Human Impact on Nature in the Aquarian Age

ritual and religious instruments; cultivating vegetables and selecting them for their nutritional or even aesthetic characteristics; raising, domesticating and training animals for the most diverse purposes. In synthesis, Man modifies Nature through his own possibilities and according to his own needs. In the Age of Aquarius, however, we witness a significant change in the possibility provided to Man to modify the Kingdoms of Nature. Currently, human energy production is about one third of Earth's geothermal energy production and one eighth of the energy production from photosynthesis of the entire biosphere: Man's action on Nature is no longer a negligible action.²²⁵ Everything suggests that for another century these values will continue to increase until they stabilize. In the Age of Aquarius, Man has had access to the use of some forces of Nature to derive energy that can be used. In this sense, he has resorted to exploiting all four elements present in Nature: wind energy, solar energy, hydroelectric power, fossil fuels and geothermal energy. If before he exploited Earth's gravitational energy through the motion of rivers and water currents, then he focused on energy obtainable through electrochemical reactions. Finally, the need for ever greater energy sources has pushed him to use the energy source typical of stars, nuclear fusion, which he will be able to make increasingly accessible and manageable in the near future. As the need for energy supply will no longer be a problem for Man, the real problem he must face will become increasingly evident. If access to ever greater energy sources increases Man's Power and possibilities; such increase in power makes his own lack of Wisdom increasingly evident and the necessity to advance in his acquisition. With the increase in human energy needs, Man's impact on the various Kingdoms of Nature will rapidly increase. Man is already producing and will increasingly produce new minerals and new materials²²⁶ with characteristic properties increasingly suited to his needs. Ultimately, his action on the Mineral Kingdom is expressed by providing machines with a form of elementary consciousness capable of helping Man in his work and which, in many aspects, will increasingly merge with him. If for thousands of years Man has selected plants and crops so that they are increasingly resistant and nutritious; now Man can directly and rapidly modify the genetic heritage of plants, making them small chemical laboratories under his control and thus acting directly on the Vegetable Kingdom. Similar actions occur on animals and it is plausible to think that they will also occur on humans. Man's possibility to act on the Kingdoms of Nature does not represent something qualitatively new; nor, in itself, does it identify something morally good or bad. Man possesses, at least partially, the authority and capacity to modify the terrestrial ecosystem because this capacity is inherent to his purpose. However, at this historical moment, it also represents something potentially deadly due to the speed with which such action can unfold. The energy that previously could be released by Man over centuries is now consumed in a few minutes; changes that previously could be achieved in millennia of genetic selection can today be performed in a few months; atmospheric imbalances, global warming, marine pollution, irreversible alterations of the terrestrial ecosystem, are under our eyes...