Saving the Creation part 2

“The creation, living nature, is in deep trouble. Scientists estimate that if habitat, conversion, and other destructive human activities continue at their present rate unabated, half the species of plants and animals on earth could be either gone or faded for early extinction by the end of the century. That is a finding of science. A full quarter will drop out to this level
during the next half century as a result of climate change alone, if left unabated.”

“Surely, we agree that each species, however inconspicuous and humble it may seem to us at this moment, is a masterpiece of biology and well worth saving. Each species possesses a unique combination of genetic traits that fits it more or less precisely to a particular part of the environment. Prudence alone dictates that we act quickly to prevent the extinction of species and with it, the pauperization of earth’s ecosystems. Hence, of the creation.”

“You may well ask at this point, ‘Why me?’ Because religion and science are the two most powerful social forces in the world today, including especially the United States. If religion and science could be united on the common ground of biological conservation, the problem would soon be solved. Ifthere is any moral precept shared by people of all beliefs, it is that we owe ourselves and future generation, a beautiful, rich, and healthful environment.”

So now having spoken to the pastor, I want to pass on to present some of the background for the confidence that I put in to that letter. Our relation to the rest of life can be put in a nutshell as follows. Scientists have found biosphere, that razor-thin film of organisms plastered to the surface of the earth, so thin it cannot be seen sidewise from a space vehicle,
from a shuttle. They found it to be far richer in diversity than ever before conceived in research during just the past several decades.

Biodiversity, which took about three-and-a-half billion years to evolve, is being eroded at an accelerating rate by human activity. This loss is going to inflict a heavy and as yet unmeasured price in wealth, security, and spirit. Altogether, the 21st century, in my opinion, is destined to be called the century of the environment. This is the century in which we will settle down before we wreck the planet. The immediate future is usually conceived as a bottleneck of still rapid population growth and high per capita -- and rising per capita consumption.

Science and technology combined with a lack of self-understanding and Paleolithic obstinacy that led to our ruinous environmental practices today have brought us to where we are. Now science and technology combined with foresight and the kind of moral courage that religions can provide both based on an enlightened ethic that might be put together must see
us through the bottleneck and I --one hopes by the end of the century.

Let me add right away a positive note and that is that thanks to a remarkable trait of human nature, I think it is in the genes, we see one strong ray of light, and that is the tendency of women. Now this is not your typical liberal Harvard professor proclaiming that women, when given a degree of independence over their own lives a chance to be educated and to
make their own decisions and to make their own money, undergo a precipitous drop in number of children produced.

They go for -- from -- to producing a small number of quality children as opposed to playing the lottery with a large number. As a consequence of this unmistakable phenomenon, the countries of the -- all of the developed world, industrialized countries now have seen a drop passed the breakpoint of 2.1 children per woman. And the -- that includes now the Asian tigers, that are going through the demographic transition, and we can expect to see the spread, and these are the projections of the United Nation’s population analyst, to bring human population to a peak perhaps by the end of the century somewhere around 9, maybe 10 billion people.

We can feed that number and we can save the rest of biodiversity with it if we proceed carefully.
The number of children produced on an average per woman incidentally has in the last 40 years, 1960 to 2000, dropped from 6 to 3 and it is still dropping."