My prediction is that it will not be some giant visible catastrophe like your analogy suggests, but a slow, continuous degradation over the span of decades and

My prediction is that it will not be some giant visible catastrophe like your analogy suggests, but a slow, continuous degradation over the span of decades and centuries (as it has been happening in fact already for the past few decades/centuries). People will be adapting, but the quality of life and the environment will get worse and worse. Those who will point it out and will dare to say we don't live in the best of times, will be mocked and accused of seeing the past with rose-tinted glasses.