Introduction to Earth Futures at UCSC
The Earth Futures Institute is a new entity designed to focus world attention on the existential question of Earth’s future on the time scale of decades to a million years. EFI will use the best science of today to develop “scenarios” for life on Earth on these time scales and use them to launch the first comprehensive, frank, and probing discussion of the ethics of the future.
Extending the time window out to a million years profoundly impacts discussions of the future. A million years poses the question of long-term sustainability with brutal honesty for the first time. A million years admits the possibility of transformative activities like Solar System exploration and interstellar travel, which may inspire current generations to maintain options open for future generations. A million years is long enough to weigh good and bad futures in the abstract without making anyone alive today, or their progeny, feel threatened. In other words, EFI’s focus on deep time creates the first “safe space” in human history for discussing Earth’s future in the dispassionate and thoughtful way that is required.
But these discussions will be sterile without a shared “value system” for Earth’s future. Few of us have as yet embraced the central questions that the future poses: To what extent does my life find its purpose and meaning in the future — my own future? — my country’s future? — the planet’s future? What would be lost to the Universe if the 14-billion-year cosmic experiment that has created Earth were suddenly to end? Do we have an obligation to maintain that long-running experiment for future generations? In short, is Earth worth saving, and why?
We believe that today’s urgent problems like climate, pollution, and genetic engineering cannot be solved until humanity has achieved a global consensus on that “why”. Fostering that consensus is the purpose of EFI through the efforts of artists and humanists in partnership with scientists, engineers, and social scientists — all five engines of the university will be engaged. The spark will start at EFI, but we hope that it will spread soon to encompass the rest of UC, the state of California, the US, and ultimately the world. With high-tech and Hollywood as partners on our doorstep, what better place than UC to initiate a historic debate on the long-term future of Earth and humanity?
A Proposed Three-Part Structure
A simple way of thinking about how EFI’s structure might develop is shown in the accompanying cartoon.
A “Scenarios” group would create state-of-the-art “scenarios” for Earth up to a million years from now based on the best available science, engineering, and social science. Results from disparate fields (e.g., climate forecasting, economics, and political science) would be combined to generate holistic, integrated scenarios for the planet over long timescales. The results of such scenarios would be conveyed in books, reports, and other scholarly publications.
An “Imaginings” group would take the outputs of the Scenarios group and translate them into media more amenable to public understanding. It is well known that values decisions are powerfully based on emotions, and so the abstract, bloodless products of the Scenarios group need to be retold and remodeled in ways that will command public attention and engagement. The range of potential media is virtually unlimited, including literature, graphic novels, art, theatre, comedy and satire, movies, TV shows, music, virtual reality, augmented reality, video games, and robot-human simulations, to name a few.
A central narrative for the Imaginings group will be the Origins Story of Earth and our species. This story knits together discoveries from cosmology, geology, paleontology, biology, genetics, archaeology, anthropology, history, and more. Much of it was discovered by scientists, but it needs retelling by artists and humanists for full appreciation. Creating a shared origins myth has been essential to building close-knit societies in the past, and the modern Cosmic Origins Story is the shared cultural inheritance of all humankind. Establishing a deep appreciation of our cosmic past is the first necessary step toward planning our common cosmic future.
Finally, the “Engagement & Values” group would distribute Scenarios and Imaginings materials to the public, guide discussions of the ethical implications, and track the resulting impacts on public opinion. It may emerge that humanity already possesses well-developed principles for valuing the future, in which case EFI will uncover and strengthen them. But even if a widespread moral consensus about the future does not yet exist, that is not cause for despair, as history shows that even deeply held tenets are amenable to change. Examples that seemed radical when they began are the end of slavery, the recognition of women’s rights and suffrage, and the growing recognition (now) of gay rights. If new values for the future are needed, leadership by the Earth Futures Institute can inspire their creation.
