Towards an ecological civilization

The current economic crisis should be seen as an opportunity to chart a new course for humanity, to begin creating an ecological civilization. To begin with, however, it is first necessary to clarify the seriousness of the situation confronting us. A recent edition of New Scientist attempted to portray what the Earth would look like if the world were 4ºC warmer. A map showed most of the presently populated world, including almost all of China, USA, Africa, South America and Australia, to be uninhabitable desert or uninhabitable due to drought, floods or extreme weather. James Lovelock, reflecting on what happened in the Eocene ecological collapse of 55 million years ago, suggested that our inability to address this crisis will leave as few as two hundred million people alive at the end of the century, living close to the North Pole.