Planetary Civilization
Decisive Decades
The journey of planetary transition has begun and we can discern its initial direction. But its destination remains in our hands. In the interregnum between what was and what will be, we face ominous threats. Climate change, ecosystem impoverishment, and toxification threaten the environment. The global economic and financial system accretes helter-skelter, ungoverned and volatile. A crowded world is cleaved by cultural, social and political fissures. As known dangers intensify, others still unnamed and unknown may be germinating. These portents darken the prospects for our nascent planetary civilization. Acting synergistically, they could gather into a true calamity: a general global crisis. If we fail to mitigate destabilizing stresses, we risk sliding into a nightmare scenario: a mean and impoverished global future. The hour grows late, but we still have time to cultivate the values and take the actions, as global citizens and stewards of Earth, for a transition to the planetary civilization our children deserve.