Very nice piece, Pau - 09:00, 13/10/2015

Very nice piece, Paul.I think of the emergence you talk about as our trioaitsnn into what I've been calling the Metricene (my term), the time that follows Crutzen's Anthropocene. Anthropocene = time period when we're affecting the environment. Metricene = time period when our past actions have already altered the environment so much that we have no choice but to (attempt to) control it explicitly.The increasing awareness that we've created one heck of a mess, and what that in turn implies for our future actions, is coming in stages and happening slower than needed. There are currently two gaps we have to deal with: The first is the gap between what the environment is doing in response to this huge and (by geological time frames) sudden injection of CO2 and what scientists know. This is why we're seeing so many X is happening quicker than we thought stories over the last few years; we're still behind the curve on the basic science. (That's in no way meant to be a criticism of climate scientists. It's simply an observation that our emissions outpaced scientific progress.)The second gap is between what scientists and even dedicated amateurs know about what's going on and what (most) politicians and (nearly all) mainstream consumers and voters know. We still live in a world, at least here in the US, where people think that going green by changing their light bulbs and driving a hybrid car are enough to save the planet , or at least meet their obligation to do something . That mind set will have to change dramatically if voters are to support the needed public policy changes.