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"Throughout our history, we humans have been driven by the goal of a better life, driven to reach a level of major achievement. As such, the liberal world order established by the United States a little over seven decades ago, has been a long period of prosperity, widespread democracy, and peace among the great powers - a dramatic departure from the historical norm.

"Today, with the tremendous advances made thus far, we humans may have exhausted much further opportunity - with the liberal world order established by the United States collapsing. But it was always artificial and tenuous, challenged from without and within by natural forces - the always potent antiliberal aspects of human nature and the competitive and anarchic tendencies of geopolitics. We may have exploited beyond its capacity to recover: the atmosphere, the oceans, freshwater, topsoil, and biodiversity.

"Scientific research demands a new civilizational paradigm, one grounded in respect for natural cycles of renewal. If humanity is going to survive this crisis, it will do so because it has exercised its capacity for human freedom, through social struggle, in order to create a whole new world of coevolution with the planet. We humans must act now to avoid extinction."