The Titanic didn't sink the moment it hit the iceberg, it took a little over two and a half hours. During a significant portion of that time it wasn't all that obvious that anything was seriously wrong. The ship was listing slightly to one side and the engines were off.
The passengers weren't all affected equally either. A lot of first-class passengers made it onto lifeboats, whereas third class passengers mostly didn't.
(The analogy breaks down a little in that we don't have lifeboats and the collapse of our ecosystems probably won't be as absolute and catestrophic as a ship sinking. The Earth's ability to sustain large numbers of humans may decline significantly though, and a lot of things we take for granted now may be gone.)
We don't have life boats (yet) but I do wonder if some part of the massive increase in wealth disparity we've seen is due to uncertainty about the future, or if the reluctance to take meaningful action to slow/reverse the impacts we've had on the earth is because it's already clear that our time is running out and there's nothing that can be done to stop it.
The passengers weren't all affected equally either. A lot of first-class passengers made it onto lifeboats, whereas third class passengers mostly didn't.
(The analogy breaks down a little in that we don't have lifeboats and the collapse of our ecosystems probably won't be as absolute and catestrophic as a ship sinking. The Earth's ability to sustain large numbers of humans may decline significantly though, and a lot of things we take for granted now may be gone.)