The wheel turns
laurellady and I had one of those melancholy conversationss about how entirely doomed we are, for values of "we" ranging from Los Angeles to the entire planet. We spent the most time on the latter end of the scale, discussing the ongoing wave of extinctions, global warming, pollution, overpopulation, peak oil...
I'm getting overwhelmed again just listing the topics. But oddly, our mood shifted during the discussion from worry to something else. I'm tempted to use the word "resignation", but that's not quite right. I still hope we can avoid disaster, and I still believe it's possible. But both
laurellady and I started talking about how this isn't the first time Earth's climate has undergone rapid change, nor the first major extinction event.
In the big picture, there's no separation between humans and the environment; humans are just one part of the environment. We are simply another species on the planet, and it is by definition impossible for any of our actions to be "unnatural" or "wrong" in an ecological sense. When plants evolved photosynthesis, the resulting buildup of oxygen in the atmosphere killed off countless anaerobic organisms, pushing the survivors into isolated niches. Were the plants unnatural or wrong? No; changes like that are part of what happens in an active biosphere.
How do you distinguish between multiple species being killed off by the aftereffects of an asteroid impact and multiple species being killed off by humans? They're both just events in the natural world. Arguably, the latter case is "more natural" as it all transpired inside our own biosphere, with no random intrusions from outside the system required.
Nothing we humans can do will end life on Earth. With supreme effort we could probably knock out most land life, and a good fraction of large ocean life. But even if we managed that, it would just open niches for evolutionary radiation; come back in a hundred million years, and you'd find many new species filling those niches.
For that matter, I think it would prove extremely hard to wipe out the human species. We're feckless and irresponsible when we have it good, but when times get bad we become as hard to kill as cockroaches. Human groups have survived some unbelievable challenges. Even if we make most of the planet uninhabitable, my expectation is that a few million of us will figure out new ways to live, and eventually, thrive.
My best guess is that the next century or so is going to be hard, as we deal with a number of global crises all boiling over at once. Bad choices over the next two decades could move that outlook from "hard" to "disastrous". But there are some encouraging signs that we're ready to start making better choices.
I suppose the word to describe my mood is "detached". Whatever happens, it's what we have made for ourselves; there's no moral dimension to it, no dichotomy between us and the world. The wheel turns, and we both spin it and ride it.