Yes, Julia, acquiring the wisdom in understanding our relationship to the natural world is certainly essential to the long-term viability of civilization as we know it. But the problem I see is that survival imperatives operate in the short-term and drive much of the politics at the top. Leading a democratic polity is a daunting challenge, now more than ever, because one does not have much more than persuasion when trying to focus on long-term sustainability. Another way of stating this is that the future is a luxury afforded by the present. Without taking care of the present, there is no future.

This political economic tension has been driving much of the politics in the developed world, with those most affected by globalization demanding their national politicians focus on their material needs here and now. I think we’re going to have to focus on these problems in order to have a chance of solving the big picture. It’s a problem and challenge of maldistributions.

The pessimistic (realist?) social science pov is that it takes crises to focus our hearts and minds and only such crises will force us to make the difficult trade-offs necessary.
Thanks for the article.