How important? First consider the background, from the perspective of long-time climate scientist James Hansen and colleague Makiko Sato, who report the disaster awaiting us at just a couple of degrees warmer is truly catastrophic (although they downplay the likelihood we’re already committed to this outcome.)

Suffocating lifestyle

At the same time Arctic ice is melting, the planet is losing its lungs. Catastrophic drought in the Amazon has it emitting carbon dioxide more rapidly than the United States. Simultaneously, permafrost is thawing and methane stored in eastern Siberia is venting into the atmosphere at an alarming rate. Methane, by the way, is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Against this background, it’s easy to foresee a rapidly and profoundly warming Arctic as a trigger for accelerated responses such as the release of more methane hydrates and fewer reflective white surfaces, such as ice sheets and areas covered with snow. These extremely dangerous feedbacks, which forecasters did not expect until the planet becomes a couple of degrees warmer than the baseline, could trigger runaway greenhouse. In other words, any of these events — never mind all of them at once — could lead directly and quickly to the extinction of you, me and everyone in between.

Is that important enough for you? Or do you still want to debate it with the likes of these guys?

Hello, hello, hello is there anybody in there?

If you’re among the mainstream media, you’re proven you don’t care, and your answer to dealing with this is no, you wont.

If you’re any politician in the industrialized world you’re quaking in your boots over the prospect of being real about anything truly important. For you, the answer is no, you wont go there.

If you’re one of the kingpins of capitalism — or even a defender of capitalism — the answer is no. For you, only money talks.

I’ll go further: If you’re a defender of western civilization, with all its toys, disposability and conspicuous personal consumption, your answer is no, too.

If you’re among the few people working to mitigate the excesses of western civilization before it terminates our species, it seems we’ve lost this most important of battles.

The cumulative effect

Like economic collapse, extinction is a process that leads to an event. The last human on Earth will not die today, tomorrow, or even next week. But it clearly could happen within a generation. Indeed, the odds grow with every passing day while we continue to deny our role in our own demise.

What will it take for the people to act? For that matter, what will it take for the people to notice?

Nothing to see here. Move along. This time is different. We’re not like the Mayans. And the Anasazi. Or the Mesopotamians. Or the Easter Island denizens. It can’t happen here. And I’m just another purveyor of negativity to be ignored by a world full of happy optimists hedonists.

Love in the time of Cholera

I’m routinely accused of being an insane terrorist because I want to terminate the industrial economy, thereby giving humanity an opportunity to persist a few generations longer. At this point, with our knowledge of the adverse consequences of civilization for non-industrial cultures, non-human species, and even the persistence of our own species, how can any sane person want to keep the industrial age alive?

Who would do this to their children?

In the race between collapse of the industrial economy and climate chaos, it seems climate chaos won. Words are no match for the sadness I feel. I can only imagine the agony of parents as they comprehend the horrors we’ve created for them, and especially for their kids.

Or perhaps this childless atheist — as I am labeled by every writer who pens me into a story — cares about the future of humanity more than most parents. After all, nearly every parent with whom I speak — failing to notice the dependence of the industrial economy on the environment — is far more interested in growth of the former, for their child’s sake, than with protection of the latter (for their child’s sake).

We traded in future generations of human beings — all of them — for a few dollars more. We worshiped at the heavenly altar of economic growth, and triggered hell on Earth.

Chaos on this planet isn’t restricted to the climate, and it’s going global this year. We’re witnessing not merely a riot but a revolution, and it’s coming soon to a city near you.

Alas, it’s too little, too late. The American Dream long ago morphed into the American Nightmare. It’s too bad George Carlin couldn’t be here for additional commentary. Rationalist voices are hard to come by. Rationalist voices with a sense of humor are vanishingly rare.

The response remains the same, at least for me. As a society, we will continue to value financial profit over life. Therefore, as individuals we should prepare and maintain durable living arrangements in light of ongoing energy decline and ongoing climate change. And, of course, we must keep fighting to bring down the omnicidal beast that is the industrial economy. Now.