The challenge is a great one, for the future of human life on Earth is in the balance. When the premises of economics were laid down, little was known about the Earth or our relationship to it. We were, in fundamental ways, separate from everything else, of a loftier cast. These basic ideas about Earth and ourselves have fuelled economics and brought us into the present crisis on the planet. That crisis, like the negative result of an experiment, calls these ideas into question.
Modern science has a new story about the Earth.
The universe is believed to have originated in a gigantic explosion some 20 billion years ago, and to have evolved to its present state of complexity through gradual changes. The Earth has been evolving for 5 billion years, complex forms emerging from simpler. The planet has done all this without any help from us. If the whole 5 billion years of evolution is plotted on the course of a single day, human beings arrive on the planet at 11 seconds to midnight . We are the newcomer here, who does not know its rightful place.