Maybe Stooopid.
Maybe Not.
The other day I was at
coffee having a conversation
with a young woman
about some of the problems
humanity faces here in
the early 21st century.
It was a nice winter
day and the sun shone warmly
with a copper morning
glow through the windows as we talked.
I took a sip of coffee
as we both agreed that we all live
at a crucial time for
our species.
We talked about some of
the problems before us
such as climate change
and all the wars around the globe.
We agreed that everyone
alive today has a part to play
to ensure the future of
our civilization and of our species.
She looked worried as
we talked about
the difficulties we all
face, then she said,
“Humans are evil.
We're like a cancer.”
I said, “Have hope
Debbie. Humans aren't evil.
We're just a species
right in the middle
of a big evolutionary
change. The eight thousand years
that we've had cities
and civilization's is just a single moment
when looked at on an
evolutionary time scale.
Humanity is like a
caterpillar going through a metamorphosis.
No one knows exactly
what we'll be like when the change is done.
We all are just a part
of the natural biosphere.
Just one species among
many.
That's why it's very
important for all of us to do what we can
to help all humanity
turn out the very best we can.
You have to trust
Mother Nature to know what she's doing.”
She looked sad, and
said, “Maybe we're just bad.
You know, just a bad
part of Nature. Look at all the trouble
we cause for the
environment.”
I said, “Think about
it this way---
Around two hundred and
fifty million years ago,
long before the
dinosaurs, a large number
of volcanoes erupted in
what is now Siberia.
The eruptions released
a huge amount of nickel into the environment.
This created the ideal
conditions for the growth
of a single celled
microbe called 'archaea,'
which used the nickel
as a nutrient
and who excreted
methane as a result.
Supplied with great
amounts of nickel and carbon,
the archea population
exploded and they excreted so much methane
that it caused a giant
episode of global warming
and this resulted the
extinction of around ninety percent
of the species living
on the planet at that time.
It was the largest
extinction in the history of Mother Earth.
Were the archea evil?
Were they bad? No. They were just a species
who happened to
flourish when they were presented
with a huge influx of
food. They lacked the presence of mind
to recognize and manage
the consequences of their actions.
Humans are similar; We
aren't evil. We're stooopid.
We are very, very good
at harvesting and exploiting resources
but historically, we've
been very dumb when it comes
to managing the
consequences of our actions.
Humans are a species
that evolves psychologically
rather than
physiologically like other animals.
We use our minds and
our cultures to evolve and adapt to change.
Only time will tell if
we are a species who has evolved
the capacity to use and
manage resources wisely.
Are we stooopid still?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Our actions as a
species over the next
one hundred and fifty
years will provide the answer. “
Dewey Dirks
