it is the trace of billions of organisms over millions of years; what's going to kill everything is an essence or a remainder of life. all we did was...release it. that is a much better model of us in relation to our world: not standing outside it destroying or conserving it from the heights of consciousness and technology, but issuing slight deflections or articulations of it, wholly from within. if we were to destroy nature (which, i tell you, is by definition impossible) it would be nature devouring itself.