I have just read a two part article by Elizabeth Kolbert that appeared in the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/12/23/131223fa_fact_kolbert. Her point is that we are now living in an age of mass extinctions, caused by ourselves, and, most likely, we will also cause our own extinction.
My first response was predictable, and what she was aiming at, I assume: Let's do everything we can to prevent this catastrophe from happening! But since then, I've been wondering whether it makes any difference.
After all, the mass extinction of humanity is inevitable. Does anyone seriously believe that in, say, a million years, there will still be human beings anywhere in the universe? Kolbert mentions the five mass extinctions known to paleontologists, and states, as the following link also does, that we have entered a sixth extinction event (http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/overview.html), and that we are its cause.
The last such event took place 65 million years ago, and the enormous biodiversity of the world, which existed before humans started killing off other species, shows that, from the earth's point of view, from the point of view of the life force, not only was there a recovery from that event, but the extinction of certain species (such as large and hungry reptiles) created an opportunity for us warm-blooded creatures to proliferate. So when we all go, something else will thrive, multiply, diversify, and fill the earth up again. And after another fifty million years or so, something bad will happen to them, and they, too, will become extinct. The whole process will start over again, repeatedly, until the sun flares up and engulfs the earth.
Obviously I want my grandchildren to grow up in a safe world, where they can live fulfilling lives, and I am very sad to think that this is rather unlikely, if present trends continue. But I'm not convinced that, in any metaphysical sense, it matters.
We individuals only matter to ourselves, the people we love, and the people who love us. We are not all that important in the universe.
We are all going to die, some painfully, some young, some gently, some violently, and in a hundred years, no living memory of us will remain. Some of us might have produced something that will still be valued after we die, but most of us won't.
We have a clear selfish interest, as a species, in preventing the destruction of the natural world around us, which sustains us, and maybe we will manage to get our act together and do it. We also might manage to poison the biosphere so thoroughly that life will face a setback so serious that it will take it a billion years to recover. But, unlike us, the world has time.
My first response was predictable, and what she was aiming at, I assume: Let's do everything we can to prevent this catastrophe from happening! But since then, I've been wondering whether it makes any difference.
After all, the mass extinction of humanity is inevitable. Does anyone seriously believe that in, say, a million years, there will still be human beings anywhere in the universe? Kolbert mentions the five mass extinctions known to paleontologists, and states, as the following link also does, that we have entered a sixth extinction event (http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/overview.html), and that we are its cause.
The last such event took place 65 million years ago, and the enormous biodiversity of the world, which existed before humans started killing off other species, shows that, from the earth's point of view, from the point of view of the life force, not only was there a recovery from that event, but the extinction of certain species (such as large and hungry reptiles) created an opportunity for us warm-blooded creatures to proliferate. So when we all go, something else will thrive, multiply, diversify, and fill the earth up again. And after another fifty million years or so, something bad will happen to them, and they, too, will become extinct. The whole process will start over again, repeatedly, until the sun flares up and engulfs the earth.
Obviously I want my grandchildren to grow up in a safe world, where they can live fulfilling lives, and I am very sad to think that this is rather unlikely, if present trends continue. But I'm not convinced that, in any metaphysical sense, it matters.
We individuals only matter to ourselves, the people we love, and the people who love us. We are not all that important in the universe.
We are all going to die, some painfully, some young, some gently, some violently, and in a hundred years, no living memory of us will remain. Some of us might have produced something that will still be valued after we die, but most of us won't.
We have a clear selfish interest, as a species, in preventing the destruction of the natural world around us, which sustains us, and maybe we will manage to get our act together and do it. We also might manage to poison the biosphere so thoroughly that life will face a setback so serious that it will take it a billion years to recover. But, unlike us, the world has time.
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