Are we past the point of no return?

"Yes" in the sense that even if stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, the earth would keep warming for a while and take decades to return to "normal."  "No" in the sense that if we take action, we can mitigate the impacts of what otherwise could be a complete catastrophe.  And regardless, we have to do whatever we can do.  We can't sit idly by and watch our planet - the only one we've got - turn to burnt toast.

I don't know of a plan out there that would stop global emissions of greenhouse gases.  At best, the plans seek to reduce emissions to a certain historical target.  So, we'll still be emitting some form of carbon into the atmosphere.  And even if we stopped, would it not take 100s of years for the earth to remove that excess carbon from the atmosphere?

And what level of catastrophe are we talking about being inevitable?  Are we saying Greenland melting all at once and shutting down the Gulf Stream sending Europe and North America into another Ice Age?

I guess what I am trying to get to is what the cost-benefit proposal is.  Does say the General Assembly immediately need to force all new construction to be built to green standards?  Do they need to force all residents to upgrade their homes to meet that standard providing economic assistance to those who need help meeting that standard?  What is the extent of need?  Are baby steps okay (like tax credits for energy efficiency) or do we need to pull out all the stops?

I am trying to get at how catastrophic is the base case.  Is Virginia going to be under a mile of ice regardless?  And then if we just do X, Y & Z we can minimize the impacts to just the base case.  But if we don't so say Z, then the consequence will be the base case plus non-stop hail throughout the state (just for example purposes). 

1.  We should be talking about, researching how to move to carbon negative.  Alex Steffen has an excellent discussion about this in "How to Think Differently About Climate" (http://www.worldchan...).

2.  We should be pulling out all the stops ... but there is the need to push the Overton Window, to develop the momentum. Who was talking seriously about eliminating incandescent lightbulbs just a few years ago. Australia plans to eliminate them in a few years.

RE the "catastrophic", ice is definitely not the near term (next 1000 years) threat ...

Whatever it takes, this is the only planet we've got.  Anyway, I'm not convinced that reducing carbon emissions will ulimately hurt our economy.  What it WILL do is accelerate the shift from a resource-extraction-based/carbon-intensive economy to a knowledge-based, value-added, low-carbon economy.  That should produce stronger, more sustainable, healthier economic growth for the long term, as opposed to the unsustainable, unhealthy, short-term model we're following now.

Well, I'm still a little unclear what the catastrophe will be in the base case and what we can prevent.  I think developing some quantitative measure of the preventable catastrophe would help educate the public and spur action rather than despair.  The ill portents arguments in my mind present an insurmountable problem which discourages people.  Presenting a set of problems that can be fixed by X solution and other problems that might be fixed if we adopt Y process gives meaning to people's action.  Whereas if people feel that any action is fruitless, then they will do nothing.

So, if all the stops need to be pulled out, then have you devoted your life to this cause? 

Lowell is right. The planet will change dramatically very soon and we will have to adapt as much as possible.  In the meantime, we must make dramatic changes in our behavior to give future generations a chance for survival.