Homeland Earth 3 - The Earth in crisis

This is the fourth essay of a series on the book “Homeland Earth” by Edgar Morin, and part of a larger series on The predicament -and hope- of mankind. Better read in order.

Are there problems of problems? meta problems? problems of "the second order"? Yes there are, and the third chapter of Homeland Earth is dedicated to exploring some of those: widespread, deep and sometimes invisible problems that need to be solved before or at the same time that other problems are solved.

Homeland Earth 2 - Citizens of the Earth

(for those navigating straight here… this is the fourth essay on a series dealing with The Predicament and Hope of Mankind)

In this second chapter of the book, Edgar Morin follows the development of Science as it discovers the origin and development of the Cosmos, the Earth, the biosphere and finally Us humans. Then he calls for a universal recognition of the anthropological unity of all human beings, whatever diverse their culture or development.

The predicament -and hope- of Mankind

Welcome back my faithful readers =) Bienvenidos de regreso mis cuatro lectores =).

Over the summer I happened to read a series of books that nicely complement each other into an either tragic or hopeful sequence.

In 1972, it was published the famous report: “The limits to growth: a report to the Club of Rome project on The Predicament of Mankind”. It described World3, the name of a [Systems Dynamics] model of the planet and humanity. The authors used the model to analyze several possible future scenarios for the Earth and its inhabitants up to 2100. Some of these scenarios ended in a planetary collapse due to pretended infinite growth in a finite planet;  some were hopeful but required difficult changes to world politics and institutions. I borrow part of the sub-title of that book for a series of essays that partly deal with this topic: the predicament of Mankind, including some dashes of hope...