This truth is visible in the marketing message of the environmental movement – it is not the harm climate change causes *us* that gets trumpeted at every turn, it’s the harm it causes polar bears and penguins and other cute things.

And yet the solution the same movement proposes – cutting back on emissions and “reinventing our relationship with the Earth” is not likely to save them in the short term, and most definitely won’t in the long term as climate changes of it’s own accord – the fossil record has plenty to show for itself before we came along.

The fundamental question we must ask ourselves is simple: do we accept the cost of change, or do we stand up and acknowledge that as a species we are not passengers on Earth anymore.

I suspect that the final answer is that our fear of each other will outweigh our concern for the wellbeing of the rest of the planet. We will let the climate change with only local, token efforts to stop it as a sop to our conscience.

We are in a car, hurtling downhill towards a penguin, and we are nobly taking our foot off the accelerator.