New Delhi, Aug. 14 -- My column this month isn't really about climate change, but the human attitudes that enable such a planetary breakdown. This is a lament about the natural world, and more particularly, how cut off modern humans are from nature. It is this alienation that is stopping us from taking meaningful action to stop the climate crisis, and save ourselves in the process.

Self-preservation should be a good reason to stop environmental destruction and the use of fossil fuels, right? After all, we should be able to appeal to human selfishness to ensure our survival? But even self-interest doesn't seem to be working, probably because we cannot think beyond our own lifetimes.

This profound blind spot can only be explained by the f...