Denmark marks March 28 as a significant day; Sweden marks April 3, and Norway, April 12. These dates signify “overshoot day” – the day when the Earth’s resources for the year are depleted. For the rest of the year, we continue to extract resources as if we have four planets at our disposal. Sadly, we are among the world’s elite when it comes to exploiting the planet, along with countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, and the Arab oil states. Notably, 51 countries do not even extract their share of the resources. We still hold onto the belief that globalization will lead to equal prosperity but this utopian vision is hypocritical and will bring the earth to collapse faster than even the most alarming climate change predictions anticipate.
Astronaut William Anders took a photo on Christmas Eve 1968 that remains one of humanity’s most important self-portraits. This photo depicts the Earth rising above the horizon at dawn – a sight that Anders titled “Earthrise”. It displays both the beauty and vulnerability of our planet and highlights our loneliness. Our species prefers to deem ourselves as the lord and crown of creation, but we are the most fragile animal on earth. We lack predatory teeth, monkey agility, elephant weight, rhinoceros skin, cheetah speed, or bird wings. Our brain, however, stimulates us to dream that one day, we would create a universe-animal inclusive of all others. Through our inventive and dreaming mind, we have achieved this objective through our ruthless march forward until all our rivals were tamed or endangered.
However, our success has allowed us to destroy nature, call it growth, and name ourselves masters of the world. A future of constant growth, impoverishing the earth, mistreating animals, a silent nature, and roaring humanity is what we envision as paradise. Our version of the millennium is a dictate of perpetual economic growth and consumption, leading to threats to all life on the planet. Instead of heeding nature’s voice, we scream even louder in response. We are at war with extinction and its end signifies residence permits for fewer species. Our unsolved problems now dominate the future, a future that our children and grandchildren own.
The earth belongs to no one; instead, we deem ourselves the masters of the planet and the highest creation in our invented hierarchical system. Our biomass constitutes a mere one-tenth per thousand of the total earth biomass of 550 gigatons. We are microscopic compared to sponges, yet we exploit and degrade the planet’s living conditions historically. The history of plants is long, but ours is astonishingly short, and our lack of motivation to become one of the species with permanent residency on the planet is a great paradox of modern prosperity.
We need to release our stranglehold on the Earth and build a new, greener, slower, more gentle, and caring world. We need to act like ancestors and mothers for generations to come and not use the future as a dumping ground for unsolved problems. We must plant trees and think like the Apaches, who state that “we do not inherit the land from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.” We must write and live a manifesto of hope, extending beyond a mere truce in the war between us and nature, and towards incipient harmony. We must create a friendlier society that millions of endangered species could also call home.
March 28 is a significant day in Denmark. For Sweden it is April 3 and for Norway April 12. That is when what in English is called “overshoot day”, that is, the day when we have used up the year’s share of the earth’s resources. The rest of the year we plunder the planet’s resources as if we had not one, but four planets at our disposal.
When it comes to plundering the planet, we are among the world’s elite, along with countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and the Arab oil states. 51 countries on earth do not even use their share. We still believe that successful globalization will create equal prosperity for all. But if we were to succeed in realizing this utopia, which has never been anything but hypocrisy, the earth would collapse faster than even the bleakest climate forecasts dare to predict.
Photo: Torsten Sukrow/SULUPRESS.DE
Humanity’s most important self-portrait remains the photo taken by astronaut William Anders on Christmas Eve 1968, when Apollo 8 flew around the moon. In an unforgettable image, we see the Earth rising above the lunar horizon at dawn. William Anders titled his photo “Earthrise”. This is what we are: a handful of dust, some water, and vegetation covered by the thinnest possible atmosphere as our only defense against infinity—a cosmos of nebulae and swirling galaxies that stretches beyond our imagination, a cosmos that would never let any of us take a single breath.
“Earthrise” shows the beauty of our planet, but also its vulnerability and fragility. The photograph also documents our loneliness. It is an image we should always have on the retina, whatever else we are discussing.
We have arrogantly appointed ourselves, humanity, as the lord and crown of creation. In fact, we are the most fragile of all animal species. We do not have the teeth of predators, the agility of monkeys, the weight of elephants, the armored skin of rhinoceros, the speed of cheetahs, the wings of birds or the lungs of whales. We are the unspecialized animal that doesn’t fit into any niche; an unprotected creature carrying its heavy lump of brain high above the ground at the end of a vulnerable neck not as long as the giraffe’s, but just as vulnerable, and capable of breaking with a single blow.
But we have possibly always carried a secret motivation, and perhaps therefore we were given a brain, this at once practical organ of use and impractical organ of dream production, and perhaps our dream was that we—this unspecialized, unprotected animal—would one day become the universal the animal. The animal with all the characteristics of the others: the predator, the whale, the cheetah, the elephant… And that is what we achieved with the help of our inventive, dreaming mind, as it traveled in the air, in the sea and everywhere on land, marching forward with enormous strength, power and ruthlessness until all our rivals were tamed or endangered.
We induced chaos and called it control. We destroyed nature and called it growth. We named ourselves masters of the world while the deserts spread and the seas rose. A rudderless lifeboat will soon become our new homeland, armed with weapons because there is no room to save anyone more on board, while the last islands sink into the sea.
When nature raises its voice, we get scared and have to roar even louder instead of listening
We dream of a Millennium with constant growth. Impoverishment of the earth, mistreatment of the animals, a silent nature and roaring humanity: this is how we imagine paradise. And when nature raises its voice, we get scared and have to roar even louder instead of listening.
We are in the middle of a war of extinction, the end of which is a planet with residence permits for fewer and fewer species. Our version of the Millennium is a dictate of perpetual economic growth and depleting consumption that threatens all life on the planet. No, we are not literally marching towards our own doom. We stand in line at the cash registers. We do not open concentration camps. Instead, we corral nature, dress it in the prison clothes of monoculture, torture it to death and exploit it until it dies of exhaustion, reduced to our slave. We call barbarism progress, and growth’s dictates of unbridled production, achievement and overconsumption in an eternally downward spiral imprint each of us more deeply than any totalitarian state has ever managed to shape its subjects.
We have become enemies of the future. We can no longer regard it as a brighter time, a better world to look forward to. The future has become a dumping ground for our unsolved problems, despite the fact that our children and grandchildren who are its shareholders – to use the reductive business language that the dominant market economy has indoctrinated us with. Our last desperate utopia is that the present, the so-called normality that we have so obviously lived in for many decades, will last forever.
It is in the language itself that the earth is ours; that we are the masters of the planet and not only the foremost but also the highest creation in a hierarchical system that we ourselves have invented. If we look at the biomass of the planet, we are nothing. Of the earth’s total biomass of 550 gigatons, humanity with its eight billion individuals constitutes one tenth per thousand. Sponges weigh twenty times more than us and do infinitely more good for the survival of the planet than humanity does.
In fact, we are doing the opposite for the benefit of the planet. For all our microscopic invisibility, we manage to degrade the planet’s living conditions, and in a historical perspective, our importance to the planet will be measured not by our creative ability, but by our talent for destruction. The plants, bushes, weeds, grasses and trees are the real heroes of the earth, and if the intelligence of living things is measured by their ability to survive, then it was the weeds that Darwin had in mind when he developed his theory of the “survival of the fittest”, not U.S.
Photo: Marcelo Correia
The history of plants is so long, our so astonishingly short. There is no indication that we ourselves are motivated to become one of the species that has permanent residency on the planet. This is the great paradox of modern prosperity. We ourselves want to live safely, well and for a long time. We deny the same to the creatures we share the planet with. Nature was generous and gave us everything: we have responded with the stranglehold called progress and development. So every day is a referendum on the future: should we release our stranglehold on the Earth or keep squeezing? Should the planet suffocate between our hands? Or shall we breathe together?
So what are we going to use our hands for once we’ve loosened our grip on the planet’s throat?
We are not allowed to put them to rest in your lap. We must build a new and greener world, a slower, more gentle and caring world. We must think of ourselves as mothers and ancestors of many generations to come and not see the future as a dumping ground for unsolved problems. We must think like the grandfather who plants a tree in whose shade he knows he will never sit. We must say like the Apaches: we do not inherit the land from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.
Amid the ruins of what nature once was, we must write a manifesto of hope. And not just writing it, but actually living it: a friendlier society, extending beyond a mere truce in the war between us and nature, perhaps even the first signs of an incipient harmony.
I’d love to live on that planet.
So would millions of endangered species.
Carsten Jensen is a Danish writer and journalist.
Translation from the Danish: Jonas Thente
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