No one really cares enough

No one really cares enough to do anything about the environment. We know what we should do, but we just don't. The things we care about are (in the UK) schools, crime, money, flower competitions in little villages, and hospitals, with a sideline in charity (and charities that help little kittens abandonned by their nasty owners are just as important, if not more so, than those that help victims of genocide in Congo).

You could argue that actually people do care, but we need the politicians to pass laws that will make a difference. But we live in a democracy, and we're free to vote for the Green party, or write to our MP (what would happen if everyone in the country wrote a personal letter to the Prime Minister? Downing Street filled from end to end with 60 million letters? For the cost of a stamp, we could do something never before done ever, anywhere in the world, in the entire history of mankind. But 99% of the population just can't be bothered, so simple as it sounds, it could never, ever, happen).

So even though sorting out the environment is the biggest and most important challenge that humans have ever had to face, society has relegated it to just another special interest group, like campagning against a phone mast next to a school.

Luckily, it doesn't really make a lot of difference anyway. Whatever we do to the environment, however much the sea level rises, no matter how many species we destroy, the world will still be here. Even if we wipe out every animal on the planet including ourselves and life has to start again from the bacteria up (or not, if you don't believe in evolution), the world itself couldn't care less.