Thanks to ecobuddhism.org.
Jeremy Rifkin contends that we are at a seminal turning point in human history and that the coming decades will determine our future survival on Earth. He argues that a sustainable, post-carbon Third Industrial Revolution must be quickly adopted in every country if we are to avert a catastrophic change in the climate of the Earth. However, new technologies and business models alone will not be sufficient to address the enormity of the crisis facing the human race. What we need is a change in human consciousness itself.
Rifkin believes that the global discussion must move beyond market incentives and government sanctions, codes and standards. In order to address the triple threat of the economic crisis, energy security and climate change, we must rethink human nature itself and reconceptualize the meaning of the human journey.
Human empathy is beginning to extend to all of life in the biosphere, giving rise – for the first time in history – to the prospect of truly global consciousness. The irony is that just as we are beginning to glimpse the possibility of global empathic consciousness, we find ourselves close to our own extinction. Can we reach global empathy in time to avoid the collapse of civilization and save the biosphere?
