I'm sorry to say that I couldn't find what this essay was about, other than a lament for what is. You see encouraging signs, but lament the existence of silos and the failures of our politicians. Perhaps you want things to happen faster than they are happening. Most critics of anything are like that. But at the end it simply wasn't clear to me what you want, what it would be like then, and how we would get there.

Well, one way to become smarter would be to check the facts on 'climate change': if you do you will discover, for instance, that a) disastrous events are reducing in frequency rather than increasing:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/18/summary-of-the-april-14-16-us-tornado-outbreak/

and b) that they have nothing to do with 'climate change' anyway:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/13/final-words-on-the-russian-heat-wave-from-agu-weather-predictable/

If we can just get everybody up to that level -- beginning with our politicians -- it will be a great start.

Second rule of debate (which comes after be excellent to one another) is:

Check your Source when making claims.

http://tinyurl.com/kn4nno

The world is finite.

Transitioning to clean renewable energy is just common sense.

Change is often scary.

Most certainly we need to restructure our "civilisation" because we have a severe parasite problem.
Transparency would be a start. So long as things like the Iraq war can be pulled off so dishonestly and our economy run by shady crims...well, any progress will be stillborn.
Personally I think a bunch of SciFi geeks funded by Branson ("VirginState" anyone?) will set up a moon colony just before the next dinosaur killer smacks down. If the geeks don't escape with some *real* conservation efforts then the parasites will pull them down with them. Nature has given us a limited time in the cradle. Best we use it well.
...Hey it's more likely than politicians, priests, lawyers or bankers getting us out of this mess!

Paul Budde delivers a call to arms but does not say in which direction we are supposed to March. In fact, he doesn't really say anything, apart from declaring that things need to change.

This is not very smart.

Sure the recent bushfires in Victoria killed about 80 people but, refresh my memory, how many died in the 1939 fires in Victoria? How many died in the Grote Mandrenke (the great drowning of men) that hit England and the Low countries in the 14th century - just one of many storms of the Little Ice Age that caused enormous loss of life?

In fact, almost any period in human history has its fair share disasters. So rather than worry about potentially marginal changes in risk due to climate change (if there is any problem at all), we should spend time on proper risk management such as warning systems for bush fires and, perhaps, improving building codes in Queensland so that house roofs do not get blown away by cyclones.

Now that would be smart.

Curmugeon, you are spot on.
I was recently talking to a guy working in the Pacific on Climate Change Adaptation policy. He was frustrated that Climate Science wasn't producing specific forecasts that he could make policy against.
I explained that Global Warming won't change the necessary policy. You still have to plan for extremes, you have to plan for unpredictables, you have to invest in risk management...You can effectively ignore Global Warming until you have over-utilised your natural resources, thus curtailing all adaptation options. Any population silly enough to utilise all it's resources is *itself* the problem.
We have plenty of resources, we just need to use them correctly. Global Warming may well be the slow burning fuse that saves us from blindly breeding ourselves into a nasty corner whilst being "led" by selfish children.