Penguin Disaster

[The Magic Pudding..]

Am I proposing that "we" do our best to adapt rather than mitigate..? Perhaps. I honestly don't know. I just don't see doing "anything" as beneficial to other than one's own sense of self-righteousness, and doing "something right..." Now  therein lie the questions, don't they?

righteous: Characterized by or proceeding from accepted standards of morality or justice

self righteous: Excessively or hypocritically pious

I don't think people tend to have a sense of self righteousness.
Adapt rather than mitigate, does one exclude the other?

There are all these wonderful things in the world, they're slipping away.
An attempt to save them, doomed to fail, I can see why we would do that.

[Asmodean]

I suppose "virtuousness" with a splash of self-importance would make for a better fitting term than "self-righteousness," although I was indeed working within the definitions you've provided.

No, I don't think adapt and mitigate are mutually exclusive. In fact, one necessitates the other, all things considered. So, perhaps there is a third option?

I don't disagree with you from the heart-in-the-right-place sort of angle. However, being rather on the pragmatic side of things... Well... You live in the same world as I, and it cares equally little for our respective wants and needs. Yes, there is still trying and glorious failure - perhaps martyrdom, even, but again, being on the pragmatic side of things, I'd much prefer knowing the end-game and the effect on it of my contribution. You see, I can work within that framework either way. This is what I mean by "doing something right" as opposed to "doing anything."

[Asmodean]

List of mass extinctions

That answers the wrong question, but I'll let it lie. Just got fascinated by the idea that some extinctions may have been "overturned" by some... What would one call them? "Anti-extinction events?"