I am, as I hope you will have gathered by now, an optimist. I do not envisage the death of Gaia, the Earth system, in the immediate future, either through human folly or otherwise. It can sustain human life for a good while yet, and human life can be the catalyst for Gaian survival in the much longer term. But there is one snag. The system cannot sustain the present level of human population for very much longer. The future world may be a better place, but getting to there from here will not be easy, and we will not all make the journey.

From James Lovelock’s A Rough Ride to the Future, New York: The Overlook Press, 2015, p. 169.

Addendum (June 5, 2016)

Lovelock’s last book was a bit too soft for my taste, I must admit. Although I understand our age difference, which adds up to no less than twenty-seven years, I still expected a bit more punch from him. In retrospect, though, this paragraph says it all, albeit in the gentlest words imaginable. Most important, it points at the source of all our troubles at this day and age—the size of human population. Which is why I plucked this particular paragraph from the book, it goes without saying. Besides, it was the last one in what is likely to be his last book. To be sure, he paid a good deal of attention to every word and every sentence of this terse paragraph. To his credit, it counts no more than one-hundred and four words. My belated apologies and heartfelt congratulations!