Evolution is inherently optimistic

The following is an excerpt from an essay I wrote called "A Balance Sheet for Humanity." I think it states succinctly a few reasons why optimism is fully warranted.

We are, to be sure, still evolving, and that evolution is being shaped by what we have already learned and, assuming we manage to continue, will be shaped by what new things we discover and how we respond to them. We know now that we have done some serious damage to our home and to our fellow creatures. We have been disregardful of how much our lives are intertwined with the other biota on Earth, how much they do to keep the Earth habitable, which is the single greatest discovery made by self-organizing energy transducers - not energy consumers, because energy cannot really be consumed. Whether the damage we have done is irreparable remains to be seen, but we do know that if we do not mend our ways and employ our big brains more comprehensively and comprehendingly, we will ineluctably pass that threshold.

Our blind iniquities and inequities may produce a biological Armageddon and end our life sentence with a full stop, a punctuated disequilibrium that will bless only the unaware biota who manage to survive. Does it really matter whether the current effects of global warming and the poisoning of our, soil, our water, and our air-ocean are exaggerated? I hope they are, because that could buy us just the time we need to make our human activities ecologically sound. Those people with vested interests in making money by avoiding the costs of their pollution and destruction clamor loudly to drown public discourse in noise and disinformation. Environmentalists who clamor loudly to counter them add to the noise. Many people who are unsure simply stop listening.

That can actually be a good first step. Stop listening to the clamor and just look frankly at what has been happening to the planet consequent to our activities. Economics is about how we manage to live on the planet. Unbridled and ill-thought pursuit of wealth unbalances our truly economic co-existence. I am not against wealth, but I am against the destructive consequences of its unbridled pursuit.