Determining the End Goal of Civilization

On a positive note, animals and their natural habitats thankfully have the ability to bounce back relatively quickly as long as humans leave them alone, so that’s always an option. If we all just went back to living in pact with nature, hunter/gatherer style, no pollution, no exhaustion of animal populations, no habitat destruction, if we stopped all these right now, nature would eventually bounce back. Only problem is, we would have to immediately stop multiplying and probably also kill or at least let die several million people that we would be unable to feed, not to mention that people would have to stop eating shark fin soup and wearing fur (Which is the bigger evil? See the difference between use and abuse.). Now we’re starting to sound like Ozymandias or Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen or Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin or any other comic book super-villain with “good” intentions. With that said, I am not saying it wouldn’t solve our immediate environmental problems. But leaving genocide out of the equation what alternatives do we have to save both all of us AND the planet.

Somewhere down the line I believe that our race will reach a point where we no longer need to put such a massive strain on our natural environment in order to survive. Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev created a scale in the 1960s to describe such future civilizations based on their ability to harness the energy of the universe sustainably. A Type I civilization is capable of utilizing the full energy of its parent-star or planet in a sustainable and perpetual fashion. When and if we manage to transcend into a Kardashev’s Type I civilization, not only would this put pressure off the natural world, but it would also mean no more energy crises and the political chaos these create, since this sustainable energy could be harnessed indefinitely, benefiting all nations alike pushing us towards a more unified global mentality. 

But as Michio Kaku points out, we are unfortunately still a Type 0 civilization so I don’t necessarily believe this is right around the corner. Kaku does mention some recent tendencies such as the internet, the European Union and the spread of English as a lingua franca that could indicate a move towards a Type I mentality, but as recent events have shown, even institutions such as the European Union are not invulnerable and our evolution might take a few steps back before going further forward. After all, this has happened several times in history, many so called Golden Ages have been succeeded by their evil twin, Dark Ages. Which one we are headed towards at the moment is up in the balance. In order to save our natural world, one can only hope it is a Golden Age, heralding our ascension up to a Type I civilization. 

But until that day many of the species that we currently share our planet with are going to become extinct as a result of our actions to stay alive and evolve, but once again, this is not a new thing, it has been a natural part of evolution since a long time before we came along. So in that macro-perspective, I cannot really allow myself to mourn it that much. Needless to say, the Earth would be way better off without our species. But our species would not, and herein lies my point. What is the end goal with conservation? Are we doing it for the planet, or for our own sake? The planet would certainly be better off without a species as developed as humans who understand how to harvest its resources on a global scale. But going back to the ominous global extinction events which could potentially be right around the corner, tomorrow or millions of years from now, and further and even more grim; the eventual death of our planet which is a mathematical fact. How can we ensure the survival of humanity then? By focusing on conservation and regressing to a more primitive step in our evolution or to instead put our efforts somewhere else. Our planet may be doomed but our species does not have to be. In fact, the next level in Kardashev’s civilizations is a Type II civilization which masters inter-solar travel and can thus harvest energy between different stars and planets. But first things first.