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John Holdren, via Climate Progress sums up the situation when it comes to the global experiment in heat-trapping:

We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.

What's terrifying all the climate scientists now is that we seemed to have ruled out mitigation altogether -- that is, we are going to do nothing to try to reduce the intensity of global climate change.  (Changing lightbulbs, adjusting mpg requirements, and building every 10th building "green" doesn't count.)   If worst case scenarios don't get realized, it will not be because humans suddenly decided that future generations deserved a habitable world, it will only be because the experiment in endless growth and triumphal materialism crashed to the ground prematurely.

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