Although humans like to disassociate themselves from the rest of nonhuman nature and hold that we are an exceptional species this is not the case which means that there is an enormous amount we can learn from nonhuman beings enabling us to relinquish the mindset that research shows is leading to only one destination, the collapse of the biosphere that we and other life-forms are dependent upon for our existence. The recent research on the breaching of two ecological tipping points suggests that this is likely to be sooner than previously thought. These are the loss of sea ice formation in the Antarctica and the demise of warm water coral reefs.
Dr. Jane Goodall, who recently died at the age of 91, overturned the conventional idea that what made humans exceptional was their tool making abilities. Her research of chimpanzees in the 1960s in Gombe, Tanzania, revealed that chimpanzees are not only capable of making tools but like humans are emotional creatures. They, like all forms of life, adapt to their environment, a fact which astounded most of the scientific and religious establishment when Charles Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species in 1859. Until then it was thought, at least in the Western world, that God had made life-forms as finished entities as the various artistic depictions of Adam and Eve portrayed.
Darwin’s findings continue to be verified today. Photographer and researcher Roberto Garcia-Road, along with other researches, who are studying butterflies in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo, have found that butterflies lose their vibrant colours when indigenous forests are cut down and replaced with eucalyptus plantations. Prompted by evolution the butterflies do this in order to increase their chances of survival.
The question is will we, in the interests of our survival as a species, respond in a positive way to the ever-increasing harsh realities caused by our disruption of the climate system as it has functioned since the end of the last glacial period which occurred about 11,700 years ago. Doing this would mean transitioning to a whole new way of life based upon living within the regenerative capacities of the biosphere which would inevitably mean living a reduced consumer-based lifestyle.
This, as many mistakenly assume, would not automatically result in a decrease in the quality of peoples’ lives. Rather, if based on economic and social equity, it could well lead to a mean improvement in the quality of everyone’s life most notably that experienced by the billions of people who waken each morning not knowing if they and their family will eat a nutritious meal that day.
To date the evidence suggests that we are so accustomed to living in ignorance about the life-story of the things we use on a daily basis that we are blocking out the signals that are telling us that it is imperative that we adapt or face, as all living things do, extinction. The life story of the things we consume includes where the raw materials come from, how they are processed and turned into manufactured products and farmed produce, how they arrive in our shops and the ecological consequences of using and disposing of them. Given our cultural imperatives and the lack of education about the life-stories of what we consume this ignorance is understandable.
Our blocking out the signals about the increasing inability of the biosphere to sustain us is in part due to the case that a) we don’t like change and b) hubris. The former is a trait shared with other species, a basis for which is that we feel safe with what we know and that a substantial change usually takes resolution and energy. Hubris, as far as we know, is a trait other life-forms don’t have.
Hubris is proving to be a fatal flaw for our species. One reason why it is so toxic is that those afflicted with it, which includes groups of people as large as nations, have such a sense of grandiosity they believe themselves to be immortal and thus feel they have no need to respect ecological limits and the right of other species to live their lives as determined by their nature.
Another dysfunctional aspect of hubris is that those ailed with it tend to think that their class, culture and civilization is superior to others. The later was the basis of the numerous cases of genocide that took place during the past 500-years of European colonialism. The ones we in Ireland are most familiar with are those committed against the indigenous peoples of Australia and the United States. Genocide based on the coloniser’s sense of superiority also took place elsewhere including in Africa, central and south America.
The signals we are not listening to are those that tell us that we are breaching planetary boundaries. New Scientist, 11 October 2025, reports one such breach is the loss of sea ice formation in the Antarctic as a result of the warming of the oceans due to human behaviour. If the trend continues the consequences will be catastrophic as Antarctic sea ice contains enough water to raise global sea levels by 58 meters. One does not need to be a mathematician to work out that if the sea ice melts the infrastructure of coastal communities around the world will be underwater. Before this happens migrations on a scale never witnessed will occur raising the question of where these billions of people will live. Another casualty will be the loss of cultural treasures held in museums, libraries, art galleries and archives. We can also expect the digital world to collapse when energy and water hungry data centers cease to function.
As there are biospheric tipping points there are positive social ones which could be triggered by a significant number of people developing a deep sense of affinity with and love for the awe-inspiring biosphere we are part of. As many sages and sociologists have noted we care for and protect what we love.