The tree that once took a man all day to chop down with an ax, can now be reduced in minutes with a feller-buncher.
In the oceans, we have nylon gill nets that stretch for miles, long lines that stretch even further, and factory packing ships that can sweep and pack an ocean in a matter of weeks.
The machines that speed destruction also remove us from the process.
We bomb from 30,000 feet, and guide the predator drones from an office building in Las Vegas.
The meat comes shrink-wrapped, cold, and on a napkin.
The fans in the chicken house come on automatically, and even the slaughter house labor is turned off and on with a simple email sent to a "primo" in Mexico.
Out of sight, out of mind, fuel-injected, not inspected, 200-miles an hour into the future.
And it's all good. Until it isn't.
All that is good builds slowly. All that is bad comes crashing down in an instant.
Thus it has always been since man first planted orchards and flint-sparked fire first burned down the primeval forest.
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