Industrial civilizations are committing suicide in an approach similar to what long term drug addicts go through. The unlucky ones die because eventually their bodies give out or they get killed by someone or some disease. The lucky ones hit bottom and have some treatment options that might help shift them back towards health.
The problem we face, though, is much worse. Not only are the industrial civilizations suicidal, but the "hitting bottom" events occur well into the global warming process. Many tipping points will have been passed. And unless the pains from hitting bottom are so catastrophic, so lethal to the wealth and property of the world's wealthiest families, then most governments will stay on a suicidal course.
Only when the pains of changing course, of abandoning fossil fuels and high consumption lifestyles, appear better than the pains of continued global warming responses is any change possible. IOW: Not until the industrial nations suffer prolonged droughts, floods, sea level rise with huge damaging storms, epidemics, famine, civil breakdown, loss of reliable electricity, gasoline and natural gas supplies, breakdown of international trade, shortage of clean water, will there begin to exist a politics are responding to climate change rather than making it worse.
And by then, it's too late. Centuries to millennia will have to pass before the earth's climate has any chance at all of returning to the Mediterranean version that gave birth to all human civilization. We've created a new planet, one that Bill McKibben refers to as Eaarth. It's going to be very, very difficult to live on this planet. People will need to live with far, far less energy and technology. New myths will be needed to explain to people, especially children, how the old earth got so desecrated. The world's traditional religions will disappear with they cannot come up with compelling *new* stories. "Jesus died for your sins" isn't going to cut it.
