Change is not in our interest. Our only rational policy is not to risk provoking it. Yet we face abundant evidence that civilization itself, through fossil-fuel emissions and other disturbances, is upsetting the long calm in which it grew. Ice sheets at both poles are breaking up. Glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas are thawing; some have disappeared in only twenty-five years. Droughts and unusually hot weather have already caused world grain output to fall or stagnate for eight years in a row. During the same eight years, the number of mouths to feed went up by 600 million.
A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright (2004)
Nice civilization you got there. Would be a shame if something were to happen to it.
See also:
