How likely is it that the world will successfully manage to stave off (the worst of) global warming?

[Loren Pechtel]

The European Community, for example, has pushed for humanitarian values and is actively reducing CO2 emissions. The Gates Foundation and the United Nations are other counterexamples.

Pessimism may indeed be warranted. Benevolence of the Chinese and American governments can hardly be taken for granted. The modern ease of spreading disinformation has shown how precarious democracy and democratic values are. But "All human organization's are always the same" is much too strong a statement, and is not a path to the hopeful planning we need now.

They'll do something. They won't do enough. Every step of the way it gets whittled down, providing less than the previous step indicated.

 

[steve_bank]

Atlantic currents begin with cold water sinking at polar ice. If the current stalls weather changes. The current also churns nutrients.

From watching news shows there is awareness but peole do not seem to make the direct connection between food and climate. After a report on warming reporters go off on ice cream and wine.

Here in Seattle a big story is the revamped venue for a new hockey team and potential NBA team. There is no real sense of alarm. A large percentage of people will not get vaccinated in the face of an immediate threat.

We are failing the Darwin test and we are deselecting ourselves for survival. I'd say the odds are there will be a large scale reduction in population.

It is also a test of western liberal democracy and the ability to deal with problems, IOW self rule by the people through elections.

 

[JohnG]

We have better chance of climatologists being very wrong than people doing anything even remotely significant to deal with GW. And chances of climatologists being wrong are not very good at all.

I agree with this. If the pandemic is any indicator of how well as a society we can pull together and overcome an obstacle, our chances are very poor.

Even though a vaccine was developed within a year, we still can't get past divisions enough to get ahead of the problem. Climate will be no different.