"Historically, apocalyptic predictions of the future have been made based on the assumption of static conditions of the present."

Thanks, I thought the same. Unfortunately, he used mythology to convey his message.

IMHO, he personified the Earth/dynamo(Gaia), and Sun relationship along with humanity's worst. Worst case scenario would be what happened at Easter Island (example): Deforestation and dehumanization brought on their demise. Of course, that was then.

"I wonder if he realizes that he has actually suggested a means of survival in spite of his doom and gloom scenario."

During his time, that may have been the means towards the goal.

"There's always a way, and I doubt it will be as bad, or as sudden as he suggests, if future transitions are bad at all. Some might be, obviously."

Out of fear or optimism, he sent a message via VERY pessimistic means. (Does that make sense? Hmmm: pessimism - The doctrine or belief that this is the worst of all possible worlds and that all things ultimately tend toward evil.

I may be optimistic, but Sol reigns:

[When life first began to develop on Earth, short-term variations in Sol's brightness were probably limited to a few tenths of a percent. Many Sol-type stars go through periods of diminished activity during which they can get as much as one half to one percent dimmer, as magnetic activity subsides for decades or longer. A prolonged reduction in Solar luminosity could send Earth into another ice age. Indeed, one such episode known as the Maunder minimum may have triggered the Little Ice Age from 1645 to 1715 CE, when crops failed in Northern Europe and London's Thames River stayed frozen in June. According to Sallie L. Baliunas, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, such diminutions of Solar activity contributed to 17 of the 19 known major episodes of extended chill downs of Earth's climate in the past 10,000 years.

Sol is becoming hotter and brighter as fusion of helium "ash" becomes more statistically common with the gradual depletion of hydrogen at its core, which may be half helium after 4.6 billion years of hydrogen fusion. Initially, this helium ash is inert and as it accumulates, the efficiency of nuclear fusion of core hydrogen and other processes decreases and the core produces less heat to maintain internal pressure. As a result, gravity works more efficiently to contract the center of the Sun and raise internal pressure to heat up the core more, which raises the overall energy transmitted to the surface. Astronomers believe that Sol has gotten at least 30 percent brighter since the formation of its planets. Sol is expected to become another 10 percent brighter over the next 1.1 billion years, and so Earth may become too uncomfortably hot for even microbial life in another 500 to 900 million years.]

http://www.solstation.com/stars/sol.htm