The world appears to be moving very rapidly towards a global depression. No one knows how deep it will go or how long it will last. More importantly, no one knows what long-term effects it will have. The last depression took place in the 1930s. It was responsible not only for untold misery but also indirectly for the deaths of more than 50 million human beings. Without the Great Depression it is inconceivable that the Nazi Party would have taken power in Germany. In 1928 the Nazi Party won less than 3% of the national vote; by mid 1932, close to 40%. In turn, without Hitler in control of Germany, there would have been no World War II. While the earliest of the direct effects of the global financial crisis are already with us, the indirect effects are presently unknowable. What impact will it have on the Millennium Development Goals, the pledge of the countries of the developed world to increase foreign aid to 0.7% of their GDP so that there is at least a plausible chance that a portion of the billion or so human beings who live on less than a dollar a day might be lifted out of poverty? What impact will it have on the chances of radical and binding international agreement over global warming, at Copenhagen and beyond, without which the very future of the Earth is threatened? What other radical impacts might it have which are presently unforeseen and unforeseeable? If the arrival of the astonishing global financial crisis does not now call out in all of us sobriety and seriousness, nothing ever will.