Why has economic alarmism become an ideology in the twenty-first century? Is human interaction solely responsible for the changes in Earth's landscape? How is the belief in our importance in our planet's environment an arrogant view of our

Question

role on this planet?

Answer 1

Answers will vary but correct responses should include: Ecological alarmism has become a trend of our times—a modern, secular form of millenarianism. We scare ourselves into expecting the apocalypse, the end of the world, or at least the end of civilization as we know it. Our fears could well come true. Civilizations have collapsed because they failed to get their relationship with the environment right. Overexploitation is a constant temptation. No period can match our own for the sheer wasteful carelessness with which we pollute our planet and consume its resources. But the ecological problems of our times do not start or stop with our self-inflicted difficulties. Bigger dangers are worrying precisely because they are not of our making. If we caused them, we could control them. But we do not cause them. They are beyond our control. The Earth is still in its infancy. The planet has, at a reasonable guess, several billion years to go before it sizzles or freezes into lifelessness. By supposing that we could destroy the biosphere, we are guilty of a kind of arrogance. The Earth is hugely bigger than anything we have power to wreck. Nature will surely outlast our species. Trees that were here before humans existed will go on growing after humans have gone. So will microbes and—probably—insects, reptiles, birds, and marine species vastly older than humankind. When the planet perishes, it will be nothing to do with us. It will happen long after we are gone. And the cause will rest with cosmic forces that we are aware of but have no power to influence. These considerations are worth bearing in mind, because if we kid ourselves into thinking that all ecological problems are our own fault, we shall be deluded into supposing that we can fix them all. It is worth remembering that we have hardly scratched the surface of the planet we inhabit. Our deepest oil wells are only thousands of feet deep. Most species have never been cataloged and are perhaps unknown. The oceans, a habitat we have not yet begun to colonize and have still done little to exploit, make up 90 percent of the planet.