Modernity has disguised the fact that we are 'the' invasive species

Modernity has blurred the line between what is and is not an invasive species.

"Leviathon"
 by Thomas
 Hobbes.

Of course reference to history will quickly clarify any doubt, but what was once, foreign, rare or not naturally occurring is frequently so common and accepted that it is thought by many to be “native”.

Australia, New Zealand and smaller south Pacific nations were once wonderful examples of how their isolation had resulted in what had been hitherto unseen and unknown species.

However, just one species, Homo sapiens (wise man or modern humans), that’s you and me, has followed in the footsteps of its ancestors colonizing almost all available space on the planet.

Expansive intellectual prowess has launched modern man to the top of the food chain, pushing many other species, from massive to microscopic to extinction or the margins and now, it seems those smarts are going to be the seeds of our undoing.

Not many centuries ago there was certain, and necessary equilibrium about the earth with birth and death in both animate and inanimate “things” being timely, equating with what was needed to ensure environmental balance.

Modernity, driven by the wants of the “wise man” as opposed to his/her actual needs, changed all that leaving us balancing precariously above a chasm.

Troubles bigger than you and I block our escape and there appears to be an absence of endeavour from both international and national institutions to actively pursue societal changes that would avoid the fall.

Seeking to attribute the blame to someone or something, many turn their gaze to the uncensored and unfettered rush of capitalism that has plundered earth’s finite resources in its pursuit if infinite growth and profit.

Modern life, despite its critics and those who pine for what was, is unquestionable better than what existed and described by Thomas Hobbes inn 1651 book, “Leviathan”, as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.

Homo sapiens have become earth’s true invasive species, threatening not just all other species, but even its own future, and even, maybe, its own extinction.

However, let us not be too despondent for just recently the British-based Philosopher’s Mail noted in a story about “Welcome to the Dawn of Capitalism”, in which the criticism of the hunger for growth and profit was acknowledged, it said: “But perhaps the good future depends not on minimising Capitalism but on radically extending it”.

“If we could just address our deeper needs more directly, our materialism would be refined and restrained, our work would be more meaningful and our profits would be more honourable. That’s the ideal future of Capitalism,” it said.

Maybe we are “the” invasive species and maybe it is time we engaged our naturally endowed intellectual prowess to become more refined and restrained to live more meaningful and honourable lives?

The dilemmas brought on by impartiality

Impartiality frequently frustrates many decent things.

Singer's book, "One
World: The Ethics
 of Globalization".

Equally, it is also often the keystone in allowing less than favourable things to happen to individuals, the broader community and, in a wider and crucial sense, to the wellbeing of the planet.

Partiality among humans is immensely powerful among families and friends, but erodes as relationships between people become increasingly distant and then collapses completely to become impartial, even disinterested, once people become “the other”.

Writing in “One World: The Ethics of Globalization” moral philosopher, Peter Singer, said; “Our real desires, our lasting and strongest passions, are not for the good of our species as a whole, but, at best, for the good of those who are close to us”.

Singer wrote that more than a decade ago and although the challenges of climate change were then well known, they had not evolved to be so internationally divisive as they are now, but his observations were prescient.

Within Singer’s writings are the reasons for our disinterest, our impartiality, in how our behaviours are impacting on earth’s atmosphere.

Life, particularly for most in Australia, is pretty good and so with rare exceptions we imagine ourselves as distant from anyone or anything that is worsening climate change and so have little sense of how our behaviour contributes to what has be called the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.

We are, it seems, trapped within the paradigm that Singer discusses where he says that “Our real desires, our lasting and strongest passions, are not for the good of our species as a whole, but, at best, for the good of those who are close to us”.

Addressing the dilemmas and dangers of climate change demands that we explore and understand impartiality, and embrace it with an urgency that will hopefully allow us to act appropriately to mitigate the unfolding damage to our atmosphere.

Impartiality has been one of the great frustrations experienced by international support organizations and they have found that through reducing their appeal for help to a personal level by using an image of a sole person needing help, they made the connection between recipient and potential donor partial.

With the reason for funding now igniting our “real desires, our lasting and strongest passions”, the support sought was frequently forthcoming.

The damage to earth’s atmosphere is happening, by human standards, so slowly and its effects are frequently so remote from our daily affairs that most of us have a decided impartiality about climate change.

Many of us are unable to make the connection between our behaviour and what is happening with our climate and subsequent worsening weather it brings upon us because we are impartial and largely oblivious to anything beyond family, friends and immediate concerns.

Our primary role is to multiply, but it is a process that can easily become dysfunctional

The primary role in life for you and me, as with any other species, is to multiply.

A sign of the tmes.

That is to procreate and within that behave in such a manner to ensure our genes are protected and have the best chance of survival.

Survival within the tumult of life is a brutal affair and it was Charles Darwin who arrived at a complex understanding of how life evolves and that has been reduced, in a sense wrongly, to “survival of the fittest”.

Reductionism is sometimes callous and unforgiving, particularly when it tears apart and strips bare the powerful and emotional human concept of birth that has been subjected to aggrandizement over the millennia of human life.

Humans have evolved to have a powerful thinking apparatus, the mind, and unlike most other species understand the past, present and future; memory and anticipation allow changed behaviour in the present.

Most other species, from microscopic to mammoth, survive on what might be termed instinct and humans, while also driven by that, have the capacity for consideration.

Equipped with that “powerful thinking apparatus”, an understanding of the past, present and future, having the ability to consider and plan, and, within that, physically change the circumstances of their environment, human numbers have, and are, growing exponentially.

The world already has in excess of seven billion people and although human endeavour broadly warrants applause an honest appraisal of our achievements should ignite a stern rebuke.

For decades now we have known about and understood the nexus between human numbers and resources – too many people gouging relatively scarce resources produces an inevitable collision; a collision, if left unattended will decimate the human population.

Like so many other difficulties facing the world, or at least humans, any workable solution to this one, limiting our numbers, is weighed down with millennia-old emotional baggage that inhibits clarity.

Birth is a landmark event for humans and is celebrated with enthusiasm in all cultures and having a deep and mysterious sense of success, it is a great leveller as birth is available to all, whether rich or poor.

Any suggestion that in some way birth should be restricted and human numbers subsequently limited is met with outrage, but if allowed to continue without restriction, we face unimaginable difficulties ranging from famines to water shortages and from conflicts to simply space to survive.

With a comprehensive tripartite understanding of life – that is the past, present and future – man needs to consider what was appropriate from the past, our present behaviour and how they equate with predictive predicaments.

Any workable solution is not obvious, but we need to stabilise the population; we need to have fewer people dependant on the planet; and we need to have a bias in which deaths exceed births.