Combat imagery
The book is subtitled with the words Capitalism's War. The Rift between capitalism and the earth is shown to be the intentional negligence of economic businesses who often ignore the adverse effects that their business will have on the environment for economic gain. The competitive imagery continues, as each business is in a Mexican stand-off with all other businesses, because to do things in an economically viable way might reduce overhead, so that if one company continues to exploit the resources wantonly, they could get a steep advantage. Still, it should be duly noted that combat imagery has never been known as a peaceful negotiation tactic.
Wealth and power
The imagery of wealth and power needs to be fully explored in the book, and the authors themselves explain why. There are people who make sociopathic business decisions contrary to scientific evidence. Of course there are those who deny climate change or who maintain that adverse effects of business on environment are negligible; they are obviously wrong because of scientific evidence presented, but there is also an oligarchical minority who understand the obvious truth of the situation, but who still behave irrationally for money or power. In recent news, the burning of the Amazon rain forest comes to mind.
Human psychology
The problem in this book (and in a much more horrifying way, in real life itself) is that there are serious threats that loom in the background of life on earth. The human psychology element is of utmost importance because humans tend not to care about abstract problems that are somewhat intangible on a daily basis. Climate change is sudden and subtle (until it isn't!) so people have the choice of ignoring it. Then there are the swathes of the population who are plainly anti-intellectual, using psychological delusion as a defense mechanism against unwanted truths.
Doom and death
The picture that best describes the abstract imagery of this book is to imagine one's self trapped on a falling airplane with powerful people preventing the very-capable pilots from flying the plane correctly, because a few people are getting very rich by crashing the plane (even though they're on it). Then imagine half the plane is convinced that there is no such thing as a falling plane, and imagine that a lot of people understand the truth, but because of the stubbornness of human nature, there is no convincing enough people to persuade the plane overlords to change, lest they be overthrown. That's pretty much the situation the book describes. If the authors seem at times to be literally panicking, that is because the science is truly not encouraging and fear is appropriate because of the threat of death (which some people in their psychological states don't appreciate as a legitimate outcome). The odds of irreversible, devastating damages to the planet seem inevitable, given the political climate of the earth. The scientists are prophets of doom.
