Tragedy of Climate Change
should we care if we all die out?
Suppose that, for the sake of discussion,or for personal intuition, or for scientific reasoning, we have entered irreversible runaway climate change. Or that the Oceans are beyond healing and will degenerate to a state of bacteria and jellyfish, eliminating the phytoplankton that contribute 85% of the world’s oxygen. Or that we have passed the planetary boundary for chemical dispersion,filling Earth with toxic compounds such as heavy metals, synthetic organic pollutants and radioactive materials, rending the fabric of life.
In any such scenario, the tragedy is not a cosmic one, for there are billions upon billions of stars in the universe, and 60 billion life supporting planets in the Milkyway alone. So if life on Earth were to unravel, and humanity to go extinct, this is no cosmic tragedy. Life continues elsewhere, likely with more complexity and grandeur than we can imagine.
It is not even a tragedy for Earth, who over 4.5 billion years cooled volcanic rocks, removed toxins and diluted heavy metals, attuned to the sun and captured solar radiation, and evolved the interconnected web of life that has reached an awe inducing level of beauty. Even if modern industrial global civilization were to fundamentally alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere, disrupt the nitrogen cycle, and massacre the biodiversity that took so long to evolve, the Earth has the power to do it all again. The Earth can sequester the pollution, and achieve an equilibrium suitable for life to continue its evolutionary pondering. Earth will be just fine until the Sun becomes a Red Giant and swallows our planet in 5 billion years. Heck, maybe even conscious life on Earth will once again evolve.
The real tragedy is a human one. If humanity were to go extinct, the Cosmos and Earth would be just fine, but we today might be sad to contemplate no viable future for our children and grandchildren. To be clear, the tragedy is not that we die, for everyone dies, this is just an existential fact of life. Difficult to reconcile to, but not truly tragic. No the tragedy is not that humanity might come to an end, because surely all things must end. The tragedy is that we need not have ended it now. That we need not have destroyed the beauty of creation. That we need not have caused so much suffering.
The good news is that this has not yet come to pass—the Oceans maybe sick and injured, indeed they may be dying, are not dead yet. Humanity has the technological prowess, creative gumption, and necessary wealth to make a great transition, continuing on indefinitely on a thriving planet Earth that we save from ruin and turn to flourishing. The tragedy is that we might choose not to do so, that we might let ourselves die today, rather than survive for millennia more.
What wonders we might have achieved? What blessed lives might have been lived? What intricate beauty might have been marveled at? What stars might have been visited? The tragedy is that it might already be too late to find out.
Our tragedy is also the tragedy of the Polar Bear, Mountain Gorilla, Siberian Tiger, Tree Frog, Monarch Butterfly, Sugar Maple, and numerous other species that we take to our graves. Our tragedy is not that we die, nor that they die, but that we do so unnecessarily.
The unnecessary suffering is the true tragedy. If humanity were to eliminate injustice and live for centuries on a thriving planet, verdant and full of self-expressed joy, that would be a triumphant scenario. If we did this for a mere hundred years, for a single generation, it would be glorious. The tragedy is to pass up this chance for glory and to let ourselves drift towards doom.
It is not, however, tragic from the Universe’s perspective, only our own.
