This study offers an in-depth analysis of the indissoluble link between ecology and the temporal irreversibility that is the decisive result of “entropy.” Building on the important and pioneering contributions of Erwin Schrödinger (What is Life?) and even more on the discoveries of Ilya Prigogine, reflections are advanced on the possibilities and limits of contemporary scientific and technological interventions in nature in order to save the Earth from the looming threat of ecological catastrophe. The dogmatic and uncritical trust in the notion of “sustainable development” is critically questioned. Not only the positive sciences, but also philosophy and politics themselves are called upon to orient human knowledge towards a conception of nature that recognizes the primacy and originality of life and living beings over inorganic and inanimate reality. This vision is not free from an orientation towards a transcendent divine foundation of the totality of being.