Mimetism is contagious and will attack nature itself. We are thus in the process of seeing that, far from making them obsolete forever, the confusion between nature and culture in the apocalyptic texts, which used to be seen as naive, is becoming unexpectedly relevant, with the ultramodern theme of the contamination of nature by human hands.
-Rene Girard, Battling to the End, p.114
Girard develops this idea more in other places (not in this book). I have heard others (can’t remember who) mention it as well. It describes an interesting phenomenon: The increasing confusion over what is caused by nature and what is caused by humans. The bulk of environmentalism in the past ten years has taken on a very religious tone.
It’s because of this we can have a natural weather phenomenon like a hurricane simultaneously declared to be a direct judgmental action by God (against gays, abortionists, America, etc.) AND also something entirely the fault of humans. (The hurricane isn’t god’s doing, it’s OURS!) This is part of the global warming mythology. See the poster for Al Gore’s movie a few years ago for an illustration.
Girard sees this as a natural part of the escalation to extremes: confusing the work of nature, God, and man.