The brutal reality is that our species is not able to function at the planetary level. We do not comprehend planetary problems. They don't exist except as an abstraction.

This is more fundamental than a simple lack of information. I've come to realize this, indirectly, by the transformative experience of some, not all, who have seen the planet from orbit and beyond.

These people report a mental shock from the vision of the entire planet hanging in space separated from them. This is a paradigmatic shift.

With only a percentage of a few hundred people experiencing this change and no hope of providing a significant percentage of the population this experience, there is little hope.

Can this realization be achieved through virtual reality? It doesn't seem to be possible. It may be some bizarre biological switch that works only with a major move up the gravity well of a planet.

Hard, slow thinking can bring this intellectually within reach of the earth bound, but the full emotional reality is beyond us.