What needs to be done?

Because being expelled from Earth is not in the interest of mankind, measures are already being considered, worldwide, to secure our planet’s habitability, now and in future. In principle, we have two alternatives to choose from:

1.      Refrain from any further intervention into the Earth system and trust on the self-healing capacity of Gaia.

2.      Take any possible efforts to guide the healing process in a direction that hopefully lead to restoration and consolidation of conditions favorable for mankind to survive.

In either case we have to understand that we deal with an extremely complex system consisting of a wired variety of components, properties, and processes. Taking the time constant in perspective, measures put in action today may show its effects, positive or negative, only after years, decades, even centuries, and it may be difficult, even impossible in the future to correct the detrimental effects caused by wrong decisions made today.

Under these conditions, the decision makers of today carry a tremendous and unprecedented responsibility for mankind on Earth. Science is obliged to make available and understandable the knowledge necessary to draw the right decisions. Thus, scientists carry responsibility as well.