COSMOLOGICALLY SPEAKING
The basic facts appear to be that the Earth’s intricate ecosystem is under great and increasing stress owing to our human population and our demands on resources for energy—from fuels to forests to food—as well as to the toxic byproducts we put into the biosphere, upsetting the viable balance of nature.
Given the technologies of destruction we’ve invented, we may be capable of extinguishing life or at least intelligent life on this planet, which would be a crime of cosmic proportions, since the odds against the existence of intelligent life emerging elsewhere in the universe are huge. We may well be it. All there is.
A major moral imperative derives from these facts: that a wisdom beyond technical intelligence needs to emerge within humans, a wisdom that values supremely the flourishing of life on this fragile and infinitely precious planet, and a nurturing of human intelligence to mature beyond rivalries and conquests into a culture of cooperation and custodianship worldwide. We must come to see ourselves as the protector, not the plunderer, of this planet. We must grow up fast.
Given the technologies of destruction we’ve invented, we may be capable of extinguishing life or at least intelligent life on this planet, which would be a crime of cosmic proportions, since the odds against the existence of intelligent life emerging elsewhere in the universe are huge. We may well be it. All there is.
A major moral imperative derives from these facts: that a wisdom beyond technical intelligence needs to emerge within humans, a wisdom that values supremely the flourishing of life on this fragile and infinitely precious planet, and a nurturing of human intelligence to mature beyond rivalries and conquests into a culture of cooperation and custodianship worldwide. We must come to see ourselves as the protector, not the plunderer, of this planet. We must grow up fast.
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