Honestly, the “ have the government force everyone into subsistence farming to save the earth” comments reminded me personally, at the time, of reading about the genocides in Southeast Asia not that many years ago by communists seeking to establish an agrarian utopia who emptied the cities and did things like execute people who wore glasses since, they reasoned, only intellectuals wore glasses.
It looks as though our country might enter a time of great suffering, but that may not be all bad for us in the long run. Suffering and hardship can have a way of tearing away fantasies and impressing one with facts and reality, rearranging values and perceptions. My grandparents and their generation, who lived through the Great Depression, were definitely not goofy people.