What is our ecological niche?

Some people argue that human beings don't just require food. Rather, they need a sustainable ecological niche. Here we find yet another capitalist dogma. Yes, people – and indeed every living creature – requires a congenial (beneficial) environment (ecological niche). But do people need a sustainable environment? Obviously not. For better or worse, the vast majority of people never even think about what type of environment they are passing on to their children and their children's children. If there is no air to breathe today, people feel need. If there may not be air to breathe twenty years from now, people might feel a slight twinge of fear, but they won't feel need.

Let's say that 100 years from now - all things being equal (which is, of course, never the case) – there will not be enough food for the projected population at that time. Would the human race commit collective suicide for that reason? Would the human race become extinct because of a hypothetical future condition?

The simple fact is that sustainability is largely a fiction... especially nowadays when much of what is consumed comes with planned or inevitable rapid obsolescence. It's comforting to know that when a product one relies on is no longer available, a replacement product – possibly improved – will be available in its stead. But the transition often requires a more expanded vision. For example, today we mostly conceive of the surface of planet Earth as humanity's ecological niche. Tomorrow, we may expand our vision and our lifestyle to include the floor of the oceans and the whole of Earth's atmosphere in our ecological niche. And soon thereafter, we may embrace the solar system or even the cosmos as our ecological niche.