The article specifically puts climate change at the top of its concerns, which is a "step off of the train tracks or you'll get hit" problem if there ever was one -- but in slow motion, of course.

The point of the article, as I read it, was that these problems really are urgent, but our brains and our politics trick us into not seeing them that way because they are either (1) slow moving or (2) call for tedious, fat-tail responses (rather than sexy, exciting, silver bullet fixes).

Rather than "yeah, I should get out to the gym more" a better analogy would be: "Okay, it's time to face it -- I'm definitely an alcoholic. If I don't change my ways, it may not kill me tomorrow, but it's definitely going to catch up with me soon enough. So I better start figuring out a way to turn this boat around, before it heads over the edge."

Which is categorically different from the "aspirational" sense of urgency you seem to be describing.