>>LOL! How convenient. Just shrug off human progress because it goes against your argument.<<

It all depends on what you call progress.

>>I admit there were very negative side effects of each of those points I made. In crossing this country the "civilized" races destroyed a series of complex and highly developed cultures that got in their way. The same type of argument dribbles down through your entire post.<<

Right. And the Panama Canal was built virtually with slave labor and countless men were killed or maimed in the process.

>>But the point is... we don't KNOW what we can do until we try. You apparently don't even want to do that.<<

I know when to pick my battles. But Mother Nature always wins.

>>I detect the heavy sigh of regret in your post. I seem to hear the tapping of hammers as you start to construct your tomb.<<

Seems to me as good a time as any to get started. I'm like Queequeg and his coffin.

>>But is that what we really want to do, give up and roll into our graves?<<

That's not our choice to make. Global warming is going to run its course and when it's done, the earth will have been transformed. But we'll be like old growth forests--we need to be struck down so that new life may grow. Maybe earth really is an organism in its own right and maybe we're like a virus ravaging her body. But now her system is starting to fight back--eradicate the virus.

>>A few million years ago our ancestors had the choice of leaving the trees for the far more dangerous ground. Where would we be if they all said, "It's no use. We might as well stay here."?<<

If they saw what was coming, they just might have.