I'm sorry, Umair, but I don't understand what natural capital means in the context you're using.

In one sense, natural capital renews itself anywhere nature is given time to get on with what She does. Leave a depleted infertile field to recover in the UK and in 5 years it'll be covered in scrub, in 10 years there will be trees like willow and aspen growing and in 15 there will be trees growing tall and five times as much wildlife.

It's only when you deplete natural capital faster than it can regenerate (as we're doing all over the world) that you get into trouble. The answer is to stop doing that.

Yes, we're facing extinction in the sense that despite our stupid numbers, humans could die out in a hundred years or so. That will mostly be from disease, famine and war - aka the Four Horsemen, the fourth being Death. That number of corpses won't do the atmosphere any good either.

However we don't have to go that way.

We really don't.

Yes, America seems to be collapsing socially and may yet end in a second civil war.

But we can still turn around and find new ways of living that don't destroy and deplete natural capital faster than it can regenerate.