Won't things have to get a lot worse before people will be motivated to change?

For a great many of the world's people things are already about as bad as they can get short of death.. Consider the people in Darfur, Zimbabwe, or Myanmar (Burma). In the United States, consider the price paid by the people of New Orleans.  The consequences of food shortages and related price burdens on the poor are being experienced by billions of people, including low income families in the United States. The people's of Iraq and Afghanistan are other examples of the consequences of a combination of violent competition for scarce resources and the related breakdown of social order. People in many areas of India and elsewhere are suffering the consequences of extreme water shortages.

    If we wait for extreme expressions of the crisis to hit those of us more privileged financially and politically the system breakdown will be so advanced that it may well be beyond recovery.

    It is a test of our human intelligence. The evidence is before us. Do we have the intelligence to see it and to act while at least a few of us still have the relative discretionary time and resources to think and act beyond the needs of our own immediate survival.