(This is Part 1 of a 2-part series.)
In the 1020's AD King Canute was the king of England. He is generally recognized by historians as one of the best English kings. In fact, King Canute was Danish, was also the King of Denmark and Norway, and ruled England because his father Swein had recently conquered it.
The legend familiar to schoolchildren is that King Canute sat on a throne on the shore of the ocean and commanded the waves to recede, which of course they did not. This is normally taken as a cautionary tale about the folly of excessive hubris.
But actually, King Canute was quite pious and historians suggest that he intended his gesture as a demonstration of something quite different, namely that he didn't have power over the waves, and by extension, of the humble position of humanity and its supposed power in the face of Nature and God.
These days we seem to have lost sight of the significance of Canute's demonstration.
There have even been a few observers, operating in the rarified air between science and science fiction, who in the face of humanity's relentless assault on the planetary environment have begun to speculate whether life itself can survive on earth.
I think I can answer that question. Life on earth will survive, all right. If environmental catastrophe continues, the earth may well regress back to a time when reptiles or insects were the cutting edge of life on earth, or back even earlier to a time when life existed only in the seas, or back even earlier to a time when bacteria were the cutting edge of life. Indeed, there are bacteria which can exist in boiling water. Life itself will survive.
The question is not whether life will survive, but whether humankind will survive. Gaia—life on earth considered as a unitary life form—will surely survive in one form or another. Gaia has proven for several billions of years that she has an amazing ability to adapt to changing circumstances, and she will do so this time. The real question is whether she will do so with or without human beings.
To listen to some commentators in business and conservative circles, if life forms continue to go extinct and global warming continues to increase and so forth, why, we'll just build a few more zoos, put on a bit more sunscreen and turn up our air conditioners a notch or two.
No, we won't. It's much more serious than that.
(This is the end of Part 1. Go to Part 2.)
—jim sloman, 9.18.06
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