Humans Before the Industrial Age: A Desirable Ecological Goal?

Abstract

All of us have experienced the darkness, felt the despair. Our civilization’s problems seem beyond measure—an exploding population, pollution, energy shortages, climate change, terrorism, and nuclear proliferation are among these threats. There is nowhere in space to flee. Earth is filled up, the moon lacks air and liquid water, Mars is a lifeless desert, and the stars are just too distant.

“We are the music-makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world, forever, it seems.”

—From the poem “Ode” by Arthur O’Shaughnessy.