I'm fairly convinced that the status quo can do nothing to prevent the collapse of complex industrial society. Obviously it's a complicated topic, but if you assume the position that by 2030 there will be dramatic, uncontrollable warming of the planet (and all of the side effects that will bring), what is to be done to prevent that?
As a guy with a decent work-from-home kind of job (for now) and enough resources to be comfortable, it's been incredibly tempting during quarantine to think about building a house off the grid, finding a stable source of drinking water, and building a sustainable farming homestead in rural America. 2020 has demonstrated that things don't always just work out. I'm worried about the precarious material conditions that pervade contemporary urban culture (at least from the perspective of sustainability if food/water/power systems are interrupted). And I know I could develop the skills I need to live like that.
But obviously, something can be done to prevent a collapse. We could work together to ensure the stability of urban environments, and produce all of the energy and matetials we need here, locally. We could put everyone to work with this goal in mind. We could build a better world collectively.
But how? How do I find a group of people to work with? How do I convince the liberals who just shrug and say, man, isn't it just terrible that trump is in charge? How do I find anyone who's thinking about this shit, and realizes that actually yes, this can all fall apart. Things are not as stable as they seem. Climate change is literally the only issue that matters in any time frame beyond 10 years.
What is next? What is there to do?
This is all true, but systems collapse does seem to come rapidly, after decades of increasing strain. Both the early and late Bronze Age collapses, as well as the Migration period tend to indicate that.
That said, there's a lot of ruin in a nation/global community before it goes down, and we've managed to survive things like the little ice age with only a series of horrifying wars.
I think the real argument between doomers and realists is more a 2035 collapse vs a 2080-2120 collapse. Things are gonna get very bad in a very short frame at some point, but when it happens and where it happens isn't going to be evenly distributed.
On the other hand, the 'collapse' of the roman empire took 1000 years, between the split and the fall of the west and the eventual fall of the east. And we're like rome on steroids, more than we're like bronze age farmers, and also more than we're like ppl during the little ice age tbh. Of course, you definitely still have a point.
100 years from now is definitely too far away to talk about making predictions with any level of certainty. You're totally right, system state changes are often rapid flips compared to the stability in between. And who knows what is coming when!