We&#x27;re not in the luxurious position of having an arbitrary amount of time and resources to spend on identifying with absolute certainty what is happening. This is reality, not the platonic realm of mathematics, and there&#x27;s severe opportunity costs to sitting around and twiddling our thumbs [1]. We&#x27;ll highly likely doom billions of people to starve or drown or die in resource wars, and force another 30% or so of species into extinction, and by the time this is all very obvious there will be no options left to change course, and we&#x27;ll be committed for the next few centuries.<p>I agree with you to some degree, but I am not sure it is helpful to even talk like this at this point in time. It&#x27;s basically a war of ideology -- we can change if enough of us want to change, we&#x27;re not reliant on technical progress to react in time, there just has to be enough willpower from the population to force change.<p>We are highly confident that we&#x27;re causing it. Let&#x27;s not even talk about things like blame or ethics or morality, if that&#x27;s not a helpful way of thinking. Let&#x27;s be coldly pragmatic. The predicted consequences of not taking appropriate preventative actions are catastrophic. The predicted consequences of taking appropriate preventative measures are merely quite unpleasant. So we should do something about it, immediately. We&#x27;ve had the last 45 years for analysis.<p>Sure, more research is a great idea, but the action &#x2F; analysis ratio should be tipped to about 99% action and 1% analysis at this point.<p>To end on a positive note, German citizens have made good progress on taking control of their local government, de-privatised their local energy production, and pushing a shift toward renewable energy. It provides an example that genuine change can be made at the local level, even when higher levels of government aren&#x27;t taking sufficient action. In turn, then that puts pressure on higher levels of government, and the rest of society, and slowly we make progress<p>[1] - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;polyp.org.uk&#x2F;cartoons&#x2F;environment&#x2F;polyp_cartoon_global_warming_flood_rising_sea_level.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;polyp.org.uk&#x2F;cartoons&#x2F;environment&#x2F;polyp_cartoon_globa...</a>