An endangered gorilla was shot and killed on Saturday after a four-year-old boy climbed into its enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. The death of the 17-year-old gorilla, Harambe, has garnered international attention from media, activists, and the public. Dozens of articles and videos are circulating the internet about the events that took place in the zoo’s “Gorilla World” over the weekend.

Amidst the swirl of perspectives, one sentiment continues to echo through my mind. It feels familiar, and only days later have my muddled thoughts crystallized into recognition. The treatment of Harambe exemplifies the relationship between man and the environment. It is analogous to the way that modern society treats this planet. It is ours to populate, to enjoy when and where it suits us. To exploit.

Jack London was spot on in The Call of the Wild when he observed that to survive, sometimes one must ‘kill or be killed.’ It isn’t terribly surprising who received the crap end of the stick when it came to a toss-up between the life of a human boy and that of a gorilla. Harambe was doomed the moment that boy fell into his enclosure and made us choose. No, what’s surprising is that we don’t have the same sense of urgency about protecting our global climate, even when it means saving ourselves in the process.

The Director of the Cincinnati Zoo said that the little boy “certainly was at risk” in an interview defending the zoo’s judgement call. The carbon-rich lifestyles we’ve grown accustomed to are every bit as threatening to our species as Harambe was to that little boy, and the scientific community has been sounding the alarm for decades on behalf of the entire human race. Why is it that despite the risk-laden trajectory of our business-as-usual approach, we aren’t willing to shoot down the practices still contributing to anthropogenic climate change?

Instead, we continue to let climate change drag us around the enclosure, bellowing clear, unheeded warnings every step of the way. Sea level rise, global warming, freshwater shortage and degradation, wildlife extinction. It waves each threat over our heads, beats its chest with them – and we hesitate to pull the trigger. In fact, so many of our rifles remain safely stowed among the materialism and consumption that led us down into harm’s way in the first place. The screams of horrified onlookers are silenced, the agitation of that giant beast ignored, overlooked, disregarded. The lives and well being of every living creature on this planet are at risk, and somehow, our sense of self-preservation chooses now to desert us.

So how do we collectively reflect on the implications of our actions and make “a tough choice, but the right choice” regarding our planet and the role we’ll play in protecting it? If we can all simultaneously mourn the loss of a beautiful creature like Harambe, surely we can channel that same shared energy into working towards a sustainable future.