This is why we, as a species, are unlikely to hack it in the end. The Earth will regenerate as it always does until the Sun absorbs it, but the lack of consideration of long term damage or lack of concern over how devastating millions of years of ecosystems and the long term impact of things needed for life to exist in the fashion that it does currently is, well, staggering and common amongst homo sapiens. As a species, we're a literal contradiction --we're smart enough to know better, but too greedy and ignorant to care enough to stop ourselves.
What can I say? We evolved on plains to deal with four-legged, feral predators, and then to fend off the ultimate super predators --each other. All in all, I suspect that we will be a tiny, highly destructive blip in the earth's ecosystem. What a shame, intelligence is such an interesting and novel evolution.
