Finding personal equanimity in the face of global catastrophe
Some recent ruminations, presented for your perusal. 
Regarding the global catastrophe, I’m currently focused on climate change running faster and more severely than expected, impacting the food supplies and infrastructure in various regions through accelerating extreme weather events. Methane feedbacks will be part of this, and I think their additional impact could be noticeable in two or three more years (and measurable before that of course).
Reading James Hansen's paper on paleoclimate has convinced me that we’ve drastically underestimated the impact of relatively small rises in global mean temperature. As a result I think we’ve just passed the threshold of dangerous climate change.
I expect the resulting ripples of social disruption to turn into waves in the next three years, then into a storm in ten. The cracks in GlobCiv 1.0 will become really serious around 2030 as nations begin to focus on worsening internal problems to the exclusion of international ones – with the exception of spreading regional wars over water and refugees. I figure the wheels will finally fall off the GlobCiv enterprise in 2040 or so.
I don’t foresee human extinction for this century, though I think it’s distinctly possible next century as temperatures continue to soar past +6C. Depopulation to 1 billion or less by the end of this century is possible-to-probable.
We’re going to keep burning fossil fuels at all costs to try and prevent the end of GlobCiv, which will simply make it more certain. We will probably burn through all 1,000 GtC of available fossil carbon reserves before the end of the century, which will introduce a rather interesting bump into the decivilization process as the fuel tank runs dry.
I've been ruminating on on how we can achieve equanimity in the face of all this - for without equanimity there can be little compassion, and without compassion there can be no altruism or community. I think there are two roads to peace of mind, and which road one chooses depends on whether one is more left-brained or right-brained, more scientific/concrete or artistic/abstract.
The left-brain road to equanimity is typified for me by my father. He spent his working life as a research biochemist and biologist as well as being a classical violinist and a deeply, broadly curious free-thinker. This combination has given him an evolutionary, deep-time perspective on the human situation, into which he has been able to integrate his son’s growing awareness of the impending collapse with very little sturm and almost no drang.
I have also run into a growing contingent (many of here and on Facebook) who find as much equanimity by moving towards an Eastern philosophical perspective founded on an awareness of the spiritual/ecological interdependence of everything, with lashings of non-dualism and Buddhist non-attachment. This group has become my tribe.
What I have not found is any significant number of people who have achieved lasting peace of mind while remaining psychologically attached to standard Western anthropocentric cultural concerns, values and arrangements. Interestingly, whether they remain attached in support of, or in opposition to, the mainstream paradigm seems to matter little. Both positions seem to generate a similar level of disturbance in the psyche.
This tells me that freeing oneself psychologically from the current paradigm of civilization is more important than precisely what worldview one adopts in its place.
In my opinion the quasi-Buddhist path is more likely to bring about the compassion and altruism we’ll need, because they’re explicitly built into the philosophy. However, some people are allergic to the frankly spiritual orientation of this path. For those whose minds require a more concrete worldview, the evolutionary, deep-time perspective definitely confers peace of mind.
Wishing you deep peace however you find it.
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Some people come to an angry boil when I talk about going gentle into that good night. And that's fine - wanting to fight to your last breath is an authentic reaction. The reason I talk a lot about the equanimity of non-attachment is that it is sometimes painted as illegitimate, contemptible fatalism by the fighters. I'd like to offer the possibility that it's a sane, productive response - more so for some people and less so for others, but differences are what make this world a wonderful place..
Being in the moment is the core of every nondualist tradition in the world. Don't cling to memories, don't cling to plans. If one does decide to look for balance and equanimity that's where to start and end - right Now.
Leary/Alpert <==> Stones/Beatles. As one old hippie to another, I took Leary's path back then, but now I walk a bit more with Ram Dass. Although even now I still try and achieve a balance. 
