I agree with you wholeheartedly.  But still want to add that suffering is a fact.  Everyone is going to die. Everyone.  If not sooner, later.  So it's just a matter of how.  And when.  Most children in the past never had a chance to grow up. Now they do, and we face a different set of problems.  It's the price we pay.  And it's the same with the human race.  Mortal.  Sooner or later.

And I also take issue with the missed targets of those in the doom and gloom boat.  It's not that I don't understand all the issues, the problems, the overshoot, the islandization of ecosystems, etc etc.  But we still don't know the timing.  Anyone who says "five years" or "ten years" is pulling numbers out of the seat of their pants.

And..suppose we are in the final years of industrial civilization.  I personally think there is a lot of demand destruction to go around before we even approach the standard of living of, say, 1930.  Will people be eating people by then?  I'm just not betting on it.  But others can think so if it suits their fancy.  But suppose we are in the final years.  It's like sitting in a life boat.  There are people who are always sighting a ship on the horizon.  And others always whining and complaining about their lost futures.  To both I say "shut the F*** up and just enjoy the reflection of the sun on the water."  At peakoil.com I call them the hopelessly optimistic and the hopelessly hopeless respectively.  All hopeless.  I'm into realism.  Whatever it may bring.