This is a response to a request by mhagle to provide a summary of the concluding chapter to our book. It is not easy to start at the finish so I will provide this for more discussion. Realize that this is the end of a very careful argument.

What Can Be Done?
To many of us, it is painfully obvious that our industrialized way of life is violent, unsustainable, and leading inexorably to the collapse of the social, economic, and ecological systems on which most of us depend. However, many others beg to differ, holding the dissenting (and in our view insane) opinion that there is nothing inherently wrong with our way of life—as epitomized by George H.W. Bush’s famous declaration that “the American way of life is not up for negotiation.” And in light of the foregoing discussion concerning the increasing dependency and determinacy that accrues with development in complex systems, it would appear that at this late stage the probability that a politically effective number of people will voluntarily change their way of life is slim to nil. Something has to give, and from our perspective collapse of the socioeconomic systems that sustain us is all but inevitable.
The silver lining is that collapse affords evolutionary opportunities, opening up new niches that did not previously exist, removing rigid system-level constraints that suppressed the emergence of alternate models. This too can be seen in myriad examples throughout history. If an asteroid impact had not precipitated the global ecological collapse that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, then mammals would not have (had the opportunity to) come into ascendancy, and we would not be here.
America received a hard lesson following the 2008 presidential election—a lesson that has by and large not yet been learned. The charismatic and intelligent Barack Obama was elected on a surging tidal wave of populist hope for change, fueled in no small part by disgust with the previous administration and the widespread feeling of powerlessness that its eight years engendered. Obama restored some feeling of ‘power to the people. But he also came into office at a bad time, when the economy was tanking and the nation was engaged in two wars that most people had little stake in and did not support. Human rights abuses had skyrocketed as a result of the terrifying “war on terror”. Obama promised to fix those problems, and we believed him. But as they say, pie-crust promises are easily broken.
But it is important to view things in context and ask: how much is the man, and how much is the system? Although Obama leaves much to be desired, it is reasonable to wonder whether anyone in his position could do significantly better. The context that allowed Roosevelt to do what he did in the 1930s no longer exists—the system has developed way past that. And even Roosevelt disillusioned many of his supporters. The fact of the matter is that no single human being, not even the president of the United States, is going to be able to change the system—the military-industrial-congressional complex that Eisenhower saw all too clearly and warned us about. Nevertheless, the president is extremely powerful, and that power can be used for great good or great ill. So we need to be very careful in making whatever choices we are presented with at a given moment, no matter how bad those choices are. It is good and extremely important to speak out against the current administration, but when it comes time to vote we need to carefully consider the consequences of not voting or voting for a nonviable candidate. This is a hard pill to swallow, made harder by the fact that the presidential powers-that-be know it and count on it.
So working within the system (simply voting) is nowhere near enough. Every day that the Global Economy continues consuming resources creates significant losses of and for future life. In addition to changing our selves we need to speak out, take to the streets, protest. This is the only way to counter the illusion that what is depicted on television, in the news, and in political speeches is (the only possible) reality.
At some point people need to realize that the opportunities for standard of living enjoyed by the middle class of a few decades ago are a thing of the past, and that chances of anyone realizing the ‘American Dream’ of accumulating obscene amounts wealth are vanishingly small (not much better than those offered by the lottery) and far from equally distributed; that, in fact, we have developed to the point where a burgeoning middle class and accumulation of obscene wealth puts us on the fast track to ruin. The sooner people realize that the system is not working in their interests—including the interests of “values voters”—the better.
In conclusion, we are now confronted with a stark choice—basically, a decision of whether or not to a walk tight rope to safety—and not much time to make it. We can continue living in the past, working within an overdeveloped system to keep doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different outcome—a course of action often touted as the ‘definition of insanity’. Or we can work diligently to create a new system that does not degrade humanity, and build lifeboats for the harrowing transition that is nigh upon us.
In short, we can continue on in denial, and end up like the Titanic. Or, we can work in a concerted way at improvising a solution. Maybe we are dreamers in holding out hope that this is possible