Hey, Patricia. I too am an older, life-long SF fan.

If it's any consolation to you, nothing would have been much different had Al Gore won.

At some point, people en masse would have had to slash their lifestyles dramatically in order to avoid catastrophe for their grandchildren. But almost no one is willing to do that. It is far, far too abstract for 95% of the population to act on, and at least half the remaining 5% don't really care what happens to anyone else.

In hindsight, this sort of explosion was completely inevitable, and would almost certainly be for any other intelligent species under any other circumstances.

Evolution trained us to be very good at making decisions in the extremely short term, and fairly competent at making decisions in the medium term, and that is it, that is all she wrote.

After two centuries of this, no one would ever believe that this seemingly endless exponential growth of consumption, of production, and of waste could ever come to an end, until it actually happens.

But by then it will be far too late to avoid catastrophe. Probably the time to avoid catastrophe is in our past - I point to the Obama administration as our last chance to have turned things around, which the DNC squandered entirely (yes, yes, yes, the Rs are far worse, but what difference does it make if neither side fixes the issues)?

It's sad, but on the other hand, as an older person, I'm starting to feel I won't be missing out on much I'd want to see.