In his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, yesterday, Al Gore used the language of war to spell out in stark terms the kind of future the world faces if we ignore the impending climate change crisis.

We’re on a war footing with nature, now, heading down a path to “mutually assured destruction,” as Gore described it:

‘The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: ‘What were you thinking; why didn’t you act? Or they will ask instead: ‘How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?”’

Mother Nature’s been dropping hints for decades now that our cavalier consumption’s thrown our whole ecosystem out of whack. But, like the invisible parents of Peanuts, her warnings became a “wah-wah-wah” that was all too easy to tune out.

Gore’s call to action, by contrast, is crystal clear and impossible to ignore, unless you’re a blockhead, or a beagle.