"Mankind has moved so far out of sync with natural cycles that our extinction may be close"

• This is my personal opinion
• It is a biased view
• It is based on what I observe

(If you think the title’s a radical statement, confirm this widely held view by reading a website such as Population Matters, which Sir David Attenborough supports).

The way humans apply our consciousness is our ultimate driver, and it underlies the contemporary state of human beings – the architects of ecological decline planet-wide. I have called my observation the Human Application of Consciousness.

The root issue behind my concern is how humans apply our consciousness. We have learned to apply it for creating favourable outcomes. Whether consciously or unconsciously, humans invest effort in searching for answers: Why am I here? What should my relationship with my surroundings be? What can I do to make this interaction as good as possible?

The way humans apply our own consciousness, from surface level to the deepest levels, explains why much of human activity on earth has developed into its present state. The Human Application of Consciousness has positive impacts, including the widespread and diverse ways in which people help each other, although this piece focuses on its more numerous negative ones.

It seems most issues relating to the Human Application of Consciousness revolve around global population. For instance, applying consciousness makes women think “it’s my human right to have a child – only one; it won’t make any difference”, and thereby populate the globe. The scientific community generally agrees that the human population cannot continue increasing at its current rate. But since reducing our population is not an option to most, we are effectively wasting energy and resources in a determined fight to pin-point a way of allowing indefinite human expansion and resource use, while the limitations and solution are evident.

Humans’ stubborn adherence to entrenched values, which prioritises our welfare at any cost, is forcing life down a narrow, fault-prone trajectory. Our refusal to accept this is the wrong way forward is evident by our prominent “party now, die later” attitude.

There is enough awareness to challenge the status quo, although the dominant thinking forcibly justifies itself through lavish displays of reassurance to the public. Without a consolidated movement to slow the trend or steer it off its current course, society will continue apprehensively down the path of supposed endless development and accompanying pollution. Many will be dragged along, helplessly, and may not ever know why this has to be the status quo. Short-term gratification we receive will continue to push society beyond the warning signs of imminent collapse – such as shrinking food and fresh water supplies, and the worldwide “party” will almost certainly accelerate itself into complete destruction.

We welcome innovation to tap every possible means of enabling our systems to persist. It appears the “need to feel worthy” is a key driver in fuelling wasteful and senseless consumerism by using dwindling fossil fuels ever-faster, which is an apocalyptic catalyst. We continue to deny our dance with disaster.

Modern society has lost touch with the prime reasons for living. The way we see life is symptomatic of our modern warped mentality. Instead of learning from nature, our priorities are to enslave, modify and destroy it. Through history, even those among the wisest of governors have flailed in such pursuits.

Along with a modified sense of what should be normal, we have largely lost our depth of meaning. In the distant past, the meaning of life was related to learning and exploring. In the recent past, societies began replacing their search for an understanding of their immediate surroundings with a need to find fulfilment of other sorts. These days, society has become obsessed with experiencing ultimate gratifications. We have become shallow; the opposite of how past societies lived. A good example is the belief that consumerism – which brings profit - can be intensified unevenly across the planet by increasing the population, no matter what the consequences of doing so could have on any natural cycles.

Increasing numbers of people support replacing this trend with a more balanced path. The numbers required are randomly dispersed, so nations cannot easily escape the present trajectory because established systems are deeply rooted.

Humans may be fixated on progress and achievement because our thoughts are triggered by stimuli in our surroundings, and from within us. These make us aware and we begin to question our reason for being alive. Since this question is arguably measurable, is this the reason we want to achieve; to experience that answer through consciously applying our own efforts?

Controlling much of the earth with a “people before nature” policy is changing the way natural earth processes function. Long-term cycles of “humans win, nature loses” events are emerging, creating a broad foundation for pre-determined anti-nature outcomes such as climate change.

Perhaps humans were never engineered to progress further than the present, making our society the apex of civilisation. In that case, attempts to prolong the inevitable shutdown of our species through a wide range of developments are futile. If not, the key to repairing things revolves around a shift in the drivers of human consciousness away from our “me first” focus. People need to understand that our role should be contained; we ought to be only one of numerous sizeable influences on the earth.

The overall sense is one of absolute denial that the current system of consciousness is able to, or needs to, change. Peoples’ lives are generally guided by such thinking as if it is the default. This is resulting in the powerful elite using brute determination to control contemporary consciousness, even though its existence may be finite and could be advancing to its end. The system keeps going while the biodiversity we need is disappearing because it is often too difficult to succeed at the precision-like accuracy needed to complete a paradigm shift of any real significance.

Many species have survived for long periods because they develop and behave in ways which sync with the heartbeat of the earth. Humans flit from advance to advance, out of synchronisation with planetary cycles, constantly trying to outwit entrenched natural systems. The more we advance, the more we are underpinning our global society on only a few favourable probabilities such as a pleasant climate, enough energy and healthy food. Our random flairs of development and change leave us vulnerable to being struck by a natural cycle, to our detriment, because we do not consider all possible impacts before leaping.

Processes which keep humans alive work mostly at level A. Our society is fixated on operating at the highest level possible, level C. This is maximising our distance from the natural-state processes and systems we rely on. People are becoming increasingly at risk of a random problem happening along the lengthening lifeline between our natural roots and where we are placing ourselves. We are stretching this irreplaceable lifeline to its extreme limits with a sense of self-congratulating, even though we cannot survive if we get separated from it.

When advanced man-made environmental problems begin to change planetary life systems, I believe collapse of human society will come swiftly and irreversibly.

The Human Application of Consciousness, it seems, is too deeply rooted to change. This increases the likelihood of complete collapse of earth life systems - a situation which humans are creating and approaching ever-faster in our misguided attempts to rise to the maximum level of self-fulfilment.

Despite my humble attempts to be a part of pro-sustainability trends, I remain a firm believer that there is a very high chance humans will be extinct by the Western calendar’s year 2100, having succumbed to fatal self-induced stimuli through the Human Application of Consciousness.

This view is cautiously mirrored in the BBC film ‘How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?’ by Sir David Attenborough.

Even though the outlook for our survival seems slim, people like you can help change this trajectory. One way is to engage others who can highlight appropriate messages. Communication and education are powerful tools, and I use them in my world record-breaking to great effect, for example:

• Worldwide children’s magazine links to conservation
• Healthy eating in action
• Springboard for some recent ‘hugging’ events
• A simple recycling reference
• Mass media for Down Syndrome
• International media getting behind a social issue

All the above events were successfully undertaken on moderate budgets. I believe in quoting reasonably where my team and I are able to contribute to the greater good. Media is an excellent conduit for important messages. Add a world record attempt, and you’ve got a proven formula to begin working with.

You can also join an organisation with a good track record. Learn what changes we need to make. And if you are asked to invest in activities which are not part of a sustainable future, make sure you investigate!

Got a comment? You’re free to email me.

Visit my blog to read more about
why the planet needs media attention.

Thanks to the following for their advice and contributions:
• Population Matters
• Professor İbrahim Özdemir
• Muriel Capper
• Adjunct Professor Marc Weiss
• Professor Noam Chomsky

Support received:
• Dr Kate Evans
• Chandran Nair