[Humankind has] not done so very badly. We have already managed to drop a lot of the baggage we were carrying from our long past, but some of it is very hard to get rid of: tribalism, for example, which normalises war but is also the social glue that holds most societies together. On the other hand, we have created new institutions that bind very large numbers of people together democracy, universal education, mass media and even some more-or-less functional institutions. In terms of what we would need to pass the final exam and qualify for the long term, we are clearly acquiring some of the essential tools. The exam is not over. We’re not doomed yet.
Gwynne Dyer, concluding paragraph of Intervention Earth, his most recent book.
Dr. Gwynne Dyer is a Canadian journalist, syndicated columnist, and military historian. This quotation is the final paragraph of his recent book, entitled Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World’s Climate Engineers.
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