Will Genes Take Over Or Will Humanity Stop Them?

Ideally, I would be posting a reflection on the content of the book. I would talk about how interesting this topic was because just 3 months before I had been wondering why some species were altruistic and others were not in biology class. However, my activist mind has gotten me off topic once again, because as I read the following passage all I could think of were the politicized principles that I have about the environment. "He might even admit that if only the individuals in a group had the gift of foresight they could see that in the long run their own best interests lay in restringing their selfish greed, to prevent the destruction of the whole group." (Dawkins, pg. 8) How could this not be related to the situation humankind faces today? The conflict we have is clear: Do we remain living the comfortable and environmentally chaotic lifestyle we have, or do we change our ways to ensure that Earth and our species will not be destroyed in a matter of decades? I have no question about this, we have to change. There is no other way to protect our survival, nor the survival of the planet that has provided us with everything we have. Regardless of the efforts of millions of scientists, environmentalists, politicians, etc. the path of the world population has deviated even less than a negligible amount. If this selfish gene concept is true, then a lot would be explained. It would be easier to understand why people don't care about the imminent fate that awaits the future. I wish that the gene theory wasn't true, because if it is the there is just one more justification to why the modern world can't "go green" and one more delay to making the world aware of the changes that must be made. However, if the genes are the selfish ones, then we can't let them crash our world into oblivion, we must fight against them and take control. As Dawkins states, each of our best interest lies in the survival of our species, and if everyone understood that then maybe it would be easier for us to drop our selfish and comfortable behavior and secure the good and healthy lives of our descendants. There is a way to change for the benefit of our own. It only takes a little effort and time to create a sustainable living of the planet, but for these patterns to be set everyone needs to help and to care. There is no other way.