Who, or what, created the Mess?

The planet's in a mess! Pollution, environmental degradation, global warming, ozone layer depletion....Most of us know this, but right now choose to look the other way and hope someone else will figure things out and clean up the mess. Hoping, maybe, Al Gore or some other messiah will save us from impending destruction!

Like many, many people who wonder about where the human race went wrong, I too have done my share of thinking. Like in the case of the most complex problems, the answer did not come straight away, but emerged like a scenery viewed through a fog. I must say, the picture is still not fully formed, but I think I am beginning to see it.

It's funny, but modern man (primarily from the western world) mocked, scoffed (continues to do so) at ancient, tribal cultures that existed all over the world for being "backward". The empowered western world, immediately after the industrial revolution, set about conquering, destroying, annhilating other nations culturally, socially, environmentally... This is true of all that happened in Africa, Australia and the rest of Oceania, the Americas and Asia. This much is common knowledge and everyone knows this.

My attempt here, is not to recount history, but to drive at what made these men behave the way they did - completely subjugate and destroy cultures, enslave people and most importantly plunder the natural resources of this planet, wipe out entire habitats and animals leaving behind a mess that nations/governments are struggling to deal with??? What kind of thinking results in such behaviour??

I tried coming up with some answers:

a. The western man was arrogant in belief that all other cultures, beliefs and religions were inferior to his own and therefore not worthy of respect.
b. His total lack of understanding of nature and the way it works! Something that most ancient, tribal cultures possessed. (After all these very same cultures did a very good job protecting the planet for thousands of years till the white man took over in the last couple of hundred years!)

And then I read this from the white man's Holy Book:
Genesis 1.26

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

and this...

Genesis 1.28

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Rule over? Subdue? See the connection?

Need I say more???