“Few will doubt that humankind has created a planet-sized problem for itself. No one wished it so, but we are the first species to become a geophysical force, altering Earth's climate, a role previously reserved for tectonics, sun flares, and glacial cycles.”

— Edward O. Wilson

Source: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998), p. 277-278.
Context: Few will doubt that humankind has created a planet-sized problem for itself. No one wished it so, but we are the first species to become a geophysical force, altering Earth's climate, a role previously reserved for tectonics, sun flares, and glacial cycles. We are also the greatest destroyer of life since the ten-kilometer-wide meteorite that landed near Yucatan and ended the Age of Reptiles sixty-five million years ago. Through overpopulation we have put ourselves in danger of running out of food and water. So a very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Few will doubt that humankind has created a planet-sized problem for itself. No one wished it so, but we are the first …" by Edward O. Wilson?

Edward O. Wilson83

American biologist 1929

Related quotes

“The problem is we have this thin atmosphere and a lot of people trying to breathe it. It's this thinness of the atmosphere that has allowed humankind to accidentally change the climate of the planet.”

Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer

[NewsBank, Popular science guy, The Orange County Register, Santa Ana, California, March 21, 2014, Sherri Cruz]

“Mars, Triton, Pluto and Jupiter all show global warming. Climate changes on other planets and their moons show that climate change elsewhere in the Solar System could not possibly be due to human activity on Earth. There must be a driving force outside the Earth. It is the Sun.”

Ian Plimer book Heaven and Earth

Heaven and Earth (2009)

“The irony of scientific progress is that in solving human problems it creates problems that are not humanly soluble. Science has given humans a kind of power over the natural world achieved by no other animal. It has not given humans the ability to remodel the planet according to their wishes. The Earth is not a clock that can be wound up and stopped at will. A living system, the planet will surely rebalance itself. It will do so, however, without any regard for humans.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Sweet Morality (p. 212)
The Immortalization Commission: The Strange Quest to Cheat Death (2011)

“Capitalism imposes its laws of motion on the environment, irrespective of the biogeochemical cycles of the planet and the earth’s metabolism, so that it creates rifts or ruptures in the biogeochemical cycles of the Earth system, disrupting ecosystem relations in ways that transcend the mere scale-effects of economic growth. It is this problem of the metabolic rift that is our deepest challenge. Sustainability is more and more compromised at ever higher levels—a continually accelerating threat to civilization and life itself.”

John Bellamy Foster (1953) Sociology professor and Marxist writer

Interview with Left Voice (2017)

“Mars enjoys global warming yet has almost no atmosphere. To my knowledge, there is no industry or human emissions of CO2 on Mars. There is strong evidence that the Sun drives climate on Mars. The Sun is probably also the main driving force for climate on Earth.”

Ian Plimer book Heaven and Earth

Heaven and Earth (2009)

“And then, the Earth being small, mankind will migrate into space, and will cross the airless Saharas which separate planet from planet and sun from sun. The Earth will become a Holy Land which will be visited by pilgrims from all the quarters of the Universe. Finally, men will master the forces of Nature; they will become themselves architects of systems, manufacturers of worlds.”

William Winwood Reade (1838–1875) British historian

Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter IV, "Intellect"

“Today, America has become one of the most powerful forces for good on earth. We must keep it so.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Address to Congress (1945)
Context: Today, America has become one of the most powerful forces for good on earth. We must keep it so. We have achieved a world leadership which does not depend solely upon our military and naval might.
We have learned to fight with other nations in common defense of our freedom. We must now learn to live with other nations for our mutual good. We must learn to trade more with other nations so that there may be — for our mutual advantage — increased production, increased employment and better standards of living throughout the world.
May we Americans all live up to our glorious heritage.
In that way, America may well lead the world to peace and prosperity.

“A tree is beautiful, but what’s more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples’ character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe…. What a terrible future!”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 18, 1888)
Letters

“Which was first, Matter or Force? If we think on this question, we shall find that we are unable to conceive of matter without force, or force without matter. When God created the elements of which the earth is composed, He created certain wondrous forces, which are set free and become evident when matter acts on matter.”

William Crookes (1832–1919) British chemist and physicist

In the Preface of Michael Faraday's On the various forces of nature and their relations to each other https://archive.org/stream/courseofsixlectu00fararich#page/n5/mode/2up (1894)

“Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"The Science to Save Us from Science," The New York Times Magazine (19 March 1950)
1950s
Context: All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can only be refuted by science: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.

“Few will doubt that humankind has created a planet-sized problem for itself. No one wished it so, but we are the first species to become a geophysical force, altering Earth's climate, a role previously reserved for tectonics, sun flares, and glacial cycles.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Edward O. Wilson83

Related quotes

Related topics