Without passing judgment on the whole die-off issue, I would respectfully suggest that we all step lightly when talking about other people's reactions to such weighty topics.  Many people, possibly (and possibly not) including Delaney, are depressed over what they perceive is coming simply out of concern for all the people who will suffer and/or die a premature death.  It might not be as personal as how their own relative or their family name survives.

While I agree that the family name business is silly, trying to save one's family definitely does not strike me as pathetic.  I have no children, but it does pain me to think of what my three nieces and the neighborhood kids my wife and I have grown attached to will face.  

I think you're absolutely right that we should spend less time hand wringing and more time doing something about our situation.  But trying to educate people about this looming situation is one hell of a tough job...

I agree with you wholeheartedly.  But still want to add that suffering is a fact.  Everyone is going to die. Everyone.  If not sooner, later.  So it's just a matter of how.  And when.  Most children in the past never had a chance to grow up. Now they do, and we face a different set of problems.  It's the price we pay.  And it's the same with the human race.  Mortal.  Sooner or later.

And I also take issue with the missed targets of those in the doom and gloom boat.  It's not that I don't understand all the issues, the problems, the overshoot, the islandization of ecosystems, etc etc.  But we still don't know the timing.  Anyone who says "five years" or "ten years" is pulling numbers out of the seat of their pants.

And..suppose we are in the final years of industrial civilization.  I personally think there is a lot of demand destruction to go around before we even approach the standard of living of, say, 1930.  Will people be eating people by then?  I'm just not betting on it.  But others can think so if it suits their fancy.  But suppose we are in the final years.  It's like sitting in a life boat.  There are people who are always sighting a ship on the horizon.  And others always whining and complaining about their lost futures.  To both I say "shut the F*** up and just enjoy the reflection of the sun on the water."  At peakoil.com I call them the hopelessly optimistic and the hopelessly hopeless respectively.  All hopeless.  I'm into realism.  Whatever it may bring.

The How and When are precisely what worry me.  
> To both I say "shut the F*** up and just enjoy the reflection of the sun on the water."

That is a good strategy for saving energy when nothing can be done, good for survival.

The only thing that matters is in a way survival since what dies becomes irrelevant.