Somehow the family of humanity will find one of the available paths to sustainable development without engaging in unsustainable economic growth. Things will be better not bigger. There are yet to be discovered ways of thinking and behaving that will lead us to do things differently from the ways we do things now. The unsustainable activities of unbridled, large-scale business expansion; conspicuous per-capita overconsumption; and skyrocketing overpopulation, will be skillfully regulated and carefully reduced in the course of time without irreversibly dissipating Earth and degrading its ecology, so the children have a chance at a good-enough future.

Perhaps the last act of the last week of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference is the last, best chance for the leaders of the human community to save a good-enough future for the children, life as we know it, the Earth and its environs from the ravages of global human overproduction, overconsumption and overpopulation activities that can be seen with the naked eye engulfing the surface of our planetary home, irreversibly depleting its resources and recklessly degrading its ecosystem services. If ever there was a time for action, that time is presented this week.

A truthful, reliable, complete, useful, significant, timely, fully funded and legally binding international agreement is required. What are the chances that the right thing will be done?