SURVIVING

In 1907 Fritz Haber, a German Jewish chemist, saved the world from sustained global hunger by inventing a method for extracting nitrogen from the air, nitrogen being the key ingredient in fertilizer, which before this invention had countries madly grinding every skeleton they could unearth to extract nitrogen from bones. Haber won the Nobel Prize for this stupendous achievement, but he also invented the deadly chlorine gas used in World War I. That gas was so horrible that chemical warfare has been universally banned from all future conflict. Haber went on to develop Zyklon, the powerful insecticide that became the gas used with extraordinary expedience in Nazi gas chambers. He did not emotionally survive those last inventions.

Such self-annihilation seems to be wrought into the cultural evolution of eons of human life .  A civilization such as ours today is now equipped with the technological prowess to explore the universe. As Ari Loeb foretold in his book Extraterrestrial, humanity is now becoming highly vulnerable to annihilation by self-inflicted wounds, by betting wrong and planning too little and too late we may very well hasten our extinction. Wildfires, terrible storms, massive floods, animal extinctions, disastrous alterations in ocean temperature—all the result of overfeeding carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, plasticizing the ocean, destroying habitats—these may very well doom us.

Does this global peril also filter down to the level of individuals, such as you and me? Are each of us becoming susceptible to the global effects of our technology-driven planetary death-throes?

In the 1930s when  there was a global economic depression we witnessed the rise of extreme authoritarian rulers who were ultimately responsible for a world war that culminated in the creation of atomic weaponry capable of planetary destruction.

Now in the presence of increasing ambient pollution—including atmosphere, earth and seas—is it coincidental that we are again experiencing the rise of authoritarianism, genocidal wars, legislative rightward extremism, antisemitism, public violence, and the looming threat of malevolence via artificial intelligence?

This is a scary time.

Our survival, from global humankind down to our very own existence, is at stake. Or is the great demise, the next great extinction, already starting to fall on us?

Scientists continue to re-assure us that the planet can be saved, but only by taking an active commitment toward restitution. If, despite our global but highly diverse and divisive worldviews, we can achieve such a goal, then will we see the restoration of resounding goodwill, good intentions, good behavior, and good news?

Survival can no longer be left to chance, to the ways the winds blow. We need to actively plan and execute the many acts that would guarantee that survival. Individual initiative, however well intended or funded of collectively organized even at a macro scale, will not be enough. Unless there is a sustained global initiative, we can perhaps manage a sustained delay. We might individually achieve solace and some actual well-being.

We might even save the planet.

But what about the downside, the worldwide attitudes and policies and implementations that are trending toward the inhumane? If we utilize our technology to improve planetary life, can we expect that downside to reverse? Will that renovate the life as it is lived for all? Will people change? Will they adopt and exercise the values that all religions exhort them—us— to do? The ideals of humanity have remained stable. There is the kernel of hope that may guide humanity out of the darkness into which it is plummeting.

We just have to gird our loins, get busy applying the fix if we are able, and hope to sail smoothly into our assigned sunset.

And in the great meantime, just survive.