From a planetary perspective, what is the crisis?

Today on a discussion board the following question was posted. It reflects my recent thinking about the question 'what time is it in the world?' 

Thanks Glistening Deepwater for the question.

"Difficult question of the day - "from a planetary perspective, (that is, from the perspective of the planet itself), what is the crisis??"
- further to that, how would the planet define it's own status if it could? (not from a humanist perspective)"

My favourite response is from Alex Lavigne-Gagnon and he introduces a multitude of perspectives, all of which are important to have considered as possibilities. Here it is: 

I inform my activities everyday with these and other considerations. If I take the country I presently live in, it seems that for all intents and purposes, the "majority" has no qualms with the way our government behaves.. no qualms with how multinational corporations behave.. My "carbon footprint" - though it could be much less than it currently is - is not exactly the same as Exxon Mobil's footprint.. Why am I the one so concerned with making his behavior "impeccable"? It seems the democratic "process" just isn't working.. it's not possible that the majority in Canada agrees wholeheartedly with what the government is doing (or not doing). But somehow, "for all intents and purposes", it has given its consent.. it seems there is a disconnect between what the people want, i.e. their interests and the governmental - bureaucratic - decision-making process.. and what matters are the decisions being made.. so what can I possibly do? I strive to make the best possible choices with every choice.. and my votes and letters and petitions fall on deaf ears.. I feel like a powerless voyeur watching it happen and unable to affect the direction and "government" of the machine no matter what I do.. cause it's making the wrong decisions and even if it made the right ones, it makes them way too slowly.. so in a sense an Absolute Monarchy would be best for Canada right now, so long as it has a "Good Monarch"..
So that's one "story". The other story is that crisis is not a bad thing. So-called humankind has overcome great crises before and it will again. That's why I do what I can, but in the end I don't care about the "history", the observable historical "stuff going on".. I see a much deeper reality going on, with much that remains and may always remain deeply unexplained and "mysterious".. My religion is poetic justice, essentially.. that's the "story" that I believe the most, it's why I'm consistently very optimistic.. cause in the long run, "good" will prevail, no matter how you choose to define "good".. Say in the long run "Gaia" which we find out is this planetary conscious body that has feelings and thoughts, intentions, and personality etc.. decides to kill off "humankind", then that will be what I call the "greater good" - not the "greatest good for the greatest number of people", i.e. Utilitarianism.. but the karmic "greater good", the one that always prevails.. Even evil is good, beneath it all, beneath the anger, the hatred, the violence and rage, beneath the bad faith and resentment, etc.. beneath that is just a deep sadness / sorrow.. trauma, grief.. Tears are a good thing.. so maybe the best thing is to let evil run its course.. because if anything, Gaia is on "our" side, those who care and are concerned with the well-being of others, and of the natural world, etc.
Another "story" is that maybe the governments and multinationals of this world, the lobbyists, the whole nine yards.. maybe they actually ARE doing what's best for ALL of our interests.. maybe there's a political class and a banking class because they know best how to run these things..
I see a few possibilities.. a "senseless mass" of 8 billion "minds" who collectively are real stupid and are leading to their own extinction because the "collectivity" i.e. the aggregate mass of individual behaviors does not behave rationally.. so that spells disaster, the senselessness is an emergent property and is inevitable, so be it. Or else there's an "evil" group of insiders "running the show" who have bad intentions and want to kill off everyone but their "own".. but for all I know in 20 years I'll be living on Mars.. or someone will come up with a simple solution to climate change.. and be able to resurrect extinct species or some crazy stuff like that.. What I love is not knowing, that's what keeps me up at night and pushes me to try to wake up as early as possible to keep doing the "Work".. You know in Catholicism we have saints, but saints are like you and me, extremely flawed.. they weren't perfect.. a saint is just someone who helps sanctify others, and it's never the saint who sanctifies.. in Catholicism its the Holy Spirit, but call it what you want.. we are messengers.. and the root "message" is not something human brains can ever fully understand, unless those brains become much more powerful, and likely they will..
I'm starting to believe maybe we will collectively grow more "intelligent" and be able to steer the big machine towards something beautiful..