Who are We?

In the end, that simple question, posed by Al Gore at the Copenhagen climate summit, sums up what's at stake.

Just who are we, as a species, if we don't act now to save our planet for our children? 

Together, in the past few thousand years, we've had the imagination and the energy to utterly transform this planet, to redirect its resources to our common (or perceived) good, and a better, more comfortable life.

After all of this, we can't agree to save it? 

Let's be clear.  We are not saving the planet.  The Earth will go on, recycling its raw materials for billions of years into the future.  Mountains will be built, oceans will rise and fall, structures, man made and otherwise, will be dissolved and reused.  The Earth will ultimately be fine, given time.  That is, until our sun enters its final stages, and consumes it all...sort of the ultimate recycler.

No, it is us that needs saving.  Humankind, and the creatures that share this world with us.  Our reign has been, so far, relatively brief on this planet (after all the dinosaurs ruled for 200 million years...us...well, less than a million), and we are in danger of making it end more quickly than we needed to.

Do we sentence our children (yes, the bill is coming that soon), and our grandchildren to a future less prosperous, and less optimistic than our own?  With dwindling natural resources, and the inevitable consequences of too little to go around for too many...wars, famine and disease?

I don't think we will choose that.  I share what Gore calls his core belief, the belief that animates his life, and keeps him moving forward.  Namely, that humans are better than that.

But we have to act soon to prove it.