There's no home away from home

While it has rightly been said that it is inadvisable to give advice, there are times when common sense suggests one should offer a word of caution to someone whose prevailing course of action, if insisted on and carried through to its obvious and inevitable conclusion, is sure to bring about unfortunate consequences.

Such is the case with climate change, about which there is a growing chorus counseling that our current course is perhaps a tad foolhardy.

But while our ability to spot the unwelcome consequences of our business-as-usual behavior is admirable. Our willingness to talk about the compelling need to do something is commendable. And the cozy huddles of the great and the good, such as those at the World Economic Forum in Davos, showing that they are determined to take the matter firmly in hand, are laudable. The fact remains that little of any real substance is being done in this time of crisis.

Although a visiting observer from elsewhere in the galaxy might be taken in by all the hue and cry, and tempted to think that everything will be alright with planet Earth. Our interstellar anthropologist would have been misled by that most fundamental of human abilities, our ability to chew the fat while proceeding－with some haste－up a creek without a paddle.

For it is a peculiarity of our species that we are able to convince ourselves so easily that playing pass the buck is all the action that needs to be taken until fate gets fed up with all the shilly-shallying and decides we need a forceful kick up the backside to get things moving.

It has been remarked that there is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact, and on taking a closer look at proceedings, our long-distance cousin would appreciate that indeed things are clearly not right with this planet－disappearing flora and fauna, melting glaciers, wilder weather, the signs of abuse are clear.

If we want to congratulate ourselves on a job well done, then that mistreatment is something we can give ourselves a pat on the back for. It has been quite an achievement bringing that life which has accompanied us on our circling of the sun either to the end of history or to the brink of it with our casual disregard for our shared home.

And our extraterrestrial ethnologist would no doubt be dumbfounded on reaching the unavoidable conclusion that although we are well aware we are racing toward the edge of an existential precipice like proverbial lemmings, we would rather take the fall than accept our self-gratification needs reining in.

There's the rub, we will not find an answer to climate change until we accept that unlimited growth is impossible in a world that has limited resources. Our Goldilocks era will soon be over if we keep gulping down the porridge at the rate we have been sucking on the spoon.

As long as wealth creation remains the primary objective of people, particularly those supposedly leading us to a better future, then there is little hope of reversing the impacts of climate change and our environmental depredation.

Our alien neighbors, if they are not hypothetical, would do well to keep knowledge of their existence from us if they are of an Earth-like planet, lest we are able to develop some form of spaceship that would allow us to pay them a visit before our time as a species runs out.

The author is a senior editor with China Daily.