I’m here to admit that this is true, and I’m the one doing it.
Yes, I am the evil mastermind who is despoiling the planet for the sake of my own comfort. For you see, I am a human. I like to eat meals, have a roof over my head, read books, watch movies and have a phone and a computer and machines to heat and cool both my food and my house. I like to have a car, to be able to fly in planes and watch movies. I want to feel safe in my own home and to know that if I am sick I can go to a hospital. That’s my evil plan and in order to carry it out, unfortunately I have to plunder nature.
Of course I can’t do it alone which is why I have Minions – millions of them stationed around the world. Every day my Minions are busy mining iron, copper and aluminium. They’re cutting down trees, fishing in oceans, digging up limestone, drilling for oil and pumping gas and water along incredibly long pipelines. They are digging up coal and burning it in boilers to power my lights, refrigerator, computer, and television as well as all the trains, trams, hospitals, elevators and shopping centres that I love. And my minions are not just dumb labourers. They’re smart. They have taken wild oxen and bred them into cows that produce megalitres of milk, and tonnes of lean meat. They’re changed wild sheep into walking clouds of wool that make my blankets. They’ve genetically altered wild grains to make crops that yield tonnes of food – enough to feed the whole world. Of course this involves clearing land, damming rivers and so on but that’s all right with me. Nature does not give up its bounty willingly. It has no interest in our welfare and never has. My Despicable Ancestors lived their lives in fear of being eaten. They weren’t apex predators. They spent their time building walls to keep out wolves, bears, lions, leopards and sabre-tooth tigers that regarded them as Paleolithic Take-away. They realised that to survive they had to fight nature and win, and they did. They eventually managed to pretty much eradicate these predators from Europe. Then they cut down the vast forests that housed those threats, and turned them into productive farmland. Of course, today we are still not at the top of the food chain because we are preyed on by bacteria. However, thanks to the ongoing work of my loyal minions (Microbiology Division) we all have a good chance of living into our seventies which was unimaginable only a few centuries ago so - Go Minions!
Of course the Heroes who want to defend Nature hate me and my Minions and are sworn to destroy us. But they will never succeed. Their attempts are laughable. Are they able to offer us anything as nice as an electric blanket on a cold night or a crisp ice-berg lettuce (not that dreadful limp rocket)? And if I and my Minions can eradicate sabre-tooths, bubonic plague, smallpox and tooth decay we have no fear of them. But here’s the funny thing: the Ecowarriors who have dubbed me "Despicable" are doing all the same thing I and my Minions do. They too live in dwellings, eat food, ride in motorised transport, wear clothes, use mobile phones and publish their attacks in printed books. So are they not just as despicable as I?
It’s puzzling to me why anyone should wish to abandon all the wonderful things my Minions have created, but I bear them no ill will. If they really wish to have no part of my evil plan to rule the worlds, I have a solution. My Minions are presently creating a resort – an island where Ecowarriors can live in harmony with nature. It’s called Pliocene Park and it replicates the Earth as it was 5 million years ago before the planet was despoiled by human hands. I am willing to send any of my critics there to live, free of charge. There they will be able to enjoy a pre-human paradise complete with forests, fresh running streams, nuts, berries, butterflies, anopheles mosquitoes, wolves and bears. We've even included a couple of sabre-tooths. Bookings will open soon.
