Ecologists - and the whole nativist, pseudo-religious, fashion-victim, activist community - engage in a largely content-free discourse.

Ecologists pay too much attention to increasingly rare "pristine" ecosystems while ignoring the overwhelming influence of humans on the environment . . .

"Ecologists go to remote parts of the planet to study pristine ecosystems, but no one studies it in their back yard," said Ramankutty, assistant professor in McGill's Department of Geography and the Earth System Science Program. "It's time to start putting instrumentation in our back yards – both literal and metaphorical – to study what's going on there in terms of ecosystem functioning." . . .

"Over the last million years, we have had glacial-interglacial cycles, with enormous changes in climate and massive shifts in ecosystems," said Ramankutty. "The human influence on the planet today is almost on the same scale. Nearly 30 to 40% of the world's land surface today is used just for growing food and grazing animals to serve the human population."

The researchers argue human land-use practices have fundamentally altered the planet. "Our analysis was quite surprising," said Ramankutty. "Only about 20% of the world's ice-free land-surface is pristine. The rest has some kind of anthropogenic influence, so if you're studying a pristine landscape, you're really only studying about 20% of the world."

"If you want to think about going into a sustainable future and restoring ecosystems, we have to accept that humans are here to stay. Humans are part of the package, and any restoration has to include human activities in it."

Actually, among scientists, this isn't a radical notion at all. Still, it's great good fun to take field trips to remote locations, and funding is often available from wealthy fashion victims and corrupt government funding entities. Besides, you might get to make a documentary film or write a book like E.O. Wilson did. It's career management more than science.