Many thanks to Ginger Carson for giving voice to some of the profound anxieties many of us are feeling in these unsettled times. [“Planet Earth better off without us,” Recorder, Aug. 7]. Though I share much of her distress, I would still offer some measure of consolation. First, she need not worry that we humans will destroy our “beautiful planet.” The Earth has undergone many changes in its four billion years, and Homo sapiens is just another force to be reckoned into its changing nature.
On the other hand, our species may well destroy itself with our technological wizardry and limitless hubris, much as we destroyed all the previous humanid species in our struggle for dominance. I don’t believe we can chalk up this destructiveness solely to today’s “greedy and powerful” dominant classes, though they are doing more than their share to hasten our doom. The whole human history over thousands of years, accelerating in the last century or two, has brought us to this confrontation with our natural habitat,and we are all complicit — some, for sure, much more than others.
Do we have it in our collective power to change course and fend off the worst case scenarios? Perhaps, and it would certainly be worth trying to bring about the green transformation as quickly as possible. It would also behoove us to share what we have with our sisters and brothers across the globe who are the first victims of this climatic disaster. But our cleverness and self-interest may continue to get in the way. So my advice to Ms. Carson, to myself and to us all, is to cling to what we love in our natural environment, do all we can to ease the suffering of migrants, resist those who would hasten climatic collapse for their own profit, but not expect too much from our brutal species. We carry a sordid record of extinction, extermination, and exploitation, but our planet contains reserves far greater than our capacity to misuse them. That may be our ultimate consolation.
Brent Whelan
Allston