Eco-nihilism, or Our Finest Hour?

Is this the end, or a new beginning?

Let’s first establish that Eco-nihilism refers to the philosophy that Earth, having been better off without us as she evolved life, is now better off without us because human beings destroy life.

There are people who claim Earth is better without human beings, but of course, very few commit suicide or homicide to get there. It’s really more of a thought experiment than a real threat.

You will hear people on the presumed “both sides” of the political spectrum express that some want us and our trash, all gone, or some of us are too “Hitlery” in our exuberance to rid Earth of her own children.

The Sixth Extinction, and our climate heating disasters are well established, however, and it is worth talking about how we perceive our influence.

On the other extreme, we have the idea that with our cooperation, evolving technology, the spirit of unity, and an Earth identity to bind us in solidarity, we can help nature recover from the worst of our depredations, even as we help each other recover from our former exploitation of people and place.

Social-Psychology growing pains

Despite our human psychology being prone to optimism bias, confirmation bias, and other defense mechanisms such as finding scapegoats and denialism, a good number of us believe we will not extinguish all life but could — eventually — improve it.

This is not a certainty. It in no way allows us off the hook to say “Earth will be just fine due to nature’s resilience and/or our tech genius.” There are millions of things to do before we could make such a statement.

We are still fighting amongst ourselves, but what if the default realization became that we are better off sharing, and not wasting time and resources?

Throughout history, there are examples of people banding together to do the right thing. Think of these as “our finest hour” moments. Great steps forward include ending institutionalized slavery, overthrowing corrupt monarchs and priesthoods for greater democracy, allowing women to take the vote, stopping genocide, negotiating to avoid nuclear war (so far), starting programs to reduce poverty, tacking the ozone hole, and all of those social movements that give voice to the voiceless.

Did I mention we went to the moon, shared worldwide vaccination discoveries, and now have both the James Webb Space Telescope and the Artemis program?

We are family

These are not special because we are so technologically savvy, but because they are cooperative international efforts. Such projects require input from diverse people working together.

To become an effective superorganism that defends herself, Mother Earth must have a wide variety of living cells and systems that work together. This is what (generally) homeostatic Earth has always done before our interference.

It is not just the engineers, or just rich, white guys, but the workers, the servers, the teachers, the governance, the resources, and their accessibility to get things done. It requires the management of complex problems and innovative solutions.

We need to recognize all living beings as part of our solutions, or we endanger them and ourselves.

If we can do that, a change of outlook is possible. We can, and do, change from a blunt belief in domination to a hopeful belief in our social sharing.

Nature’s answer, too, is diversity. We evolve with diversity so that every organism has resilience, novelty, shared structure, and interdependence.

Indeed, we are star stuff, and when we approach that reality with acceptance, humility, and openness, we have a real chance to see the 21st and early 22nd century as our finest hour.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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