I’m a little late with this week’s post. A close family member has just been diagnosed with cancer — and we’ve been told there may not be much time left. It’s hard news to process. Moments like this make you stop and think about time, purpose, and what difference we really make in the brief years we have.
As I sat with this, I couldn’t help but reflect on how often human activity has been described as a kind of cancer on the planet — consuming, spreading, and disrupting the natural systems that sustain life. But I don’t actually believe the Earth itself will die from climate change or any other human-made crisis. The planet is far more resilient than we are. Over billions of years it has survived impacts, ice ages, and extinctions. What is truly at risk is us — and the millions of other living creatures that share this moment in Earth’s long story.
That realisation changes the way I think about climate work. The point is not to “save the planet” in some abstract sense; it’s to make life on this planet endurable and ethical for those who are here now and for those who come after.
Even in technical fields like accounting and auditing, our choices shape that future. The systems we design to measure, disclose, and assure environmental impacts are not just compliance tools — they are moral and social instruments. They define what counts, what matters, and what is seen as progress.
Some people cause damage and never get the chance to repair it. The rest of us, while we can, should do the best we can — whether that means challenging flawed metrics, strengthening climate reporting, or ensuring integrity in the information societies rely on to act.
I don’t know if my loved one will live to see a more sustainable world. But I do know that our professional work — the patient, evidence-based, sometimes invisible work of building trustworthy systems — can help bring it a little closer.
Barry Li | Climate Reporting & Assurance 