About 250 million years ago what's known to scientists as "The Great Extinction" began.
The earth was hit by a giant meteor, perhaps 8 to 10 miles in diameter. The force of the impact released an energy one million times the force of an 8.0 earthquake.
So much dust was thrown into the atmosphere that the sun was blotted out for centuries. The earth grew dark and cold. Approximately 90% of the species of life on earth at that time were wiped out.
Think about that: 90% of the life on earth went extinct. Life itself came perilously close to complete extinction. Thus the name, "The Great Extinction." Just imagine if 90% of the life on earth today were to go extinct. This was a calamity of truly epic proportions.
Or was it? The fossil record also shows that immediately following this gigantic extinction came the rise and flourishing of the dinosaurs, and the first appearance of mammals.
These lifeforms couldn't arise before because there was no space for them. All the ecological niches were fully occupied. Yet after The Great Extinction there was ecological space for these new lifeforms to appear.
In other words, The Great Extinction made possible these new lifeforms.
The dinosaurs flourished for the next 185 million years, and completely dominated the ecological landscape during that time. The mammals were there too, but only as small rodent-like creatures occupying marginal niches here and there.
Then, 65 million years ago, another great extinction occurred. Another giant meteor slammed into the earth, again plunging the planet into cold and darkness. This time, approximately 80% of the life on earth disappeared. And the dinosaurs went completely extinct. Again, an unparalleled catastrophe.
Or was it? Because the dinosaurs disappeared, more ecological space again became available. And this time, it was filled by the mammals.
Now the mammals flourished as never before, because they had space to do so. A riotous flowering of different kinds of mammals appeared, including the first primate, which over time led to the appearance of human beings.
The fact that you are reading this sentence was made possible by The Great Extinction 250 million years ago and by the complete extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Often with our little 3-pound brains we imagine that we know what is "good" and what is "bad," and what "should" or "shouldn't" happen. But do we really? Can we really know what should or shouldn't happen?
Now another Great Extinction may be about to happen, and it may happen sometime this century.
The earth is being wracked at the moment by tremendous ecological devastation, and all the signs point to its getting far worse, this time caused by human beings themselves.
Global warming is both occurring and accelerating. Fossil fuels, accumulated over hundreds of millions of years and going into everything from plastics to medicines, are being depleted in just a few decades. The earth's supply of rare metals is also being depleted.
Thousands of species are going extinct, including such common icons as frogs and tigers. The earth's forests are disappearing. Air and water pollution is rapidly increasing across the earth. Pesticides and PCBs are being found at the north pole. Gigantic holes are appearing in the crucial ozone layer. And on and on.
All the signs point to these developments getting far worse over the next few decades. The human population is increasing rapidly, and as the developing countries emulate the developed countries, per capita consumption/pollution is rapidly expanding. The strain upon the life-carrying capacity of the earth increases daily.
What will happen? In all likelihood, an acceleration into another Great Extinction. And this time, that extinction may include the species known as the human race.
But, bearing in mind the ultimate results of the previous great extinctions, can we say that this current great extinction in-the-making shouldn't happen?
Consider this: At some point in this century, as life dies all around it, the human race will probably collectively realize that it too could really go extinct. And it either will or it won't.
But that unbelievable crisis in the planet and in the human race itself could well cause the human race to pull together in a way that it never has before to save both itself and the overall life on the planet.
That effort will either succeed or it won't. But the very shift needed to make the attempt will, I believe, cause a radical transformation in human consciousness. No longer will it be, "Every person for him/herself."
Human beings will for the first time, I believe, realize that they must all pull together as one consciousness if the race and the planet is to survive.
All the petty divisions that divide us now—man vs. woman, my religion vs. yours, my politics vs. yours, the rightness of my position vs. the rightness of yours, and so on—will be seen to be completely unimportant.
Every human being will be seen to be precious, beautiful, divine. Indeed, all of life will be seen in that light as the possibility of its non-existence on earth becomes starkly apparent.
This complete catastrophe could well bring about the birth of a new consciousness on earth if human beings and life survive. We could become the heart of the planet instead of its rapacious predators. We could see that we are all One, not as a metaphor but as simple reality. The collective consciousness of the planet could be born.
Does this mean, for instance, that if we're working on the environment now we should stop? No, of course not. We'll continue doing whatever we're doing.
But perhaps our doingness will take place in a wider, larger context of knowing that we ultimately can't know what is "best," or what "should" or "shouldn't" happen.
Perhaps we'll live in a context of vastly greater trust, knowing that the infinite, which is beating our hearts at this moment, is also taking care of everything else, in a vast mystery which our little brains cannot even begin to fathom.
Yet when we trust in the ultimate goodness of existence, and trust in the mystery of our own attempts to love each other, somehow we do sense something in our hearts which "passeth all understanding."
—jim sloman, 3/8/01 for Mar 8
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