Here's something scarier: it is going to get much, much worse, and there is no solution in the pipeline:

Here are the CO2 emissions today (actually 2010) in giga tons:

China 8.2
India 2.1
USA 5.5
Rest of World 17.7
Total 33.5

Here are the likely numbers for 2030 with no changes in policy or technology:

China 15
India 8
Rest of the world: ?
USA: ?
Total: Between 40 and 50

Assuming ZERO growth from any other country but China and India, the world total would be 46.2 in 2030, which would represent an increase of a bit less than 40% over 2010.

Let's assume that global climate change is real and anthropogenic. My fellow conservatives: stay with me on this one for now, OK, and let us assume that liberals are right about the fact of climate change and its causes. Don't concede it if you doubt it, but assume it for the purpose of strategizing.

Now that we have assumed that, how could we fix it? See what I'm driving at here? The liberals may be right about the problems, but not necessarily about the solutions. America should not be taking significant measures that would hurt its own economy, because the USA is virtually irrelevant to the future scenarios. If everyone in the USA gives up all technology and lives in trees, or in caves without fires, the world total will still be about 20% more than today by 2030.

And we are pretty much in agreement that today's total is already too high.

China and India are not likely to agree to restrictions on their industrial and economic development, and with good reason. Why would they deny themselves the growth that other nations have already experienced? They have as much right to economic development as every other country. It's not just that these countries are industrializing, but also the hard mathematical reality that they have two and a half billion people between them, something like eight times the population of the USA. It should not be surprising, then, that by 2030 they will between them emit four to five times as much CO2 as the States. Imagine how dire the numbers will be when they reach the USA's level of emissions per person.

As I see it, there is only one way to get CO2 emissions under control. The world needs to get China and India some ultra-clean technology and/or energy sources, and fast. (And retrofit that same technology elsewhere, of course.) Otherwise, assuming that climate change is real and anthropogenic, and that CO2 is the key factor, we are all screwed, and it's gonna get a lot hotter.

Also, since that will probably not happen, mankind being what it is - better at reaction than preparation, and since those two countries will probably realistically continue to increase emissions rapidly for years, maybe decades, I advise all of you to seek high ground in cold climates. The hills overlooking cold coastal cities will not only provide sanctuary from rising ocean levels, but are probably good candidates for increased property values as they get ever closer to becoming beachfront properties in warmer climes.

Oslo: the Miami Beach of the future!

gerrymander: FTA: 5. Civil wars on the rise

There's stupid, and then there's 'global warming advocate' stupid.

Yeah, no way people will start fighting each other when they run out of water.

tomasso: Oslo: the Miami Beach of the future!

Depiction of the carnage: Link

Nope, not panicking.

Wadded Beef: The earth will be just fine. It's we who are screwed.

In the future, historians will point to Dec. 21, 2012 as the last effective date for reducing the impact from emissions.

/Mayans ftw
//I hope reincarnation isn't real.

Gonad the Ballbarian
I dont know, the fact that our drought conditions are the worst in 50 WHOLE years means that there were even worse droughts prior to that...

Or that there's no reliable or comparable data.

50 years ago sounds about right for the start of monitoring things by (weather) satellite.

This really helps to put the whole Twinkies / Angus thing into perspective.

Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: Bottom line is that we survived drastic climate change in the past, and we'll survive it in the future.

Weren't we nearly wiped out utterly, with other hominids going extinct last time?

God-is-a-Taco: Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: Bottom line is that we survived drastic climate change in the past, and we'll survive it in the future.

Weren't we nearly wiped out utterly, with other hominids going extinct last time?

either that or it was the needle snakes.

You are the architects of your own demise.

Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: Bottom line is that we survived drastic climate change in the past, and we'll survive it in the future.

As a species sure. But our ancestors were more or less self-sufficient producing their own food. We have billions of people wholly reliant on just-in-time food distribution networks have have been optimized until little redundancy remains. If climate change disrupts global food production (e.g. where food can be grown), we could see mass starvation on a unprecedented scale. Eventually humanity would readjust, but not without tremendous cost of human life and suffering.

nmemkha: Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: Bottom line is that we survived drastic climate change in the past, and we'll survive it in the future.

As a species sure. But our ancestors were more or less self-sufficient producing their own food. We have billions of people wholly reliant on just-in-time food distribution networks have have been optimized until little redundancy remains. If climate change disrupts global food production (e.g. where food can be grown), we could see mass starvation on a unprecedented scale. Eventually humanity would readjust, but not without tremendous cost of human life and suffering.

I also would like to add that we have commoditized food so that it might not take huge shortages to cause suffering. Instead, many could be priced out of eating as speculation drives up the cost of the shorted supply.

gerrymander: fusillade762: gerrymander: FTA: 5. Civil wars on the rise

There's stupid, and then there's 'global warming advocate' stupid.

Yeah, no way people will start fighting each other when they run out of water.

Quick question: since the Arab Spring is one major driver of this the recent rise in this index, in how many Arab Spring-related conflict states has "lack of water" been identified as an underlying cause for the riots, etc.?

Just because something would cause unrest doesn't mean it has. 

/You know what else will cause riots?
//Aliens.
///I'm not saying it was aliens, but...

It doesn't get mentioned often, but water rights are a major sticking point between Israelis and Palestinians.

Water war leaves Palestinians thirsty

And this:

"I have [former Israeli prime minister] Ariel Sharon speaking on record saying the reason for going to war [against Arab armies] in 1967 was for water," Darwish told Al Jazeera.

Some analysts believe Israel continues to occupy the Golan heights, seized from Syria in 1967, due to issues of water control, while others think the occupation is about maintaining high ground in case of future conflicts.

Senegal and Mauritania also fought a war starting in 1989 over grazing rights on the River Senegal. And Syria and Iraq have fought minor skirmishes over the Euphrates River.

fusillade762: gerrymander: fusillade762: gerrymander: FTA: 5. Civil wars on the rise

There's stupid, and then there's 'global warming advocate' stupid.

Yeah, no way people will start fighting each other when they run out of water.

Quick question: since the Arab Spring is one major driver of this the recent rise in this index, in how many Arab Spring-related conflict states has "lack of water" been identified as an underlying cause for the riots, etc.?

Just because something would cause unrest doesn't mean it has. 

/You know what else will cause riots?
//Aliens.
///I'm not saying it was aliens, but...

It doesn't get mentioned often, but water rights are a major sticking point between Israelis and Palestinians.

Water war leaves Palestinians thirsty

And this:

"I have [former Israeli prime minister] Ariel Sharon speaking on record saying the reason for going to war [against Arab armies] in 1967 was for water," Darwish told Al Jazeera.

Some analysts believe Israel continues to occupy the Golan heights, seized from Syria in 1967, due to issues of water control, while others think the occupation is about maintaining high ground in case of future conflicts.

Senegal and Mauritania also fought a war starting in 1989 over grazing rights on the River Senegal. And Syria and Iraq have fought minor skirmishes over the Euphrates River.

I'll volunteer for the service if Arizona ever goes to war against California over the Colorado River.

fusillade762: gerrymander: FTA: 5. Civil wars on the rise

There's stupid, and then there's 'global warming advocate' stupid.

Yeah, no way people will start fighting each other when they run out of water.

That may be true, but their graph doesn't show what it says it's showing. The inputs to the graph probably have more to do with population growth and nuclear arms than climate change.

DrPainMD: Yeah, yeah, yeah... climate changes. Always has and always will. You could pick any time in the planet's history and come up with five "scary" charts about how changing climate will affect the future.

Yes -- but only a few of those climates are suitable for short-sighted primates like yourself.

acohn: The World Bank is being unknowingly conservative in its estimate of temperature rise. To date, the more extreme climate models have been the most accurate. A temperature rise of 5-8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 predicted by these models, plus a rise in CO2 to at least 430 PPM (likely with the increasing economic activity in India and China) spells the end, not only of civilizations, but of all current life on the planet more complex than anaerobic bacteria.

This is why I'm no longer an environmentalist; the game is lost.

Doom, doom, doom.

The guy's Ted talk talked about positive feed back loops, but ignored negative ones.

The ocean conveyor belts bringing warm water to the North stopping. More moisture in the atmosphere making more clouds, increasing albedo, purging us into an ice age, increasing snow increasing the albedo even more.

The system is chaotic, and I mean that in a mathematical sense.

If the positive feedback loops are real, and without matching negative feedback loops, why aren't we already hot? That trapped Carbon was in the atmosphere once already. If it would cause runaway, unstoppable global warming, it would have done it already.

That isn't to say our massive CO2 emissions aren't a problem. It means it could result in more volatile climate, which could be arguably be worse than a constant predictable march to a warmer climate.

We can deal with predictable. The other means the Sahara could get tropical rain falls for a few decades while Iowa gets none, then switch.

maxheck: In the meantime, China has become both the largest producer and (more interestingly) the largest *consumer* of solar and wind tech.

Gosh... How did that happen? Maybe because they learned from the Japanese. If you were aware in the 70's, the Japanese targeted what they thought was a market ripe for picking. Steel production. It was all set for whoever could innovate, modernize and outproduce someone else, so the Japanese government poured huge amounts of money into the industry to make it happen... And they stomped the US steelmakers into oblivion. They screwed things up later, and lost to (wait for it) the Chinese, but for a while there they were the kings of steel.

China figured out some time ago that "dumping" cheap technology and outproducing anyone else will make them dominant in any venue they want, and it's been working so far. Right now the war is about renewable energy. Guess w

China will kick our arse because a science denying idiots don't make up half their political parties.

India has to step up - I'm too old to learn Chinese.

starsrift: I argue that it is not chaotic, it is predictive and deterministic - and most importantly, a closed system.

Deterministic systems can be chaotic. Which is why I said I meant it in a mathematical sense.