Environmentally Speaking, Is It Time To Panic Yet? Is it time to put away our good intentions and get tough?

Yes to both. The Context: I recently read And The Band Played On, a history of the early years of the AIDS plague, primarily based on the United States and the emerging gay communities on the east and west coasts. As AIDS became more and more serious, killing more and more people, some activists wanted to hit the panic button, be brutally honest about the fact that sexual practices were a large part of its spread and use explicit sexual education to contain the plague. They were told for years that they were being alarmist, that there would be a backlash from the authorities and that people would be paralyzed by the truth rather than confronting it. Finally, with hundreds a day dying, a few dared to say the truth as loudly as possible. And that was the turning point.