The Daily Planet #54: Metabolic Sovereignty, Part 3. Adam Frank on the Second Copernican Revolution

"The Coming Second Copernican Revolution" explores a profound transformation in humanity's understanding of its place in the cosmos, akin to the seismic shift initiated by Copernicus five centuries ago. This new revolution is driven by astrobiology, a science revealing that nearly every star hosts planets, many potentially harboring life. This discovery reframes Earth not as a unique center but as one among billions of habitable worlds, inviting a planetary perspective that integrates life, planets, and their co-evolution.

The essay highlights how humanity's impact has ushered in the Anthropocene, a human-dominated epoch marked by environmental crises and social inequalities. This era coincides with the rise of astrobiology, emphasizing that life and its host planet form a dynamic, inseparable system. From this understanding emerges the concept of "the planetary" -- a new cosmology and worldview that challenges the mechanistic, materialistic paradigm born from the original Copernican Revolution. Unlike the old worldview that reduced life to mere machinery, the planetary perspective recognizes life as an emergent, complex system that uses information and meaning, giving rise to planetary intelligence.

Money quote:

A different kind of human future is now possible, driven by a new kind of human self-conception and self-organization. It’s called the planetary.

This planetary intelligence is seen in mature biospheres that maintain their own habitability through intricate feedback networks, a concept extended to the technosphere -- the global system of human technology and culture. The essay stresses that for humanity to thrive long-term, the technosphere must mature into a self-sustaining system aligned with the biosphere, avoiding ecological collapse.

Ultimately, the essay envisions the planetary as a new cultural and political horizon, where human self-organization harmonizes with Earth's systems. This emerging cosmology embraces complexity, pluralism, and the interconnectedness of life and planet, offering a hopeful path beyond current crises. Just as the Copernican Revolution reshaped science, politics, and culture, the astrobiological turn promises a second revolution that could redefine human civilization's future on Earth and beyond.

The Coming Second Copernican Revolution | NOEMA

Astrobiology is rewiring our understanding of the intimate connection between life and planets as they appear in the universe.