SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — “Forget everything you think you know about global warming. The really inconvenient truth is that it’s not about carbon — it’s about capitalism,” warns Naomi Klein in “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate.”

“The convenient truth is that we can seize this existential crisis to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better.”

Capitalism has failed America? Yes. Global warming is the result of capitalism’s failure. And, Klein writes, “the market has not — and cannot — fix the climate crisis but will instead make things worse, with ever more extreme and ecologically damaging extraction methods, accompanied by rampant disaster capitalism.”

Capitalism is the problem. And unless we “embrace radical change ourselves ... radical changes will be visited upon our physical world,” warns Klein, echoing this earlier warning from Pope Francis: “If we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us!”

“ ‘[Unless] we embrace radical change ourselves ... radical changes will be visited upon our physical world.’ ” — Naomi Klein

Yes, capitalism is destroying the world. “The status quo is no longer an option,” warns Klein. Then, with a hint of optimism, she adds: “The climate crisis challenges us to abandon the core free-market ideology of our time, restructure the global economy, and remake our political systems.”

Can the global capitalist mind set change in time?

Abandon free-market capitalism? No. Never. Not a chance. Super-rich capitalists, Big Oil, the GOP, the Koch brothers and their fellow conservative billionaires will never listen, let alone voluntarily abandon their core free-market ideology. For a generation they’ve denied climate was a problem, fought all proposed reforms, refused to cower under the feeble threats of environmental activists armed only with climate science.

No, capitalists will never willingly give up on their perpetual-money-machine version of free-market capitalism. They will not wake up in time to change course, plan, act. Certainly not the 67 billionaires who own half the world’s assets. The ideology of capitalism is deeply wired into today’s global zeitgeist, the collective unconscious of the world, the brain center of the world economy. Polls by Gallup and others prove that climate is a low national priority.

As Klein wrote in The Nation: “Climate change demands we consume less, but being consumers is all we know” — all every capitalist knows. We all consume.We are all capitalists. And we will not change in time to save the planet, save us from ourselves. Because when humans finally awaken from our collective trance capitalism trance, it will be too late. The war has already been won by capitalism. Climate lost.

What If we pass the point of no return?

So: What would it take to change the minds of those billionaires? A global catastrophe? Revolution? Wars over food, water and energy? Dust bowls? Pandemics? Maybe all of that?

In a World Wildlife Fund interview, anthropologist Jared Diamond, author of “The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal,” compared today’s capitalism-vs.-climate drama with the collapse of the Mayan civilization: “The elite made decisions that were good for themselves in the short run but ruined themselves and their societies in the long run.”

Capitalists today are optimistic, convinced that the environmentalists are alarmists, grossly exaggerating the consequences of global warming. Besides, they are absolutely convinced that if any problems do arise, capitalism is the solution. Moreover, God — alongside an infusion of capital and the promise of new technologies — will bail us out.

Environmentalist are also optimists. The authors Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben join Barack Obama and Xi Jinping as well as the pope in operating under a shared delusion. They hope, quixotically, that capitalists will eventually, in Klein’s terms, “abandon their core free-market ideology, restructure the global economy, and remake our political systems.”

Both sides, in fact, are delusional. The wishful thinking of both capitalists and environmentalists is certain to fade as the world population explodes from 7 billion today to 10 billion in a single generation, on a limited planet that’s rapidly exhausting its nonrenewable natural resources, where experts agree we can’t feed 10 billion in 2050.

The impossible koan

The great Zen masters would love the Global Warming Koan — one of those impossible questions that has no rational answer. Koans were used to challenge young monks training in monasteries: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Here’s a koan Klein might pose: “How can a dying planet feed 10 billion in 2050?”

Skeptics will scoff, doubling down on their particular ideological position, arguing either (a.) that “capitalism has the solution to all the problems of the world” or (b.) conversely, as Klein warns, that capitalism is “no longer an option.”

“The climate crisis,” Klein explains, “challenges us to abandon the core free-market ideology of our time, restructure the global economy, and remake our political systems.”

A truly impossible koan, of course, has no such solution: “Can a dying planet feed 10 billion in 2050?” We see no solution. Is there one? Can any of us find it?

There are several psychological points of contention:

1. Politicians will drag their feet ... till it’s too late.

Obstacles to the U.S.-China emissions agreement

In spite of agreements like the recent United States–China Climate Accord, most countries will do too little, act too late. Global warming will accelerate as the global population mounts, but more significantly due to the increasing consumer demands of 10 billion people using up limited resources.

2. Humans will fail to adapt fast enough ... till it’s too late.

Climate change is happening so fast that humans will be unable to adapt fast enough and will be forced instead to endure starvation, pandemics, droughts and wars over scarce resources.

3. The super-rich will fight all reforms ... till it’s too late.

Big Oil and the GOP and the conservative billionaires and the climate-science deniers will fight attempts to force them to “abandon the core free-market ideology of our time, restructure the global economy, and remake our political systems.”

4. The closet capitalists will remain in denial ... till it’s too late.

Seriously, humans are closet capitalists. By 2050 there will be 10 billion of us, all addicted to consumption. Yes, we blame Big Oil and other capitalists. But we all want the latest, next big thing now. We still fill up at the pump. We’re insatiable, demanding consumers. As Klein puts it: “Climate change demands we consume less, but being consumers is all we know.”

Truth is, we’re in denial, and few among us will wake up to the threat of global warming in time. Save the world? No, we’re all just as self-centered as the billionaire capitalists we attack. We’ll sit in the bleachers, passively watching climate change, through catastrophes like Superstorm Sandy, while the planet rushes past a point of no return.

5. The no-win koan ... it’s already too late.

The koan has no answer. We are in a no-win scenario. It’s already too late to plan ahead, because the capitalists would first need to surrender to reality. But that won’t happen soon enough, meaning it’s really already too late to save the world from itself.

Diamond says we still haven’t learned the lessons of history: Centuries ago 2 million people lived in the Mayan civilization. Theirs was like “so many societies in which the elite made decisions that were good for themselves in the short run and ruined themselves and societies in the long run.” As a result, the Mayan world collapsed “because of a combination of climate change, drought, water-management problems, soil erosion, deforestation.”

Diamond adds: “The kings had managed to insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions.” Yes, they saw forests being chopped down. But, writes Diamond, “the kings didn’t recognize that they were making a mess until it was too late, when the commoners rose in revolt.

“Similarly, in the United States at present, the policies being pursued by too many wealthy people and decision makers are ones that, as in the case of the Mayan kings, preserve their interests in the short run but are disastrous in the long run.”

Looks like history is repeating itself.