WE ARE EXTREMOPHILES

By LOUISE BEC

We are all extremophiles. (1)

Life is undergoing tension.

Life is undergoing pressure.

Life is undergoing depression.

Life is undergoing transgression.

The biomass is being shaken, destabilised…

How shall we respond to the urgent questions regarding survival and meaningfulness…

How shall we elaborate new strategies for inventive adaptation in order to persist, faced as we are with the degradation of the conditions of life and our environments, which are becoming progressively more toxic – and sometimes even deadly.

We are all extremophiles who possess the memory of the origin of life.

Life developed in an unwelcoming world, bringing with it a long-lasting transformation of the environment through the creation of an atmosphere. (2)

Life has invented various strategies in order to leave the oceans and occupy the ensemble of ecosystems and the greatest possible number of ecological niches.

We are therefore accountable for this ‘living whole’ – not only because we are part of it, but because of our growing awareness that it is becoming fragile, falling apart and undergoing dramatic amputations as a result of the planet’s ‘ecosystemic turbulences’.

We are extremophiles immersed in a labyrinth of prejudicial aggressions.