One of the many stunningly arresting passages from David Mamet's adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in which Astrov says (pp.16-17):

You understand? Yes, sometimes we cut wood out of necessity, but why be wanton? Why? Our forests fall before the ax. Billions of trees. All perishing. The homes of birds and beasts being laid waste. The level of the rivers falls, and they dry up. And sublime landscapes disappear, never to return, because man hasn't sense enough to bend down and pick fuel up from the ground. Isn't this so? What must man be, to destroy what he never can create? God's given man reason and power of thought, so that he may improve his lot. What have we used these powers for but waste? We have destroyed the forest, our rivers run dry, our wildlife is all but extinct, our climate ruined, and every day, every day, wherever one looks, our life is more hideous[....]I see. You think me amusing. These seem to you the thoughts of some poor eccentric. Perhaps, perhaps it's naive too on my part. Perhaps you think that, but I pass by the woods I've saved from the ax. I hear the forest sighing...I planted that forest. And I think: perhaps things may be in our power. You understand. Perhaps the climate itself is in our control. Why not? And if, in one thousand years, man is happy, I will have played a part in that happiness. A small part. I plant a birch tree. I watch it take root, it grows, it sways in the wind, and I feel such pride....

When I first heard Larry Pine deliver this magnificent proto-environmental monologue in Vanya on 42nd Street, I found it hard to believe that Chekhov's words, which resonate so well in contemporary ears, were written over 100 years ago in 1896 -- long before our current debates over global warming and SUVs.