As the beauty of the world drains away, we become less than human in the long run.
Ecology — living relationships and reliances — may be the only concept containing sufficient scope for a future worth humanly living. Ecology is most easily perceived by this shorthand: natural beauty. Each of our senses has ways of informing us what is good and bad. Our sense of smell evolved to sense things good for us as smelling pleasant and bad as smelling putrid. Our mind evolved the ability to combine all our sense into one overall detector of what is good in the world, and that best overarching sense is what we call “beauty.” As the beauty of the world drains away, we become less than human in the long run. And part of the long run is now.