I have no sympathy for people who accidentally cause incredible destruction. Humans are fundamentally, across the entire planet, an invasive species. Our ability to dramatically evolve within a single generation has taken us outside the world governed by ecosystems. We do not play ball with the world. We control it, outcompeting everything around us. Like all invasive species, we will live high until we have consumed the entirety of our environment. And when there’s nothing left, we too shall die.
If we manage to survive what Carl Sagan called our adolescence, our descendents will look back on us with scorn. We triggered one of the planet’s great extinction events, all because people needed something to do, because we decided that people having something to do was a precondition for participating in society. We even realized what we were doing, and then we did it anyway.
That 15 year old kid who threw the firecracker that destroyed the Columbia Gorge: I hope deep guilt and shame haunt him for the rest of his life. His is the great human sin writ small. Forgiving him means forgiving ourselves for what we’re doing to the world. We don’t deserve it.