Over the longer haul, in deep time, nature will evolve intelligent and technological life again, until it eventually succeeds in spawning a culture which is humble enough to understand that it is part of a plan and has enough faith and wonder to see what lies over the next hill.

I don’t think we’ll care too much about that if it’s not our descendants who are part of that “intelligent and technological life.”

In some sense I agree with you, or not. It doesn’t really matter. Yes, if humans degrade the environment to the point that we go extinct, it’s possible that the descendants of lizards or gobys will evolve intelligence and technology in 100 million years or so. I suppose the percent of my DNA in those intelli-lizards and intelli-gobys will be pretty much the same as the percent of my DNA in the Human descendants that might otherwise exist in 100 million years, but it doesn’t feel quite the same.

In the end I’d rather that we left the primeval forests and rain forests to our descendants, rather than the faux jungles that you seem to thing are just as good.