Wednesday 19 August 2020

The Priceless Value of Life - for the future of humanity and what it means about conservation today.

Its worth enunciating why all life is precious. We need to make the case for conservation of the living world and preservation of all species.

To the best of our knowledge the universe is coming to an end. Not soon but eventually it will and in the meantime we are riding the crest of a wave of matter and energy created by whatever miracle caused the explosion which started it all.

With luck it will last for aeons, many billions of years probably and people like us will live through it all. Our descendants will begin their journey with the legacy we leave them and one of the most important things we can leave them is the living world we inherited.

The future of humanity is to explore, it has to be because the universe is set to last longer than the Earth is. Those who survive the last days of Earth, when it will roast in the fiery outer atmosphere of the sun, will be far away from it. 

In a strange way it is comforting to know that it is all a hill of beans, in the end everything will come to nothing but in the meantime what matters therefore is surviving, prospering, living the good life, being happy doing what we want to do because we choose to. In the end there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, there is just this, more of the same and we do what we do because we are compelled to by our nature.

Our progress into the post-Earth future will continue to be an evolutionary process and only those who choose to survive will survive and their descendants will live among the stars. Those who give up will die out as surely as those who offend against their fellow humans and I feel sure there are plenty who will not because that is what life on Earth has made of us, survivors and mutualistic cooperators. 

Every generation exists because the previous generation survived and passed on their likeness and knowledge. We have reached a point in our long journey where we have understood enough about what works and what does not that the future will not be like the past, because we have the ability to shape the environment we want to live in and thereby, we create the future. It is a power and a responsibility because we will become what we make ourselves, our world will become what we make of it. The shape of the future is our choice.

It seems possible that if we survive long enough, despite real dangers posed by natural disasters like asteroid strike, supervolcanoes and pandemics, we will learn to live away from the Earth and likely that we will create large habitats in which we are as comfortable and fulfilled as we would be living in a beautiful and well managed city somewhere on Earth. It is probable we will learn to move these city ships over many years around the universe and not at all unlikely that this will eventually lead to voyaging between planets and stars, slowly but as safely as we can.

It will not matter that it may take thousands of years to reach a new star when the journey itself has all that life can offer because the ship is a home from home.

One day such ships will reach planets which can be made habitable and then the life they brought with them will be the means of making it habitable and beautiful to human eyes. It is then that we will count the cost of every unheeded extinction, every species lost to us today, which could have lived in our new garden home.

It is not right that we allow the future of billions of years of humanity to be scarred by the short termism of a few wannabes today. Every species which exists has passed the test of evolution and has skills and secrets locked in the molecules from which it is made and behaviour it can employ. Not only are they intrinsically beautiful in their own right but they can become our tutors in the capabilities of nature, both now and for aeons to come and this is why I hold life a sacred and priceless treasure.

I do not believe the majority of humanity would willingly allow such a priceless treasure to be needlessly destroyed through ignorance and it is my hope we will continue to pass laws and enforce these such that extinctions of species due to habitat destruction by negligence or by design and due to hunting for superstitious talismans comes to an end and the species which live on Earth today will all continue to live as will we and travel with us to live in distant times and places throughout the long life of humanity for as long as we all may live.

So let us take responsibility for our future and live now as we must to continue in the same way for the foreseeable future, sustainably. The time the universe can sustain life may end one day but between now and then is a very long time and we should lose no more of the unique species which have taken billions of years evolve, as it is a shameful waste and a cause for profound regret. 

I hope readers agree it is right to act according to their conscience. 

If in doubt try searching for " conservation charities " and see where it takes you.  

Every little helps to support conservation both locally and globally.  :)

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