Why Should We Survive ?

I didn't expect much in the way of reply to my question - 'are we a species that deserves to survive' and was not disappointed. I did have one email comment which asked what I think the greater power in the universe is and I think a brief reply is appropriate. Whether or not I believe in a greater power is not the point. What we humans are doing to the planet, and therefore to ourselves as parts of the planet, is the result of decisions made by human beings, not by any greater power. Who or whatever that power is has endowed us with the ability to make momentous decisions amongst which is to create death and destruction of any form of life we encounter, again conspicuously including ourselves, and if the greater power, if such exists, has seen fit to do this, he/she/it presumably did so in full awareness of the consequences of that decision. So we are stuck with the responsibility of deciding if we want to go on doing this or not. And if evidence is needed that extinction could result it is there is abundance in all the great 'civilizations' that have preceded us who persisted in the behaviour that would extinguish them, even when they knew enough to stop: the Mayas, the Angkor Wat creators, Easter Island and so on.

Again, our present behaviour is replicating this. We have immeasurably more knowledge of the nature of the universe but I see no evidence that this is capable of creating a change our direction - yet. And this is precisely what my motive is: to join with those others who recognise this clearly and are working to push us onto another trajectory for survival. It seems the only responsible thing to do. There have been many books on this subject during the past twenty years in which our destructive behaviours have been efficently and exhaustively analysed by highly competent individuals and the result seems to be to be a significant increase, not only in awareness but of growing support for those forces the world over who are expressing their concerns and desire for the necessary changes. However, almost all of these books (later I shall name some of them) deal with the causes of the physical changes (invention of agriculture, developing of more efficient tools and weapons etc) and the institutional and political processes that result in their usage. This is clearly extremely important and hopefully it will be sustained and extended but not one of them has explained in detail the roles that individual decision making and behaviour are the agents which perform the activities, even when they are acting alone, but which are immensely enhanced when they escalate to sociocultural and political levels. And above all they do not seem to believe that the nature of the human body is the most important of all factors. This includes the mind and the ability to communicate without which collective factors would be impossible.
More again soon.