Saving the world

How many articles, new reports and commentaries have you seen this year talking about environmentalism and 'saving the world'.

Let's get this straight.  If the human race is wiped out by an asteroid strike it would not be the end of the world.  Sure, it would in the more subtle sense of the world being fundamentally changed.  The extinction of the dinosaurs was the end of their world and a change in the nature of the whole planet, but Earth with life was there before and Earth remained with life afterwards.  Here we are.  Take a moment and let that sink in.  Here we are.   The geological evidence suggests there have been several mass extinction events in Earth's history - and here we are. Even if there has only been one, the fact remains - here we are.  If practically everything down to the bacteria is swept away, life continues, the Earth continues and something new comes along.  The last time it gave rise to the conditions which ultimately led to us.

So the next time somebody says that all the ecological protests and conferences and political posturing are about 'Saving the world', can you please remind them it isn't.  It is about saving humanity.  Cockroaches and Ebola virus will be around long after us (though Ebola virus might struggle to evolve to a new host), but it is not for their sake that we want to preserve a certain type of climate on the Earth.  It is for our sake.  We are not saving the Earth, we are trying to save ourselves.