Originally Posted by
Invader
If I may point out a similar scenario with the human body and cancer, there's a distinct difference between what's going on with the body as it dies to this disease as opposed to when the body is considered to be "eating itself" while in the throes of oxygen deprivation. It may be more appropriate to say that the Earth is being destroyed by it's own sort of cancer, a mutation (in our case an evolved species) of what used to be a species that remained in balance with the rest of the biosphere.