Mass awakening?

The future of life on this planet will depend on whether humanity can awaken to its distinctive role in the biosphere.

There are two sides to this question. One side of it pertains to individual human organisms. The other side pertains to the collective role of humanity (“Homo sapiens”) in the biosphere, the ecosystem of which it is a functioning part. As William Catton pointed out in 1980,

Often a particular association of organisms cannot avoid altering the characteristics of its habitat by its very mode of adaptation to it. By unavoidably modifying its habitat in the process of living in it, an association of organisms compels itself to change its own mode of adaptation.

In the present moment of history, the distinctive role of humanity can best be summed up in two words: ecological overshoot. Humanity in this collective sense is now the dominant force on the planet. One sign of this is that human constructions, the infrastructure of civilization, now literally outweigh the total biomass of the planet.

Many human individuals are aware of (“awake to”) this fact about the distinctive role of humanity. Most of those probably think that in the long run (say the current century), this is not a good situation for either humanity or the biosphere. But evidently the species as a whole has no self-control, i.e. no control over the behavior which is causing the situation.

Let's suppose that individual humans are capable of waking up to this situation, and capable of sharing this information with other humans, and capable of grouping together to mutually change their behavioral habits within and between these groups. Can this be scaled up to the whole of humanity?

Personally i doubt it. But i'm just one individual. And as such, i think there are systemic reasons why the particular association of organisms we call “humanity” is collectively incapable of self-control. But it would take a whole book to explain that. [Context: Turning Signs Chapter 1]

Meanwhile, it raises the double question: what is the distinctive role of an individual human (such as you or me) within humanity, and within the ecosystem one inhabits?

Only an individual human can ask, or try to answer, such a question.