Dear George,
Thank you for your careful reading of my essay and your comments.
Cartesian dualism is so embedded in our psyches that overcoming it is extremely difficult.
Regarding the illusion of control, we all like to believe that we are important as individuals. We can indeed affect things locally in a large way, and globally in a very small way. Regarding climate, I recyle and conserve energy as a way of expressing my solidarity on the issue, but I understand that this is largely symbolism.
Regarding "why", once you have DNA, natural selection automatically brings about the rest. But I would suggest that the evolution of human-like intelligence may not be inevitable. So I really don't expect to hear from intelligent aliens. Primates are not the most successful animal group, and ancestral humans and pre-humans were almost wiped out several times. It is really only the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago that turned humans from a marginal existence to the dominant form of life on earth.
Alan