A Different Perspective

I just, a few minutes ago, started reading Al Gore's latest book, Our Choice. Something that he wrote in it inspired a very different reaction from me than I'm sure was intended. Here's the passage:

"Moreover, we should feel a sense of joy that those of us alive today have a rare privilege that few generations in history have known: the chance to undertake an historic mission worthy of our best efforts." (pg 15)

Mr Gore goes on to write optimistically about our role in changing the current course of global devastation. But I found a much more depressing image forming in my mind as I read the start of that quoted sentence above.

Specifically, I wondered about this cycle of evolution that sees one species dominate the rest eventually, on the strength of some advantage that ultimately leads to one form or another of intelligence. Is it possible that it's an inevitable outcome of that cycle that the hyper-adaptive species always ends up destroying its own ecosystem once it has the power to do so and no natural predator to forcibly divert it from that path? Is this perhaps essentially a natural law, like the gravitational force exerted by objects upon one another or the speed at which light travels? Or, to pick a more commonplace example, are we simply in the late stages of a birth/life/death sequence of events, but on a larger scale than we're used to thinking along?

It was the word "privilege" in Mr Gore's description above that made my mind go in this direction. After all, if we really are in the final century or so of a scenario that's been brewing for millions of years now, then aren't we - in a perverse way - pretty lucky to be able to witness the conclusion of it? Thanks to Science we know a lot of the story leading up to now (moreso for the period most recently behind us, admittedly). But, unlike the billions of humans who preceded us, we also have both a pretty good idea of how it's going to end and possibly a front row seat to those dramatic events. Granted, that's a pessimistic and depressing thought, but isn't it also a pretty privileged position to be in? Maybe ignorance is bliss in a case like this, but it's still ignorance. Knowing has to be worth something, in the end... doesn't it?