[joe_inferno]

I can't tell if your post is sarcasm or not, but I'd just like to point out that while not perfect we have 1) intelligence as individuals and 2) political mechanisms as a species that would enable a change of course (if one is possible to begin with) whereas the cyanobacteria lacked both of those things.

[fleitz]

It's the satirization of the idea that 'mother nature' is some kind of right thinking steward of life on this planet that you commonly find amongst people who call fossil fuels meth.

Similar to the way one might satirize traditional marriage by pointing out that tradition advocates a lot of things that traditional marriage people would find abhorrent, if you take a view of tradition that extends past the start of the industrial revolution.

[Jedd]

I don't think fleitz was being sarcastic per se - certainly I didn't read it as suggesting human evolution was a 'bad thing'.

Rather pointing out that (at the time) oxygen in the atmosphere was hostile to more complex forms of life. As we know, oxygen is a pretty unpleasant element in its raw state - but we managed to work around that particular problem.

[houk]

it was sarcasm.