Humans will not be the sav­iors of our plan­et. That’s not our role, because that’s not any one species’ task. Humans are not in charge of the plan­et, we are a part of the planet.

Our respon­si­bil­i­ty as a species is to return to our right­ful place with­in our envi­ron­ment. While our role might not be to save the entire plan­et, we can cer­tain­ly save our­selves from the con­stant destruc­tion that is waged through forces of greed and fear. Untold advan­tages will occur as a result. Through our mirac­u­lous tech­no­log­i­cal capac­i­ty and com­pas­sion­ate care, humans can make a tremen­dous­ly uplift­ing impact on the over­all health of our world.

“Humans are legit­i­mate­ly the mea­sure of all eth­i­cal ques­tions — these are our issues, not nature’s.”
— Pale­on­tol­o­gist Stephen Jay Gould

Human ecol­o­gy is a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary field of study that exam­ines the rela­tion­ships between humans and our nat­ur­al, social, and built envi­ron­ments. By con­sid­er­ing the var­i­ous, mul­ti­fac­eted soci­o­log­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, and envi­ron­men­tal cir­cum­stances we’ve cre­at­ed and the rela­tion­ships between them, we can gain a more dimen­sion­al aware­ness of the many ways in which our thoughts and actions matter.

A shift in human pri­or­i­ties toward col­lec­tive har­mo­ny will have ben­e­fi­cial con­se­quences for oth­er species as well. Mak­ing human rela­tion­ships more robust will have huge impli­ca­tions for humanity’s over­all rela­tion­ship with the plan­et. If we can shift our spend­ing habits and let go of our reliance on fos­sil fuels, we’ll also be help­ing Earth. Yet, we should not fool our­selves into think­ing our actions are all too impor­tant, or even irreplaceable.

As the release of car­bon diox­ide and methane gas from increased human activ­i­ty con­tin­ues to raise the aver­age tem­per­a­tures around the globe, we will have to learn to cope in ways that we nev­er have before if we want to pro­tect against our extinc­tion. Yet, even if we fail, Earth will con­tin­ue to live long after humans become an after-thought, just as Earth’s exis­tence extend­ed long before humans ever arrived.

Even Earth itself has its own expi­ra­tion date. Our plan­et has the lux­u­ry of life-sus­tain­ing solar pow­er for anoth­er six bil­lion years, at which point the sun will run out of gas. Yet, six bil­lion years is a con­sid­er­able amount of time to enjoy life on Earth and see human evo­lu­tion express its tremen­dous poten­tial. Humans won the evo­lu­tion­ary lot­tery with the com­plex net­work of neu­rons and cells that con­sti­tute the human form.

Our plan­et con­tains an incred­i­ble record of evo­lu­tion­ary inno­va­tion. By look­ing close­ly at the intense pro­lif­er­a­tion of mul­ti-celled organ­isms that occurred dur­ing the Cam­bri­an peri­od about 500 mil­lion years ago, we can wit­ness a his­to­ry of spec­tac­u­lar evo­lu­tion. As life main­tains the oppor­tu­ni­ty to thrive on this plan­et, what might the capa­bil­i­ties of con­scious­ness have in store for our col­lec­tive future?

Despite this mirac­u­lous chance that life has bestowed upon our species, human activity—and specif­i­cal­ly the activ­i­ty of the most affluent—still pro­duces a great deal of pol­lu­tion. It is a sad truth of the mod­ern era. We are in an acute moment of dis­il­lu­sion­ment in our soci­ety. It has become all too com­mon to lose the desire for a deep­er under­stand­ing of one’s pur­pose in this uni­verse. Many peo­ple are feel­ing increas­ing­ly bereft of direc­tion. This lack of mean­ing man­i­fests in all sorts of haz­ardous ways. Vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple fall into extrem­ist ide­olo­gies often out of a search for pur­pose. A cer­tain dark­ness has descend­ed upon human­i­ty cour­tesy of all the exploitive tech­nolo­gies and busi­ness mod­els that keep mar­kets hum­ming. We need to strive hard­er to turn back toward the light of pos­i­tive activism and opti­mistic belief. Our abil­i­ty to act upon pos­i­tive ideas that con­nect us to each oth­er and the nat­ur­al world is what will make the great­est dif­fer­ence in estab­lish­ing a pos­i­tive future.