We live in a small world, a delicate network of interconnected ecological systems. It exists and continues to exist, only within finely tuned parameters – not too much oxygen, not too little; not too much carbon dioxide, not too little. Each plant species relies on others and on its surroundings to survive – without them it is helpless. Each mammal, ourselves included, relies on a multitude of organisms that coexist with us – we are only able to survive because of them. Our world is one big food chain. But we now have irrefutable scientific evidence that we are destroying the very environment that feeds us.

This problem is a tough challenge for mankind. We have grown up quickly; multiplied in record time; developed technologies that chew up our surroundings, help us procreate, help us live longer with ever more opulent lifestyles – all at an unprecedented rate. Our intelligence has brought us to a tipping point. We, the developed world, now use more of the earth’s resources than it can replenish. The number of us that have a heavy footprint is growing exponentially. Meanwhile, we want to see the lifestyles of the large number of poor people on our planet improve. But paradoxically, if we do so in the model we have developed for ourselves, we will destroy it for all.

Our biggest challenge is that our political and economic systems are not geared to the situation we face. Today we price our world at the margin. A box of raspberries flown half way around the world accumulates the cost of transportation but ignores the cost to our environment of the journey. We leave that as a legacy to future generations. Our political and economic systems are appropriate for short horizons, but do not cope well with problems that have multi-generational effects. Our current systems implicitly assume we live in an unconstrained world.

We, like generations before us, assume that when we pump toxins into the air they will blow away and dissipate. We still feel small in the big world that surrounds us, so that any harmful effect we have will be swallowed up by big Mother Earth and will disappear. That is no longer true. Our dirty coal fired generators push inert mercury up into the atmosphere, which falls with the rain into our oceans. But Mother Earth can no longer swallow it. Instead, the oceans swallow the mercury; the fish swallow the mercury; and, eventually, so do we.

We can no longer be indifferent to our impact – it will come back to haunt us. Our footprint today is huge and growing so fast that we have finally reached that scary point where we are not sure whether we have tipped the balance too far. Not only do we not know the overall effects of our impact on the Earth’s ecology, but, worryingly, we are attempting to understand it while our impact itself is growing exponentially.

The good news is that we have developed tremendous technological skills and the computing power to solve even the most daunting problems. The bad news is that this is not simply a problem that one can formulate and hand over to a bunch of mathematicians and computer scientists. The solution is one that requires not only large computers and clever mathematical models, but also a combination of political, economic as well as technical changes acting in concert. Worse, it requires coordination across political boundaries and requires us to account for events that will not occur in our lifetime, and perhaps not even in the lifetime of our children. As such, it requires a level of effort and science never before seen on Earth. It requires problem-solving and coordination on an unprecedented scale. It will require economic systems that explicitly prize the future.

I am optimistic, however, that we humans have the smarts to readjust. We need to do so in an evolutionary way, starting now and not waiting for the disruption that will occur when the two superpowers are fighting over the last barrel of oil. Einstein said that one cannot solve a huge problem with the tools one used to create it. He’s right. The solution will come, and we will get there in a novel way. We have no choice.