Because these consequences are distributed globally, the problem masquerades as a distraction. Because the length of time between causes and consequences stretches out longer than we're used to dealing with, it gives us the illusion that we have the luxury of time. Neither of those things is true.

The presidency is more than a popularity contest.

The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more — if more should be required — the future of human civilization is at stake.

We now face the prospect of a kind of global civil war between those who refuse to consider the consequences of civilization's relentless advance and those who refuse to be silent partners in the destruction. More and more people of conscience are joining the effort to resist, but the time has come to make this struggle the central organizing principle of world civilizations.

Most people talk as if Miami and Bangladesh still have a chance of surviving: most of the scientists I spoke with assume we'll lose them within the century, even if we stop burning fossil fuel in the next decade.

And just as the false assumption that we are not connected to the earth has led to the ecological crisis, so to the equally false assumption that we arenot connected to each other that has led to our social crisis.

If the only tool we use to analyse what's valuable is a price tag, then those things that don't have price tags begin to look like they have no value.