Woody'z not a climate scientist. I'm a "social scientist," however, and am not unfamiliar with the rigors of knowledge work: research, development of theory, experimentation, peer review, etc.. So when a significant number of the most highly regarded, independent "minds" in a given field of endeavor agree on the meaning of certain phenomena, I am inclined to accept their verdict. I am therefore pretty sure that climate change is upon us.
Whether or not it is too late to do anything about it, or to ameliorate it to any significant degree, is a hotly debated topic about which I am not sufficiently expert to offer more than a cursory guess; but I am notably pessimistic by nature..
Howsoever it is resolved--if it can be--any effort to actually DO anything so will require an immense, hitherto unimaginable, almost total, GLOBAL effort, with all the political baggage which that entails. The project will be of an order of magnitude 10 to the 50th times greater than going to the moon required. The interdynamics of information, and commodification, and mediation, and commercialization and other instrumental and influential structural conditions of the existing, pervasive social and political arrangements create conditions in which violent antagonisms can be expected to erupt--outbreaks which would interfere with or even obstruct, possibly cripple the levels of international cooperation demanded to effect the changes required to affect the climatic catastrophes which would STILL threaten everyone.
The biggest obstacle I see is that the people who own and control all the machinery and resources upon which we ALL depend to an almost unimaginable degree to supply us with energy now are gonna demand to be paid to stop pumping, digging, refining and mining and burning all the stuff they "own."
Chevron is bigger, financially, than all but about a score or so of NATIONAL economies. Add Exxon/Mobil and BP, and you're up into the TOP 10...They're gonna demand to be reimbursed. Who's gonna buy 'em out? Those people have to be OUT of the game BEFORE any possible remediation can begin. If they're not, they'll screw it up.
And afterwards, who or what's gonna finance the "universalization"--could I say, the "ubiquitization"-- of clean replacements?
That's the major hurdle, it seems to me, and if anybody's talking about it, I haven't heard or seen a word...neither here nor at the beach, hippiez....Paz!!!
PS: See the TomGram today, by Michael Klare, for further reinforcement of the points raised herein.
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