We Need to Start Thinking at the Species Level

Humanity needs to develop the ability to think at the species level.

We have never done so. We must do so starting now with the goal to be well on our way to species-level thinking by 2030.

Here are some simple facts or truths:

-Earth has entered it’s sixth extinction event. The first five had between 75 and 96% of all species becoming extinct. This is the first of the six where one species is responsible …..humanity. We have met the enemy, and he is US.

-the Climate Crisis has gotten much, much worse in the last 30 years. For 29 of those years the UN has held the COP conferences, usually in November. The attendees have been leaders of countries, central bankers, and CO2 emissions have gone from 23 billion metric tons in 1990 to some 38 billion metric tons last year. The increases went sideways in 1991 and 2008 due to recessions. That means that economic growth equals increasing CO2 emissions.

-the only annual decline in global CO2 emissions was in 2020. What happened that year? COVID! Why? For the first time in our species’ history, approximately 4-5 billion people did the same thing at the same time: self-quarantined. In other words, the only way our species can dramatically reduce GHG emissions is to have a huge percentage of our species do something that is not normal or the way it has been. Are you ready to work at home/play at home/home school/ not drive/ not go out to theaters and restaurants/don’t travel ? We all need to look in the mirror and say yes, if we want to alter the trajectory of ever-increasing fossil fuel air pollution. We need to stop doing what we are doing and quickly adopt alternative methods.

-the Age of Intelligence has begun. Technological Intelligence [ if you have yet to read my seven concepts of this Age, you can here and here ] right now feels like a nationalistic and capitalistic competition. How can we compete with China? Which start-up gets the most billions? Which bot is the best? This is understandable, as TI [Technological Intelligence] is the latest, biggest, newest, and coolest technology available today. Who can make the cutest, most real robot dog? What can make me write like Tolstoy? All the expected consumer-oriented production of new products, and instead of “New!” “Improved!” we have “enhanced with AI!” or “AI powered!” or some such huckster language.

Humanity is ultimately not served by this low-level activity. Technological Intelligence has within it the potential to transform our species in such a way that we make our next evolutionary step. The transformation of how we live on this planet can help stop the rapid extinction of other species as well. Technological Intelligence is the next step, catapulting us in ways perhaps even more significant than Gutenberg’s moveable type press, the steam engine, the computer, and the Internet.

-an almost unprecedented and growing global wealth inequality is the third significant global problem that nation states cannot solve. As Gandhi once said:

“There is sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed”

The history of humanity has many examples of what can happen when wealth inequality attains the levels of today: rebellions, revolutions, mass revolt and demonstrations, and sometimes currency collapse. What did Marie Antoinette say when told the lower classes didn’t even have bread to eat?

When we start to think as a species, we think about all of us more than we do as nation states. What do we, the human species, want every member of our species to have? Food/shelter/healthcare/fresh water / protection from warfare and guns?

What do we want, and how can we as a species collectively get it?

NOTE: Over the past five years or so, as depression grows about war and planet degradation, political polarization and struggle, one question has been popping up far more than ever. That was: why are you so optimistic?

The audience was heavy with pessimism and depression, and I was up on stage speaking to the transformation and disruptions ahead. On what basis was I optimistic?

Well, I see a high probability that the combination of the incredibly rapid growth of Technological Intelligence and the rapid acceleration of the Climate Crisis – to be seen by our species on the evening news every night – will move us to be more species-oriented.

Readers may disagree, but consider the following scenario.

Things no longer work the way they did. Things are not working. Structures and past protocols are collapsing. Entire business categories are disappearing. The number of species becoming extinct every day is more than 150 and is increasing over time.[ 1,000 times the rate of the last million years]

I view this as the thrashing, belching death of the carbon combustion complex that has become the dirty tail end of the Industrial Age. As written in the above two linked columns, we have “muscled up” with the Industrial Age and now we must “smarten up” in this new Intelligence Age.

We may think we are the smartest species, but we are not. We can be.