The conclusion of IPCC's work in 2007 finally provides the scientific basis for listing human beings (homo sapiens) as a threatened and endangered species.  In so doing, we could invoke the Endangered Species Act's (ESA's) protective powers to solve the climate crisis, reverse economic course, and launch humanity in a new economic direction promising durable prosperity and security.  Ironically, the basis for listing homo sapiens could also be used to list virtually all of the planet's species, thereby invoking the full force of the ESA in protecting the planet from the ecological ravages of climate change and the ensuing economic and social crises catastrophes.  Paradoxically, the ESA could become the basis for legally requiring a shift in economic direction to ecologically sustainable global economic and societal development. Of course, the UN and nations of the earth would all need to adopt ESAs on par with that of the US. 

However, for such a move to be successful in deed and word, it would need to be based on a more powerful understanding of environmentalism and sustainability than the old-school win-lose, owls vs jobs version.  We would need to use the current economy and technology as a bridge to creating an ecologically sustainable economy ASAP, and one that was more prosperous than the current economy (win-win).  The old-school  vision of sustainability that simply regulates cuts in current production and consumption to reduce carbon emissions without creating the economic capacity for higher wealth production, albeit ecologically sustainable, is not the sustainability scenario that will be successful politically or practically. Nor is it the most powerful and potent sustainability scenario latent in this historical moment and challenge.  It is not powerful enough to work and it simply replaces one bad (the catalyst for the climate crisis) with another (even more economic misery and poverty than already exists on the planet).  It is not the necessary and only option. 

Humanity needs to see and develop the larger incipient potential for durable prosperity and security that lies at the heart of the sustainability challenge and opportunity humanity now faces, and do it at lightening speed.  In that crucible and path of innovation lies the challenge that will bring out the best and highest qualities of humanity, and invent the new path needed to avoid the climate crisis and to thrive and prosper in enduring peace and security.  With that vision, that understanding, and that path, humanity can successfully dodge a very real bullet coming  straight at its collective head from a gun it already fired at itself.  In this way, and much to the chagrin of some environmentalists, economists, and businesspersons, ESA could begat sustainability in one of history's bigger strokes of unintended and unanticipated consequences.