"We are now crossing the Event Horizon of the Age of Extinction." Then how about we find a new path that leads to survival instead of extinction? I've been working on that since my early teens and there is a path of genetic and strategic adaptation to a new world to survive and thrive in.

"The idea of change didn’t really enter the collective human consciousness". Who cares what we were conscious of. We started this change when we left the hunter gatherer ecology for the farms and cities of civilization, the New Ecology. We are on an old path. We just need to follow it to its destination.

"impoverishing people socially, spiritually, emotionally." Then offer a new genetic, moral and intellectual wealth.

"So how do we do it? How do we survive the Age of Extinction — emotionally?" Find a vision of a bright future. I can offer you that.

"Depression is when our primal fears are triggered. Over and over again. To the point, often, that they begin to rise in us reflexively, preemptively. Jesus, what’s going to go wrong today?". Ask anyone if we are in a moral crisis and their instincts will scream "Yes". Yes, we have few fears, but our moral instincts sure have one. Answer it with something it likes. ... Like my path to physical and moral survival.

"It means that our basic systems..." Yeah, that's a problem, but first understand them. What tool would you use. It needs to be about survival. it needs to be able to contain and order a vast amount of data and understanding. I know just the tool. - Ecology that describes everything about a species and its requirements for survival.... Why I chose that tool over 50 years ago.

" The old ways which had persisted for millennia were suddenly replaced by this thing called change." Yes, a change in ecology. Look at it that way and it makes sense and you can systematically work out a solution to moving forward.

"We are all feeling threatened these days because we are. This is the Age of Extinction." NO!!! It is an age of change. It is an age of transition, unless you let it be an extinction. We can survive it and become far more than we are. We can become more than animals. We can achieve our aspirations. We just need to see it and decide to do it..

"The question, then, to me at least becomes this: can we keep what we gained in the last Great Transformation, from Agrarian Age to Modern Age, which was industry and democracy — but also rid ourselves of the ills that came with them?" No, because we are in short term transient ecology. If you knew its true meaning, you wouldn't like it. We need to reach the next long term "stable" ecology where we can become something more... and escape some rather ugly moral conditions...

"It’s abstract because so far, we don’t even have words for these ideas.". Speak for yourself. These are the aspirations of humanity since the time that civilized peoples looked out their city gates and saw "man in nature". Not a pretty sight and they aspired for something more. I can describe what that is to you… to some extent, but certainly to its start.

"And sparking the next transformation." If you want to understand it, call it "Transition", the progress from one ecology to another where we can survive and develop. A transformation is an event with no explanation of the path from one to the other… aside from magic maybe. It’s not that way. It’s a transition, a path from one to the other... Long and difficult, like many paths.

Don't think you are the only one that knows this problem. Our moral instincts are screaming at us about it. You can read about how we can adapt genetically in "Genetics For A New Human Ecology", at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1544900996 or watch an older version at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjVieFKevMk. If you are terminally bored you can read "Transition To A New Human Ecology" at Amazon which is the strategic part, but was not complete... I just didn't have the knowledge... then... but I do now.