Civilization is one example of biological life, which simply happened in ways it could on this planet. That’s one summary of our existential lot, quite at odds with the myths indulged over the ages concerning our origin, nature, and destiny. People have always had a story to account for their existence, for the world around them, for why it does not always meet their hopes and what they can do about it. Such stories are the heart of religions. The modern scientific story is less engaging—descriptive but not normative.

That is changing. While climate change is not the first existential threat to humanity, it is among the first to be addressed scientifically. Humanity is finally required to act globally, using scientific knowledge. Along with urgency come many questions. After all, what precisely about human life and civilization should be preserved? According to what criteria? We may agree about the threat, and even what needs to be done, without agreeing why it should be done—let alone actually doing it.

Every society has its mores and values, a vision of a properly lived life, often contradicting those of other groups. Imagine a rational and objective committee charged to sort through diverse cultural practices and values, to salvage the best of them and reject the worst, to define a species-level program for the future. What might that program look like?

The word utopia dismisses its own possibility, since it means literally “no place.” We know enough of history to be cynical. We know that ideals and idealizations never fit the whole of reality or perfectly. We doubt that anyone can be truly objective and rational. We now understand that humans are not gods but primates, simply part of the bizarre natural world that happened because it could. We are caught in a game we did not make, whose labyrinthine rules we scramble to grasp. We are not part of a plan—yet.

We struggle to find our own versions and visions of a proper world. Though not gods, we would be. This power to define how things shall be is asserted through technology, where we use the rules and elements of the external world to shape an environment more to our liking than raw nature. The raw nature within us, however, has hardly changed. Aside from breeding practices, the means to change it deeply has not existed until now. For good reason, the very notion of changing it has been taboo, since it thrusts upon us a task that has always been left to nature and accident: defining what we should be.

That is the crisis we face. As natural creatures, we could go the way of nature, dictated by forces beyond our control, resigned to the fate of 99% of species that ever existed. But we have this other side, which imagines mastering the forces that control us. We imagine also the possibility of eutopia, a world expressly designed for our well-being and happiness. Despite our hopes, neither God nor nature provided such a world. Whether it will ever exist is up to us.

We’ve bumbled along a middle path, asserting power for unworthy ends—using technology to cause as much harm as good; defending human rights and “right to life” while waging wars and failing to humanely curb population. We’ve likely passed the point where it seemed plausible to live “in balance” with nature. We’ve never lived for long in harmony with each other. In fact, these have never been our actual goals. Still, we can imagine them, and where there is truly a will there may be a way.