We want to continue this discussion of a living cosmology by exploring ethics in an age of extinction. What does this require of us? Well, a broadened ethics is clearly coming into play around the world, an expansion of ethics if you will. A more inclusive ethics of minority people, of women, of various ethnicities. And this sense that actually an Earth ethics is also emerging. For decades, the last three decades at least, maybe four, these have been at play. And now we're even seeing a cosmological ethics. What does it mean to be part of a universe story? So the care for the community of life is becoming more and more central, humans and the Earth, and a comprehensive compassion is what we're hoping will be evoked by a journey of the universe. Now let me tell you a story where this became very clear to us. In 1998, we went to The Natural History Museum to say, can we have a conference that would bring together the religions and philosophies of the world towards a more inclusive environmental ethics? And the provost, Mike Novacek, said, yes, we want you here. We said, "why?" He said, because we've just had a search for ornithologists, curators, for people who specialize in birds. And of the six finalist PhD candidates, four of them had their birds go extinct while they were studying them. He said this was a wake up call for the museum. So they began to make some changes in terms of making people more aware of how they were part of this universe story. They created the Hall of the Universe, The Rose Center, which is spectacular as you see it from Central Park. This luminous, beautiful cube with the universe and planets inside. And what one does was, one goes through a dome or they have an explosion of the big bang, the great flaring forth. And then you walk down this great spiral staircase and every footstep, several hundred million years, to get the feeling of deep time, of 10 billion years. Ultimately there is the emergence of the universe, stars, galaxies, planets, solar systems, and then the Earth 4.6 billion years. And at the end of the spiral staircase that you're walking down, they have one human hair under glass and it says, this is all of human history. Now, we're only 200,000 years old as a human species, but it gives us the sense of where we have come from in deep time. It's an extraordinary experience to take this walk. They also developed the Hall of the Earth, which gives us the sense of the living planet, the living systems that are so special that as far as we know, don't exist on other planets. Between the rocky planets and the gaseous planets they show us plate tectonics which took 50 years for scientists to understand this, to accept it, and so on thanks to Wegener and his theory. And they show us as well the deep sea vents in the seas, the ocean, in the bottom of the ocean where perhaps life emerged. It's a magnificent and dynamic hall. As well, they created Hall of Biodiversity. which opened in 1998, All of this was especially in response to this issue of extinction. It's marvelous to see young children look up at this wall of great diversity of insects and reptiles and fish and birds and mammals. And on one side of this hall, they have examples of the destruction, loss of ecosystems and species. And on the other of restoration, restoration ecology. What scientists and ecologists are trying to do to restore wetlands, river lined areas, forests and so on. So the notion then, is that we're revising our role as humans. The American Museum of Natural History (in the Hayden Planetarium) says we are citizens of the universe and actually give people a passport that, after you go through that spiral staircase. They say the Earth charter gives us this notion we're members of the Earth community. And in the Papal encyclical of Pope Francis, the notion is kinship that embraces humans and nature, just as Saint Francis had that idea, and so have indigenous people throughout the millennium. Now the power then of an integral story is that we understand the story through the sciences, through astronomy, through physics, through geology, biology, botany, chemistry. All the way down to the cell all the way up to the stars and galaxies. But then we're weaving the story through the humanities, through history, through anthropology, through a sense of how humans have lived within these systems over time. And then we're reflecting on the story through religion, through ethics, through philosophy. In other words, we are meaning-making animals, and science gives us the facts and the context. The humanities give us a sense of our role, our place, and what can we contribute to this magnificent life journey. So the goals then of Journey of the Universe is an integrating story to answer, or at least reflect upon, the timeless questions, where do I come from? Where am I going? The invitation here is clearly not to answer these in any definitive way, but to suggest that kind of conversation is what makes us human. It is what inspires us to do the work, to have families that are integrated into larger societies, societies integrated into countries in meaningful and cooperative ways. So this story is something that will enhance the deep conversations and questions that humans have had throughout the ages. So the biggest question perhaps is how can humans become a mutually-enhancing presence for the Earth community? This is how Thomas Berry phrased it, mutually-enhancing presence for the Earth community. Not a destructive presence, not a violent presence, but of creative and cooperative presence. Now we are aware, then, of our relatedness to the cosmos and the Earth. We have a common evolutionary heritage. We have fraternity with all life. This care for the flourishing of people and planet is beginning to emerge in greater and deeper forms around the planet. We know that we have come from this starburst, the stardust– these are our ancestors. This helped shape the galaxies, the stars that inspire us today. Our own solar system, the understanding of how far we are from the sun, is just right for the conditions of life. This notion of our planet and our moon in a special relationship of atmosphere, of water, of soils, of air, these conditions that emerged over billions of years. This lava, living planet, without this we would not have created, the Earth itself would not have created, the life forms that we know today. And that sense that inspires us. The Milky Way. That we're in a galactic of formation. That we just have glimpses of. And we know that there are millions of galaxies. Billions out there now that we didn't even know. Our grandparents didn't even know the size and scale of the universe, of which we are only getting a glimpse. This has created magnificent and diverse ecosystems. The up-rise of mountains, the Himalayas, the Rocky Mountains, and especially that collision of plate tectonics that created the Himalayas, the largest mountains in the world. The incredible diversity of these conscious beings who share the planet with us. Their consciousness is different of course, but their sense of communicating, their sense of migrating patterns, their sense of gathering food and so on, are things that we're beginning to see and appreciate new ways. Again, earlier peoples understood this well. The beauty and the sense of urgency of preserving enough land and places for these animals to exist to carry on their magnificent life. The fish, how will we keep our oceans clean for coral reefs and the variety of fish that still dwell there? The bird life and understanding how they communicate with song, with bird dance, with mating dances, with the formation of nests. And creating communities of life for the next generation. And finally, the splendid diversity of people on every continent yearning to be part of a story that gives them sense of their role, their purpose, their place. We know that the oceans, perhaps life came out of the oceans, but that tremendous connection we have between land and oceans, between water and people, that we belong here. We've always belonged here. This is how Journey of the Universe ends, with that sense of our deep sense of ancestry and of belonging. And here's how Albert Einstein puts this. "A human being is part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He or she experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Einstein, who had that tremendous sense of comprehensive compassion that we're aspiring to in our times as well. Thank you. [MUSIC]
