Sunset on Human Civilization?

I got this link about entering a new era from Jay Lake's livejournal.Do technological cultures survive their growing pains? Species extinction through war or unintended environmental consequences -- a cap upon the growth of civilizations -- could be one solution to the Fermi question. They're not here because they're not there, having left ruined cities and devastated planets in their wake, just as we will. It's a stark picture whether true or not, one that makes us ponder how the things we do with technology affect our future. Consider the question in terms of time.In saying we're entering a new era, though, even though it's admittedly because of human activity, this kind of relieves humanity of responsibility in an odd way.I've often thought conversations about new technology like iPods, argument about copyright, and the discussion about the death of reading is pretty irrelevant in the face of what we've done to ourselves. I'm not talking about giving up hope, but that we need to re-prioritize. We need to face the fact that we should be promoting population control all over the world, that we should be abandoning plastics, abandoning and transforming harmful agricultural practices, jettisoning those parts of globalization that are destroying the planet and local, less harmful economies, and immediately put the oil companies on a short leash, while insisting the auto industry get with the program--not in ten years, but in five, and not with a stupid 35-mpg minimum, which doesn't really help.I mean, I don't mean to be Friday's harbinger of doom, but does no one see what the f--- is going on all around them? You in the stupid SUV over there. Me in my f---ing car. You know what I mean?Jeff