We are fucking things up so badly. Are we actually on track to fix the damage from climate change? Are we doing enough? Are people willing to live with what is really needed to stop climate change? This thing survived 5 mass extinctions, are humans what was really needed to kill it off?
Not only are we not fixing it, we are accelerating in the wrong direct.
Keep in mind that if we're knocked back to mud huts, we're not coming back from it this time, we've long since used up the relatively accessible resources that made it happen the first time.
This question is spot on. We have this planet, our habitat, in our hands. Overexploition of natural recources can bring our ecosystem in dire straits, and us with it. We can loose so much. About time to use technology to change this. And about time to change out behaviour en masse.
There are many startup endeavours that aim to use tech for the better of our ecosystem e.g. all the startups affiliated with the New Harvest Community (http://new-harvest.org).
>> bleeding edge
It also doesn't fix any of the fundamental problems.
Maybe a sign of (rather unintelligent) industrialized life on other planets would be sulfate aerosol spectra in the atmosphere too consistent to be explained by vulcanism...
That assumes we don't blow up as a species form the conflict which arises as the climate shifts... something we're already seeing a bit of in North Africa for example.
This is not all bad, but IMHO we have definitely already experienced a distinct loss of clarity of expression across the western world (the letter-writing tradition and books = properly constructed line of reasoning, structured writing, considered communication -> emails and emoji = short, emotional reactions, unstructured/unsupported opine, ill-considered). On the flip side, everyone can communicate and a lot of pedantic grammar laws are becoming irrelevancies. People genuinely care more about being understood than pedantry, and that's a good thing IMHO. As for food/water/environment/waste-management/freedom, on the whole our political systems (exception: China) are not able to effectively reason on those timeframes, and find it easier to pass the blame internationally. We all know where that is leading.
Nuclear war, sudden energy shortage, food stores wiped out, radiation leak, EMP terrorist attack, Electric grid sabotage, Solar flare EMP, Magnetic pole reversal, sudden economic collapse, sudden ecosystem collapse.
We'd be lucky to "slowly" lose our civilisation to climate change...
Personally I have sworn off the car, and my only significant consumption on this planet is my computer, and my aeroplane journeys. Otherwise it's mostly just food, water and train rides. No idea how else I can contribute...