Love of Life in the Age of Humans

POSTED ONDECEMBER 17, 2016EDIT "LOVE OF LIFE IN THE AGE OF HUMANS"!

We face a pivotal point in Earth’s biologic history.

We have, as a species, become a geophysical force significant enough to warrant the naming of a new period in the geologic time scale. This new proposed Epoch is called the Anthropocene, from (Ancient Greek) anthropo- meaning “human”, and -cene, meaning “new” or “recent”.

Humanity has engineered a bottleneck for itself in our creation of the environmental crisis, and It is up to us whether we maintain some semblance of our delicate balance, or throw our life support systems reeling into a perilous chaos of unintended consequences. Loss of biodiversity will be one of the most consequential impacts left by Anthropocene. As we feel more intensely the effects of exploitative and unregulated growth, we must work to adapt quickly to the constraints that are now so glaringly obvious.

The word sustainability has emerged as the central theme around which to organize ecological actions. While it has its place, I argue that this word alone is not sufficient to inspire the radical innovations that are needed. Sustainability calls for the need to conserve resources and systems so that they will be functioning for future generations, however it is inadequate as an incentive for action. Ultimately we need something more heartening, and I might argue, more selfish. If we are to succeed in saving the world as we know it, for us, we must build a universal environmental ethic; one that transcends all other ideology to become the defining principle of our times.