Among the dearth of documentary films descending on us lately is a remarkable gem entitled “In the Shadow of the Moon”, which tells the story of America’s Apollo moon missions from the points of view of the men who served on them. Only 24 humans have had the experience of seeing the Earth from the vantage point of another world and it is clear that they were not only deeply affected, but in some cases transformed by what they saw. Jim Lovell, flight commander of the heroic Apollo 13, comments that when he held out his hand, the Earth was so small it disappeared behind his thumb. Apollo 14 astronaut, Edgar Mitchell, became a speaker on the fledgling New Age circuit in the early 1980’s, so moved was he by the “ecstasy” of seeing our tiny blue globe. But the most poignant observation comes from Michael Collins of the famed Apollo 11 moon landing who, alone in the command module, looked out the window at his home planet and reflected, “That little thing is so fragile out there”. His eyes widen with an almost childlike wonder as he speaks this vision into the camera.

Mind you, these are professional military pilots talking, not a gaggle of hippies swaying to the rhythm of hallucinogenic bliss. Something profound altered these men and gave them a bigger picture of the human race and its challenges. Nearly forty years later, that fragile little thing, our earth, is facing a major crisis as its dominant species (us) has some serious decisions to make. I am not referring to global warming which is way past the point of needing to be proven. Still, I don’t use the term, “Saving the Earth”, preferring instead “Saving Our Butts”. The Earth is three billion years old and has seen greater catastrophes than climate change. The worst that can happen is the extinction of the human race which, like the mighty dinosaurs that once reigned supreme and unchallenged, might prove itself equally incapable of sustained survival. With humans gone, the planet will begin a long, slow process of recovery that might take several thousands of years. No problem; the Earth is a patient organism. It can wait.

But we can’t. The challenge we face is that humanity can no longer afford war. After millennia of lies, greed, stupidity and violence, we have reached the point where war and planetary sustainability can no longer co-exist. Currently, the world collectively spends over a trillion dollars a year (that’s $1,000,000,000,000) on weapons of self-destruction, excluding America’s extra expenditure for the oil war in Iraq. I use this term “self-destruction” deliberately because no matter how you spin it, members of the same species are killing themselves. Imagine if you saw a herd of elephants bludgeoning each other to death with their trunks. You’d be stunned speechless and wonder, “How can they do this to each other? What’s wrong with them!?” Likewise, if you knew of a family that ran around their home shooting at each other instead of fixing the leaky roof or the crumbling porch, you’d rightly assume they were stark raving nuts.

There is always and will always be an excuse for war. We are forever killing for Freedom, God, Country, the People, the Flag; all the bright shining lies that have been sustained over the centuries. But if our image of the warrior was once the noble and manly defender of a worthy cause, the current picture is that of some half-starved African ten-year-old, armed with a machete and an AK-47. There is no longer any glory or honor to warfare, only suffering. Some kind of primal madness seems to have taken hold of us as if people are now killing each other for the sheer sake of shedding blood.

But aside from the human cost, the trillions of dollars annually wasted on war counteracts our ability to feed ourselves or to keep our systems and infrastructure functioning. And so, humanity must carefully choose whether it spends its limited time, talent and resources on self-destruction or self-preservation. It’s one or the other. We can no longer do both.

Although the United States is the main culprit in terms of military spending (no nation comes close to us in this regard), war and violence are global issues. Local progressives might think America is the sole source of planetary strife but this is untrue. Most of the conflicts of the past twenty years (including the horrors of Sierra Leone, Bosnia, and Rwanda) had nothing to do with sinister corporate-CIA plots. As far as the so-called War on Terror (so-called because the real culprits hail from our “allies”, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, not Iraq), you could take that yearly trillion and give every would-be terrorist a million bucks, a McMansion and a Lexus and the war would be over in a day. But the current crisis over the scarcity of food and drinkable water is a warning that desperation and hunger could spawn a generation of terrorists faster than any religious ideology. As Bob Marley once warned, “A hungry man is an angry man”. How do you think that anger is going to be channeled?

The few times I’ve lectured to high school students, I’ve told them that by the time they’re my age, the world they know; the systems and thought patterns of politics, religion and society; will be drastically transformed. I suggest they should keep their eyes open and become a participant in that change instead of just bystanders (or victims). There is no doubt in my mind that the world will be undergoing a radical transformation for the next hundred years or so. Whether it’s a transformation towards global cooperation or global self-destruction remains to be seen. It’s all a matter of choice. Our fate on that fragile little thing depends on making the right one.