Despite the misanthropic title, the article ends on a positive note: > Thanks to our cultural evolution, we have cities, houses, and indoor plumbing. As a resu

Despite the misanthropic title, the article ends on a positive note: > Thanks to our cultural evolution, we have cities, houses, and indoor plumbing. As a result, to the benefit of our health, we learned to use toilets. A primate with such behavioral flexibility, capable of going against millennia of natural selection, is nearly miraculous, yet an everyday event. Take heart. An originally arboreal primate species capable of being toilet-trained should also be capable of becoming planet-trained. In Aesop’s tale, remember, the tortoise triumphs. Because the hare and the tortoise are both part of ourselves, they can only win or lose together, which makes it all the more important that we get our hare-brained selves under control. Personally, I find these heartening perspectives better than the pessimistic ones. And I have found that presenting such views to less informed friends makes them more motivated to take action and limit their consumption rather than the doom and gloom perspective.