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As a biologist I have the same reaction when someone claims something is bad for "the ecology." Ecology is a field of study, like biology, geology, and all the other -ologies. I doubt they mean that using plastic shopping bags is bad for the study of organisms and the way they interact with their environment. What people are trying to say is that plastic shopping bags are bad for the environment.
Why does it bother me so much? Because people in our country are so scientifically illiterate that it's painful to read or hear them debate important things like GM foods, global climate change, conservation, and myriad other subjects for which they don't even understand the basic terminology, let alone the subtle complexities.
