You may well ask why science did not warn us of global warming sooner; I think that there are several
reasons. We were from the 1970s until the end of the century distracted by the important global problem
of stratospheric ozone depletion, which we knew was manageable. We threw all our efforts into it and
succeeded but had little time to spend on climate change. Climate science was also neglected because
twentieth‐century science failed to recognize the true nature of Earth as a responsive self‐regulating
entity. Biologists were so carried away by Darwin’s great vision that they failed to see that living things
were tightly coupled to their material environment and that evolution concerns the whole Earth system
with living organisms an integral part of it. Earth is not the Goldilocks planet of the solar system sitting at
the right place for life. It was in this favourable state some two billion years ago but now our planet has
to work hard, against ever increasing heat from the Sun, to keep itself habitable. We have chosen the
worst of times to add to its difficulties.