DENYING INVASION BIOLOGY
The word “Invasive” doesn't just mean aggressive - plenty of native plant species are aggressive, but they are kept in check by the fungal, animal and insect interactions that they have evolved with over millions of years. This is what an ecosystem is, a network of St Patrick relationships that have evolved together over millions of years
These ecosystems are kept separated by huge barriers such as oceans, the equator, vast mountain ranges, deserts, etc. When these barriers to isolation are crossed and a species arrives in a new ecosystem but the fungi and insects that keep it in check don't, it can outcompete the species that have spent millions of years evolving there.
Humans have helped thousands of plant species do this in a span of less than 150 years. In the millions of years preceding the evolution of humans, there were of course the occasional dispersals of plant species across oceans and other huge barriers that kept ecosystems separated, but they were apparently relatively few and far between and mostly occurred because of birds or debris rafts that floated on the open oceans. We have no way of knowing how much disturbance the arrival of one plant species to a new ecosystem may have caused or the extinctions it might have caused in those ecosystems in the distant past when these dispersals occurred, but we do know that they have almost never occurred at the rate that they are occurring today.
To be ignorant of the role that invasive species can play in an ecosystem that they did not evolve in is to be ignorant of the very notion of ecology. It is to be ignorant of the very idea of ecosystems and the relationships that exist within them. This can easily be forgiven because we live in a civilization that is fundamentally and ideologically disconnected from the biosphere that supports us. It is understandable and can be easily sympathized with, yet as an ideology it still must be addressed.
Certain actions and behaviors can help people educate themselves about the many interconnected relationships within their own surrounding native ecosystems, such as spending time in "nature", being observant and asking questions ("what chewed holes in this leaf?", "why is this flower shaped like that?" "How do the seeds in this plant's fruit get dispersed?"), and if possible, recreating the native ecosystem on your property by KILLING THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR LAWN and planting native plants, at which point the native moths, butterflies (and their caterpillars) and the birds that eat them will show up.
If you build it, they will come.
