Elisabet Sahtouris

Elisabet Sahtouris is an evolutionary biologist. She wrote a couple of great books, From Chaos to Cosmos  and From Stardust to Us. They trace  human existence from the 'Big Bang' into contemporary times.  

Elisabet Sahtouris's  take on where humanity is headed is pragmatic and not terribly optimistic.

Elisabet Sahtouris

I had the good fortune of visiting with her on the phone once.  This was when my book,  The Hydrogen Age was coming out.  Elisabet wrote a much appreciated blurb for the liner notes for that book.

When I spoke with Elisabet, I asked if she thought there was any chance that human civilization could extract itself from the wicked tailspin it seems to be in. 

In essence what she told me was this... 'Even if humanity as we know it,  destroys itself entirely,  it's much less likely that all of the earth's plants and animals  will die as well. At least some will survive, and in the cosmological time frame - a hundred thousand; a million; ten million years from now - the planet will be fine. New lifeforms will evolve; new forms of intelligence will emerge,  and maybe they will learn from the planetary scale miscalculations that are pressing contemporary human culture to the brink.'

Elisabet Sahtouris is a very wise person. Her vision for the future is sobering, but it makes a lot of sense.  One thing is certain.  If we do end up wrecking the biosphere, extinguishing ourselves in the process, we will have only ourselves to blame.

Here is a link to Elisabet Sahtouris's very engaging webpage  http://www.sahtouris.com/