Every penguin, whale and seal I was lucky enough to see was beautiful, graceful and, most importantly, suited to the environment in which it lived. Never in my life was I confronted with such displays of nature’s awesome perfection. There were visuals so stunning they overwhelmed my comprehension. It was clear to me that every single thing there, alive or not, was essential...

While I agree with the overall misanthropic tone of the article, I can't help but cringe at these sorts of statements. I see them often and it really frustrates me - people coming to the realization that we humans are a scourge but that "mother nature" and the rest of earth's organisms are all living in beautiful harmony.
I just fail to see this "awesome perfection" people so often ascribe to nature. What is beautiful about a bunch of animals hunting and eating each-other alive every day? ...To accomplish nothing, other than to reproduce a copy of themselves to go on the hunt again. Millions upon millions of years of animals suffering and starving, plagued with parasites and disease, screaming in pain, feeding on one another, without cease. The blood, guts and brutality is mind-boggling, yet we all automatically think it is "beautiful", why?

He states that "every single thing there, was essential"...I mean, how does one come to such a conclusion? Why is it essential that Orca's continually knock seals of ice-floats and rip them apart everyday? It really bewilders me that people think life is "awesome perfection."

Mars get's along just fine, without even so much as a micro-organism. No slaughterhouses, no cancer wards, no wars, no animals eating each-other, no suffering or death.
Yet here we are, fawning and wetting our pants over a bio-sphere that can only really be called an arena for a blood-sport.
A planet soaked in the blood of trillions of organisms, with no cessation in sight.
Yes, I hate humanity and regard them as vermin, but why can't misanthropes go one step further and call life what it is - a horror story.