We are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction in Earth's history, and unlike the previous five, this one has an author. The examined response to this fact is not despair, and not denial, but something harder — a clear-eyed commitment to doing what can still be done with what remains. Nasreddin, who made jokes in the middle of disasters, would say: the story is not over until it is over, and sometimes not even then.
Each step builds on the last.