Confronting the sixth massive extinction

Leonardo Boff

04/03/2012

Opinión

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We have previously addressed the fact that the human being, in later times, has inaugurated a new geologic era --anthropoceno–, the era in which humans appear as the greatest threat to the biosphere, and the eventual exterminator of our own civilization. For a long time, biologists and cosmologists have warned that our aggressive intervention in the natural processes is greatly accelerating the sixth massive extinction of living species. It has been going on for several thousand years. These extinctions mysteriously belong to the cosmogenic process of the Earth. In the last 540 million years the Earth experienced five great massive extinctions, about one every one hundred million years, that exterminated much of life in the sea and on the Earth. The last one occurred 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs, among other species, were annihilated.

All previous extinctions were caused by forces of the Earth, and the universe itself, such as, for example, climatic convulsions, or meteor strikes. The sixth is being accelerated by humans. But for the presence of humans, one species would disappear every five years. Now, due to our industrial and consumerist aggressiveness, we have multiplied extinction one hundred thousand times, as cosmologist Brian Swimme advised us in a recent interview for EnlightenNext Magazin, nº 19. The data are alarming: Paul Ehrlich, professor of ecology at Stanford University, estimates that 250,000 species a year are exterminated, while Edward O. Wilson, of Harvard University, gives lower numbers, between 27,000 and 100,000 species per year, (R. Barbault, Ecologia general, 2011, p. 318).

Ecologist E. Goldsmith of the University of Georgia affirms that humanity, by making the world ever more impoverished, degraded, and less capable of sustaining life, has reversed the evolutionary process by 3 million years. The worst is that we do not even notice this devastating practice, nor are we prepared to evaluate the meaning of massive extinctions. It signifies nothing less than the destruction of the ecological basis of life on Earth, and the eventual interruption of our essay of civilization and perhaps even of our own species. Thomas Berry, the father of Northamerican ecology, wrote: «our ethical traditions know how to handle suicide, homicide and even genocide, but we do not know what to do about biocide and geocide» (Our Way into the Future, 1990, p. 104).

Can we slow down the sixth massive extinction, given that we are its principal cause? Yes, we can, and we must. It is a good sign that we are developing an awareness of our origins, some 13.7 billion years ago, and of our responsibility for the future of life. The universe elicits that in us, because it is not against us, but for us. But it demands our cooperation, because we are the ones causing so much damage. We must wake up now, while there is still time.

The first task is to renew the natural pact between the Earth and humanity. The Earth gives us everything we need. The pact calls on us to be caring and respectful of the Earth's limitations. But, ingrates that we are, we repay her with machetazos, bulldozers, bombs and ecocidal and biocidal practices.

The second task is to strengthen reciprocity and mutuality: to seek a harmonious relationship with the dynamism of the eco-systems, using them rationally, restoring their vitality, and ensuring sustainability. For that, we need to re-invent ourselves as a species that is concerned for other species, and learns to live together with the entire community of life. We must be more cooperative than competitive, more caring than willing to subjugate, and we must recognize and respect the intrinsic value of each being.

The third requirement is to experience compassion, compassion as a form of love and caring, not only between human beings, but with all beings. Whether they will be able to continue living or be condemned to disappear depends on us. We must abandon the paradigm of domination that reinforces mass extinctions, and live the paradigm of caring and respect that preserves and prolongs life. In the middle of the anthropoceno, it is urgent that we inaugurate the ecozoic era, that places the ecological at the center. Only then is there hope of saving our civilization and of ensuring the continuity of our living planet.

- Leonardo Boffis Theologian / Earthcharter Commission

Free translation from the Spanish by Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org. Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/156245