2513. life or death?

History is often written as “the emergence of the good”, often in the form of “civilization,”  from chaos. The perspective we need now is to understand how the  possible (not yet certain) death  of the human species emerged instead, and what we can do about it. A simple picture - and there are many - is that over the centuries we got bigger while the earth remained the same.  Humans found small areas for agriculture, mining, fishing  and forest, they could expand into, extracting wealth from the land and organized people. 

This was not the only possible path but it is the path we are on. This path is arriving at a bad outcome. Did we ever have an alternative? Was there ever a time we could have said “No”?* Are we so locked in that we cannot revisit crucial turning points?

*Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Soppard