GLOBAL MINDSET

“To operate effectively 

at the world level is still 

in some way peculiar and unlikely. 

The Planet is not yet the centre 

of rational loyalty for all humankind.

But it is precisely this shift of loyalty 

 a profound and deepening sense 

of our shared and inter-dependent bio-sphere 

can stir to life in us. 

That people can experience 

such transformations is not in doubt. 

From family to clan, from clan to nation, 

nation to federation – such enlargements 

of allegiance have occurred 

without wiping out earlier loves. 

Today, in human society, 

we can yet hope to survive 

in all our prized diversity 

provided we can achieve an ultimate loyalty

to our single, beautiful and vulnerable Planet Earth. 

Alone in space, alone in its life supporting systems, powered by inconceivable energies, 

mediating them to us through the most delicate adjustments, wayward, unlikely, unpredictable, 

but nourishing, enlivening and enriching 

in the largest degree 

is this not a precious home for all of us earthlings?

Is it not worth our love? 

Does it not deserve all the inventiveness, 

courage, generosity of which we are capable 

to preserve it from degradation and destruction 

thus to secure our own survival*”

 [* NB Salvation, in the theological sense, not salvation, had been the original word used by one consultant in urging the editors that the great perspective be not lost in recording the detailed responses from 167 contributing scientists]   

From ‘Only One Earth – The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet’ Barbara Ward and René Dubois 1972