Viewpoint: ‘We are despoiling our planet’. Can we rescue humanity before it’s too late?

Charles Kennel, Martin Rees | Nautilus | September 8, 2022

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Our Earth has existed for 45 million centuries; and humans for a few thousand. But this century is the first when our species is so numerous—and so demanding of energy and natural resources—that we risk collectively despoiling our planet. It’s surely an ethical imperative that we should not deny future generations the wonders and beauty of the natural world. Policy must, in the words of the Brundtland Commission, “meet the needs of the present—especially the world’s poor—without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

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From now on, what we think as a planet is what our children get as a planet. However crucial policy and diplomacy may be, global agency ultimately requires that billions of micro-choices made every day by billions of human beings be (at least slightly) biased in favor of altruistic action. Whether human wills can be aligned (and planetary agency exerted) depends on the clarity of our collective thinking and how well the intent to apply that thinking is organized. As individuals we are acutely attuned to differences in each other’s psychologies. We know there are many situational reasons for action or inaction—but when we ask what moves populations to action or leaves them in inaction, we need to know what is common to large numbers of people.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here.