This year 2020 is expected to activate the Paris Agreement at COP26, Glasgow, Scotland, November 2 to 13. The next twelve months will be crucial and potentially full of challenges, as can be deduced from the insufficient results of COP25 and the history of failure and postponements accumulated during the last quarter of the century, as we expose in our Brief History of the COP.

The earthling denomination has generally been used by science fiction to differentiate us from aliens, visitors from outside the Earth that almost always change to irritate our lives according to this literary or cinematographic genre. But today I want to talk about earthlings seriously, in non-fiction mode, from my own earthling position and try to provide a new perspective to a complex problem such as anthropogenic climate change, already at the level of climatic emergency.

Earthlings are characterized by diversity. We have different nationalities, we speak diverse languages, we have various skin colors, different religions or ideologies, unequal political thoughts, gender diversity, different jobs, we are fans of distinct sports teams. However, there is a condition that matches us all, but we rarely remember: we are earthlings. From this common denominator we should start from the unity necessary to quickly and effectively stop global warming and curb climate change.

It is said that fear unites people. But there is still not enough fear for it to materialize. However, one would have to unite before the chaos ensues, because when it begins to be visible and hurt people and things, then everyone will want to join. But perhaps then it will be too late, because the forces of nature will have been triggered in such a way that they will have entered a state of no return.

Earth is the best planet in the universe so far known. There is no other place with which it can be compared. To be a creditor of this fortunate privilege, the Earth has conditions that hundreds of millions or billions of other planets lack.

These conditions, which few earthlings know, begin with their situation in the quiet periphery of the Milky Way and not in the chaotic and accelerated center of our galaxy. They are ideal for sustaining life their force of gravity, their distance from the sun; its speed of rotation on itself; its magnetic field; its diameter; its 365 nights and days on each return to the sun; its four seasons in many latitudes; its moon, regulator of life cycles; its water in abundance; its atmosphere composed of 99% oxygen and nitrogen; its remaining 1% that contains other gases, including those that produce the natural greenhouse effect that prevents the Earth from being a frozen planet.

All this privilege we should remember every day and also know that the probability of finding another planet with all these characteristics together can be one in a million, one billion and even a trillion according to some studies. Remember that the Earth is an exceptionally favored planet, ideal for an exuberant life manifested in the most varied sizes, sounds, colors, movements and locomotion.

For all this, almost since its inception, the Earth has been able to engender life in its matrix, as science has proven through the discovery of microfossils embedded in rocks dating back 3,500 million years. But it was in more recent times (started about 600 million years ago) when the most spectacular Bio-Big-Bang on the planet was produced, origin of almost all the species known today. So since then our habitat has been transformed into an emporium of biological diversity.

But it has taken Mother Earth much of her life to give birth to this enormous diversity (she is 4.3 billion years old). And it has not been easy because it has had to overcome difficult stages, full of chaos, catastrophes, fires, giant meteorites, glaciers epochs and many other calamities. But she has always managed to overcome the dangers, and although they have completed many of their sons along the way, they have saved many more, managing to continue their triumphant progenitor march.

What had never happened to Earth is to suffer chaos, catastrophes, imbalances, modifications, superpowers, asymmetric domains, extinction of species and other calamities caused by only one of its species: Homo sapiens or earthling.

The year 2020 is emerging as the year of truth for earthlings. But we should not wait for Glasgow. From now we have to prepare for the Paris Agreement does not fall. We will require great efforts and sacrifices. All parts of the COP should be united as one around the main objective. This would be ideal, but if it was not achieved, it is necessary to find out in advance what the countries that will revoke the Paris Agreement will be. Only then can we know who we have and not wait for midnight surprises in Scotland. Everyone must assume their responsibility. But it has to be from now.

Sandor Alejandro Gerendas-Kiss