Excellent essay Belinda. I suspect this fellow was saying that the planet will self-correct. Of course, beyond a certain threshold it won't. Unless, he is willing to wait a several thousand years. Which was your point about her/it not caring which species reside there. The major problem, as I see it, is that we have key economic institutions (mainly money and banking) which will not allow humans to adapt in conjunction with natural systems. But we could alter these mechanisms. Note: http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue102/Daneke102.pdf