Don't think one can turn around our human 'momentum' that way David. The momentum builds on globally shared archetypes, of what a good life should mean, and of what being 'successful' should be. At the bottom it builds on greed and egoism as the 'forces' creating a change, to the better, for any and all individuals:)

I don't expect greed and egoism to step back for a globally united try to limit anything really, the best we can do is probably what we are doing at the moment, because anything real will cost you, and me.

Or put another way. Sure, we all want do what is right for the long term, but why should we be the ones to pay for it :)

We're not really equipped with long term planning abilities as I've noticed, but we are pretty good on adapting. So let's put some hope in our ability there.

We're not willing to pay for it?

My advocacy is for a fossil fuel consumption tax, which REPLACES other taxes: we no longer pay other taxes, but we do pay a tax on fossil fuel.

The more enlightened among us work out that to minimise their future tax bill, they use some of their present tax savings on low/zero emission technology and equipment. The less enlightened (more inert?) among us continue paying more tax until they figure it out, or die to be replaced by a generation who has grown up with the newer tax system.

Thus do our abilities to adapt to our financial circumstances produce the desired outcome. I've got lots of hope for that, because the outcome of "giving up on fighting climate change and just adapt" necessarily includes the loss of most of our cultural icons, most of the animals and plants we like to tell our kiddies about, and large-scale human depopulation - not by enlightened family planning or female emancipation and education, but by the same old same old famine and disease that have always disturbed our complacency.

You've missed my point if you think I'm arguing for some grand united worldwide effort. Climate change is simply a matter of changing taxation regimes to encourage and facilitate each taxpayer choosing alternatives to fossil fuel use.

I don't know David, to my thinking any real effort stopping a global warming, need to stop the cars, and industries, using fossil fuels. I would like that and have said it loud several years ago, earning surprised looks from people wondering about my sanity :)

I don't think we will do that, instead we will go to a changing planet, and there a lot of species, and flora, must change their locations to survive. I don't think they will, or rather, some will, and if we just could leave them in peace for some thousands of years I'm sure the planet would find a new balance. But I don't think we will allow that either :)

Doesn't mean that trying doesn't count, it must count, but if you stopped all man made CO2 today, the 'tail' of what we already made, in the atmosphere clings for ?? a thousand years or more, with the majority of, if I remember rightly, visiting us in a couple of hundred years, or so. People still don't have precise numbers for that one, as I know.

And then we have the fact that we're going in the opposite direction, producing more CO2 globally, instead of less. That may change in time, but?

Thanks Yoron. You and I are agreed that the world needs to stop using fossil fuels; I think the point on which we seem to differ is my optimism that the world will stop using fossil fuels sooner rather than later.

That the CO2 already emitted is already changing the world is beyond doubt, as is the expectation that much of this change is yet to come. That this change has been and will be detrimental is obvious when we consider that all life and human civilisation have optimised themselves to present climatic conditions.

"... we're going in the opposite direction, producing more CO2 globally, instead of less ..." The problem is that those CO2 emissions are sourced from "fossil" carbon that was removed from the climate system (geosequestered as carbon-rich materials aka fossil fuels) over hundreds of millions of years to culminate in the aforementioned present climate; if those CO2 emissions are from biofuels whose carbon content is sourced from the atmosphere, then the fuel production and utilisation is a closed cycle and hence climatically benign.

That we're using more fossil fuels rather than less is in part attributable to the counter-productive process used to limit CO2 emissions, namely cap-and-trade schemes. In the case of Europe, for example, CO2 emissions have decreased thanks to the EU ETS, primarily through the outsourcing of emission-intensive production to China - after which, there are further CO2 emissions associated with shipping goods from China to Europe.

This is described in Oxford Energy Policy Professor Dieter Helm's recent book, "The Carbon Crunch". I recommend it.

A good idea Arthur, and one never knows. You just might be right in your optimism. I'm slightly more cynical I'm afraid :) Doesn't mean I need to be right though. I prefer it the other way.

Oh, sorry, meant David :) unusual combination of names to me. Used to discuss with another guy , another site, named Arthur so I will blame it on that :)