If the world is going to he**, why are humans doing so well?

It is now we that control the environment. It's no longer the environment we must learn to manage: it is ourselves.

Well, I'll throw a wrench in the gears...

First off, the Earth has already 'survived' periods of mass extinction, extreme temperature changes, etc., and "life" (in general), has coped and continued. True that these other cases were not ...brought upon (or accelerated) by a species but regardless, the end result was the same (abrupt change, massive die-offs/extinctions, etc.).

What really sets us apart, is that we are (or should be) able to understand that we (as a species) require resources (environmental, food, etc) to remain within a certain range for HUMANs.

In essence, the difference between us and lemmings (which reproduce and exhaust all available resources, then try to find more even to their death) is that we should be able to understand and take appropriate action to avoid exhausting (and/or misusing) available resources, population management (without totalitarianism, discrimination, persecution, genocide, etc.)

In perhaps a better comparison, we are behaving as an extremely deadly virus. We reproduce at a rapid rate but end up killing the host in the process as the 'infection' progresses. It seems to be in the virii's best interest *not* to kill the host, or it will die with it (and won't have any more hosts once all hosts are dead), yet it ends up killing the host anyway.

We, on the other hand, are (should) be able to stop before we 'kill' the host. However, what we fail to realize is that, contrary to a virus, we *can't* kill the host; we'll just change it enough where we kill ourselves and the planet's ability to sustain us.