&gt; About 75 years ago, progress reached the point that a substantial dent could be made...<p>Controversial assertion. There&#x27;s a lot of evidence that we&#x27;ve been able to rank on the level of forces of nature for quite a while now. The disappearance of megafauna, the desertification of Western China and Saharan Africa. There&#x27;s even evidence that the Amazon rainforest may have been a massive human silviculture project that had been going on for 10,000 years.