Visions of Sustainability

Humans are amidst a transition from the relatively stable Holocene to a new, uncertain epoch, the Anthropocene, in which planetary-scale changes are resulting from the wholesale conversion of the Earth into fleeting economic wealth. Humankind has only approached this scale of change two times in human history—during the Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. These two revolutions transformed the way humans lived and gave them the power to alter the Earth. Unlike the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, however, the story of this third revolution is not fully written. The conclusion will depend on the decisions and actions that humans alive today make throughout their lives.