When you look at the earth geologically rather than ecologically you realize that we don’t have to save the planet. The planet is more than capable of saving itself.

The planet has been both a fireball and a snowball and it was still able to foster and nurture life. It can be hit by massive meteorites that wipe out virtually all species yet still rebound. It can erupt, shift, boil, bubble and shake itself to its core and still remain intact.

No, the earth is a resilient place. It’s been around for 14 billion years and will continue to exist whether we destroy the environment that keeps us vertical (and able to pontificate on blogs) or not.

One could argue that it is a little arrogant even to think we will have the slightest effect on the history – or the future - of our planet. After all, we have been here but minutes compared to the dinosaur. And the entire Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous periods came a long time before us, and they still ended in the Permian extinction.

Now, we may well be the first species to play such a large role in its own demise (not to mention the part we played in killing off thousands of others) but the earth and life will prevail. Just perhaps not ours.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t do everything we can to preserve our existence. We should. We should change our light bulbs to fluorescents. We should run cleaner cars. We should find ways to consume less.

But we should also remember why we’re doing it. This is a selfish act of self-preservation and no less noble for it. In fact, it is a Darwinian necessity to act. That is inarguable and cannot be refuted by right wing politicians or industry polluters. Arguing that we’re doing it to ‘save the earth’ is dissembling.

We’re not destroying the earth. We’re merely destroying ourselves. The earth could give a crap.