environmental insults

[keannu]

[FONT=&#54632]Suppose that Earth systems are resilient. It would not follow from this that environmental problems are not worth taking seriously. Even if Earth systems successfully respond to our environmental insults, there may still be a high price to pay in the loss of much that we value: species diversity, quality of life, water resources, agricultural output, and so on. Through centuries of warfare, European nations demonstrated their resilience, but millions of people lost their lives and much that we value was destroyed. Moreover, even if it is highly unlikely that human action could lead to a collapse in fund...
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Is this used as a metaphor for "damage"? "Insult" originally doesn't have such a meaning.
environmental insults

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[GoesStation]

One meaning of the noun insult is "injury".