The failure of humans to move collectively and decisively to curb greenhouse emissions in an attempt to moderate global warming is astonishing. The science is in and it continues to come in, a mass of data that points in one direction. There are no serious challenges to it, notwithstanding the nonsense from some politicians (who should know better) and a small but vocal group of deniers. The consequences of inaction are deadly serious, ranging from a massive disruption to economies and lifestyles to a complete collapse of civilisation as we know it.

Yet these same nay-sayers are happy to use all the fruits of applied science with nary a quibble. They drive cars, use mobile phones, watch TV, use the internet, turn on a light switch, cool things in refrigerators - you get the picture - every aspect of modernity is somehow mediated by the application of science, which comes from the efforts of scientists. This is an extreme and dangerous form of cherry-picking. It is double-think, or not thinking at all. That a 16 year old girl needed to stand in front of a room of world leaders and tell them the unvarnished truth is sufficient to ring alarm bells. Greta Thunberg pointed out the bleeding obvious to folks who are supposed to be leading the planet to a better future.

One theory about potentially advanced civilisations in the cosmos is that they must pass through 'great filters' in order to survive. The splitting of the atom would almost certainly qualify as one such filter, one that is still unresolved on our planet. Despoiling the environment, changing the environment in fundamental ways, may be other filters that we are now coming up against. I hope that we can take on these challenges honestly and diligently, but the problem of knuckleheads remains. Is there a critical mass of the stupid and the stubborn beyond which action becomes almost impossible?

One brave soul.