We cannot force the climate to stay as it is without learning to change it ourselves. We cannot prevent asteroids, protect ourselves as a species, without going to another planet and colonizing it, creating a new ecosystem from the ground up. We cannot prevent earthquakes, famines, and whatever else nature may throw at us without taking control of the things that cause them.

Can we endure them? Yes. However, doing so sentences thousands of people to death.

We don't need to control things to prevent the damages they cause. A diverse agrictultural system with a robust storage and distribution network would prevent famines. Done. Better architecture and infrastructure combined with a greater understanding of geological activity to create better early warning systems would mitigate much of the damage caused by earthquakes, tidal waves, and volcanos. Done. Same thing can be applied to weather phenomenon like tornados and hurricanes. Asteroids and meteors? There's so many out there that even attempting to control a portion of them would be a huge waste of time and resources. All we need is a good, defensive net. Metaphorically speaking, you don't need to control the lion outside your village, you just need a good enough wall.

If humanity never stops progressing, this statement will never stop being true.

Eh. Semantics. Maybe as a species we'll hit a peak or maybe we'll hit a plateu. Either way, where we are now is a far cry from where we can and should be.

That is true. I was speaking against the idea that humanity today is somehow in the wrong, or somehow immoral, somehow negative. The way society is today, all the issues we face, are signs of the times, signs of our abilities. We should always seek to expand and grow those abilities, to inform those who are wrong.

We agree.

However, their existence is not counter to the fact that humanity can and will grow to the point that it controls the planet from the ground up. We can and will become mature enough as a species to do so.

We disagree.

The thing that took the bloodiest civil war in history to end? The thing whose effects still face us today? The thing whose practice was extended far beyond the point it was needed, to the point it was actively harming the societies it was part of?

We likely won't see the big push against global warming until we are in the same, or a similar situation, where the effects of it are clearly effecting us.

It was something that was going to end eventually, because it's demonstrably harmful. For our country, it took a war. That sucks, but change isn't always easy.

As for climate change, we're starting to see change now. Renewable energy. Emission controls. People getting angry at nations and corporations being run by dicks. It's a slow progression, yes, but campared to where we were 15 and 20 years ago, we've made some decent progress and the progress we're making and the impact it has will hopefully continue to snowball.

What is this supposed to mean?

I guess you're not one for metaphors. Change, especially meaningful change, doesn't always happen overnight. It often starts out small, a few people here and there with a desire to make things better (or worse). By acting positively and encouraging others to do so, their behavior as well as the impact of their behavior slowly spreads to more and more people. As it spreads, other people contribute their own ideas, skills, and resources, making the foundation for that change that much stronger. The change grows, multiplies, and gets stronger. Like a tree.