The Ecological Age

This quotation from Thomas Berry’s The Dream of the Earth is of the utmost importance:

“Presently we are entering another historical period. one that might be designated as the ecological age. I use the term ecological in its primary meaning as the relationship of an organism to its environment, but also as an indication of the interdependence of all the living and nonliving systems of Earth. This vision of a planet integral with itself throughout its spatial extent and its evolutionary sequence is of primary importance if we are to have the psychic importance to undergo the psychic and social transformations that are being demanded of us. These transformations require the assistance of the entire planet, not merely the forces available to the human. It is not simply adaptation to a reduced supply of fuels or to some modification of our systems of social or economic controls. Nor is it some slight change in our education system. What is happening is something of a far greater magnitude. It is a radical change in our mode of consciousness. Our challenge is to create a new language, even a new sense of what it is to be human. It is to transcend. not only national limitations, but even our species isolation, to enter into the larger community of living species. This brings about a completely new sense of reality and value.