His comments were also deeply moving to me. Mr. Shatner was kind of a jerk when he was young, by his own admission, but he really came to terms with it and became a much better and more compassionate person.

Here's the thing, Lauren - disaster isn't likely, it's certain. Until we actually hit disaster, most people just won't believe it will happen, so they won't change their lives.

The only way I get through the day is to internalize and accept the upcoming disaster - to write off our civilization and most humans, and to hope for a better outcome somewhere down the road after the shit has totally hit the fan.

I believe that this doom was inevitable from when we first discovered technology. We would never believe that we could destroy our biosphere with that technology, until we had. It is the Great Filter and it's quite possible that no intelligent race gets past it.

It doesn't actually stop me from crying sometimes, but at least it gives me a very low baseline from which we might do better.