We could, for instance, use the collision of atoms (fission) for nuclear power generation in the meantime for bulk industrial requirements whilst solar, wind and other methods of renewable energy generation are being investigated, developed and implemented globally to eventually take over most of our energy generation needs. You could also place your bets on the off-chance that within the next 50 years or so we master, or learn to contain, that ultimate form of clean energy generation used by the Universe itself - fusion.

“We could have saved the Earth but we were just too darnned cheap” - Kurt Vonnegut Jnr.

By the same token an increasing awareness of the value and growing scarcity of something as plentiful as fresh air and water is rapidly making itself felt throughout the so-called “Third World” countries. It has been said that World War lll will be caused by territorial claims to increasingly scarce water resources. In the light of the above insight let’s look at a “better late than never” scenario. It’s time that some serious work was undertaken at every level.

We need to roll up our collective sleeves and address the fact that no matter how much money we print and how many strands of DNA we unravel, the alchemy of actually creating air and water somehow continues to elude us. We can pay to clean up some pollution but what happens when the critical balance underlying the assumption that “the solution to pollution is dilution” finally tips the other way, and it’s all contaminated?

Though humans invented money and can make as much of it as we like, we cannot make one molecule of oxygen or a single drop of water...

Those who are genuinely aware of the plight of the Earth - and thus of all remaining life forms, including humanity - know that we probably have less than 100 years left at the current rates of population growth, pollution and resource consumption.

Everything - even our collectively psychotic propensity to sacrifice anything and everything in the endless pursuit of excess wealth - somehow pales into insignificance when viewed in the light of this dire reality. Crisis management may be the default mode of our species, but look where it has brought us! Seeing may well be believing, but so is knowledge. We can’t see that the air has one fifth of the oxygen it had just two generations ago, but we‘d better believe it. Preferably before we all turn blue and collapse from toxic poisoning. By the time we personally notice the validity of these predictions it will unfortunately be rather too late to save the day. Or the night, for that matter.

Is Man(un)kind Vulnerable to Extinction?

It’s easy to put yet another name on a list of seriously endangered or extinct species. That list has now reached such ludicrous proportions that almost all species on Earth except humanity and a handful of domesticated animals and parasites are on the Red Data List.

What else is worth fighting for? What else inspires allegiance, transcends the mundane and diffuses selfish indifference or the sheer need to survive that governs so much of our lives and our choices? Let us therefore make social and environmental good practise our core business. We should urgently take steps to genuinely mitigate impacts and do less harm, no matter what our business or profession entails. There is simply no more time for complacency.