“Human cultures are not individuals. They cannot be expected to make rational decisions, understand risks, anticipate the future, or even make choices that make sense in terms of the planet as a whole, ecology, or expectations related to personal behavior. The idea that such things can be litigated is, at least in my perspective, insane.

But there are certain facts that individuals and groups can become aware of and/or concerned about. And these individuals and groups are capable of forming rational orientations, organizing, and taking action.

This preface was forged to introduce a simple fact that some individuals and groups may become aware of and oriented to prepare for, or, perhaps, ameliorate. That fact is this: Earth’s ecologies and the homeostasis upon which animal life depends are delicate. They cannot sustain the geometrically increasing burden of catastrophic intrusions and compromises that modern human activities enforce.

Everyone understands that water turns to ice in a way that is referred to as a change in phase state. This change is radical and sudden. Earth has undergone a variety of these changes over evolutionary history; many were the result of catastrophic events such as near-earth object impacts, volcanism, or sudden methane release. Human activity has set the stage for a variety of risks, many of which may result in a shockingly fast phase-state change of our environment. Life as we know it is unlikely to survive any such change, and it can happen in a week, or a month, or a year. Nations and collectives, because they are not individuals and are only marginally intelligent as groups, are incapable of responding to these threats. In fact, they are likely to continue to catalyze and exacerbate them.

For this reason it falls to us as individuals, to forge the intelligence necessary to guide and correct our collectives. If we prove unable or unwilling to do this together, we should expect that history will record the results in death tolls that are far beyond what we expect or consider possible.

The anciently conserved ecologies of earth, the plants and animals, the oceans and waters of our world are unimaginably precious and delicate. They were, prior to our industrialization, robust and seemingly permanent. This is no longer the case. What we now face, not just as a species but as a world, is an array of threats far greater than anything usually suggested even in science-fiction. And it is in this context we must redefine and reorganize our humanity, our cultures, our purposes… and the possibility of human intelligence. Now. Because we have traveled far past the tipping point, and are now in a situation where… in many simultaneous dimensions… we are in free-fall… toward futures that cannot be called futures. They are graveyards… and the planet will most certainly and directly demonstrate the costs of the unimaginable hubris and ignorance our species has and continues to demonstrate. Not in the distant future… but within our own lifetimes.”

— an anonymous informant