A warming planet

On July 9, New York magazine published “The Uninhabitable Earth,” a worst-case climate change scenario suggesting that our current human course may produce an unlivable future for Earth. A burst of media commentary and controversy followed, and it quickly became the most-read article in the magazine’s history.

I’m often struck in conversations with friends and colleagues by the number who feel that humans may not have a future. They are comforted, however, by the thought that Earth will ultimately recover. This response suggests that in some deep sense, our love for Earth may exceed our love and concern for our own species. Perhaps we consider our fate a fitting punishment for the sins that we, in our anthropocentric arrogance, have committed against one another and the Earth that birthed and nurtures us.

No one knows for certain the outcome of human-caused climate disruption and accelerating depletion of Earth’s fertile soils, freshwater supplies, forests, and fisheries. Nor can we be certain of the causes and consequences of deadly new infectious diseases,   declining human sperm counts, and Earth’s release of methane from the          melting permafrost.

We are coming to understand that Earth is a        living superorganism  that    self-organizes to create and maintain the conditions essential to its own vitality – and our human existence. Human activity, however, is disrupting living Earth’s regenerative system. We are      destabilizing the climate       through the release of sequestered carbons; disrupting natural habitats through ocean acidification     and     temperature change;          destroying natural forest     andgrassland  habitats; and  depleting, degrading, and contaminating soils          and sources of         fresh water    on which all species depend. This in turn drivesspecies extinction and renders growing areas of Earth uninhabitable.

I recently read Clive Hamilton’s book         Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene. Hamilton notes that as humans have become like an invasive species, Earth has begun to respond as living organisms do: rejecting the invader. He goes on to suggest that humans may be disrupting Earth’s living systems beyond her capacity for self-healing. More startling – but equally plausible – is Hamilton’s suggestion that Earth’s survival as a living organism may depend on humans transitioning from our role as Earth exploiters to a role as facilitators of Earth healing.

Herein lies a potentially game-changing insight. Earth has recovered before from        extreme shocks and mass extinctions, but there is no guarantee. Earth may now need us as much as we need her.

Begin with a recognition that Earth is breathtakingly special. Among the now estimated 2 trillion galaxies in the universe, scientists have yet to identify another planet with the water, soils, atmosphere, and climate required to sustain complex life. Earth may be a unique miracle in the vastness of creation.

I find it impossible to acknowledge Earth’s distinctive beauty and wonder without being overwhelmed by unbearable grief and despair at what humans – in our anthropocentric arrogance – have done to her. Our actions represent a breach of cosmic proportion in our human responsibility to creation and Earth.

As individuals, most humans regularly demonstrate an extraordinary capacity for love and caring – sometimes to the extent of sacrificing our own lives for others. This for me demonstrates the positive potential of our nature.

As societies, however, we have demonstrated an extraordinary capacity for violence and mutual oppression at the expense of both ourselves and Earth.

 

This article has been excerpted from: ‘For the Love of Earth’.

Courtesy: Commondreams.org