[This journal was inspired by the 68 students who just finished their first week of classes with me. Their blogs, journals and in-class comments provoked me to reexamine the prospects for humanity.]
Things don’t look too promising right now. Super hurricanes have just pummeled two regions of the U.S. and forest fires continue to burn millions of acres of land in another. These are just the most recent calamities that pervade our consciousness. Bees, birds, bats, butterflies, and bears (nearly everything beginning with a “b”) seem to be suffering greatly. Pick another letter and you will find some of the same depressing trends (how about “I”, ice sheets, icebergs, infectious diseases, islands, invasive species, etc.). However, these trends can be reversed and humanity can bring about peace within their own species and across the entire biosphere.
How in the face of all this disaster can I say something optimistic? Well, you definitely cannot claim the opposite of what I’ve said. Saying that you know that humans are incapable of reversing these trends requires a degree of self-righteousness (and clairvoyance) unimaginable. And if you can’t argue the opposite, then you are left with only two options. You can assert that you don’t know or you can, as I just did, assert that humanity can resolve these matters. Saying you don’t know if humans are able to (or will) reverse these ominous trends, while inherently true (we actually can know nothing of the future with certainty), is equivalent to being ambivalent (or “pleading ignorance”), and we frankly have no time for this; to claim ignorance is a cop out of the worst kind. Humanity must do something to reverse these trends and the time is now to do so. Logically, then, we are left asserting that humans can (and will) do this!
But there is more than mere logic that forces us to accept that we can. Consider two additional insights. First, the world we live in is so different from the worlds that humanity has lived in the past. In no time in the past has a human being in Venezuela been able to visually see and talk to a human being living in Indonesia (the exact opposite side of the planet; if you want to see what is directly on the other side from you, check out this website, link). In no time in the past have foods/materials been able to move from one place on the planet to any other place on the planet in less than 24 hours. Never in past worlds have all humans had the capacity to find out almost any known information at the click of the mouse. These three incredible “technologies” permit possibilities that are just as unlimited as they are unimaginable.
Second, consider how much we have learned about the world in the past 100 years, e.g., penicillin was discovered in 1928 and DNA’s helical structure became known in 1953. If we consider how few humans have been involved in this type of discovery, particularly with the existing underclass that pervades almost every modern nation, we should anticipate that unlimited insights from new knowledge await us. Furthermore, despite all that we currently know about how to reverse the “trends” (through research in the fields of environmental studies, ecology, biomimicry, engineering, medicine, horticulture, communication, renewable energy, sociology, computer science, atmospheric science, etc.), consider how few of us are actually engaging directly with this knowledge in practice, whether it be researching phenomena, disseminating/teaching findings, or implementing solutions. There is so much that could be shared and accomplished.
So, for all the above reasons, I look at the future with a confidence that humans will reverse these trends. I didn’t say it will be easy. However, I can promise you this. It will be incredibly satisfying and uplifting for those who were involved in doing so! And if you are wondering where to start, you are exactly where you need to be! Check out your local scene. There are probably many people already at work on reversing trends–whether they are doing urban farming, enhancing biodiversity, teaching/mentoring, engaging in grassroots politics, building social capital, et cetera. They would love more support and camaraderie and if more of us work together we can succeed in reversing the trends and building a sustainable society.
For a long time I’ve observed that anyone who desires to acquire a realistic picture of the human situation must be willing to “chew on crushed glass” because our self-induced dilemmas are so many and so profound and because so many of them seem likely to cause huge suffering.
I do believe that we can indeed “succeed in reversing the trends and building a sustainable society” and likely will, before we cause very much more suffering.
Thank you for the work you are doing.