Stabilization Wedges: Existing Technologies and Global Climate.

[NNadir]

I thought this paper, to which my attention was drawn through a link provided by Depakid, in Science is a pretty fair analysis of how we should look at the current state of affairs. It is a fairly balanced and blunt account of reality as it exists.

It is even better if I say that it is written by Princeton professors, even though it would still be a good paper were it written by a professor at the South Dakota School of Mining and Technology.

Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial
know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century. A
portfolio of technologies now exists to meet the world’s energy needs over the next
50years and limit atmospheric CO2 to a trajectory that avoids a doubling of the
preindustrial concentration. Every element in this portfolio has passed beyond the
laboratory bench and demonstration project; many are already implemented somewhere
at full industrial scale. Although no element is a credible candidate for doing
the entire job (or even half the job) by itself, the portfolio as a whole is large enough
that not every element has to be used.

http://fire.pppl.gov/energy_socolow_081304.pdf

There's a wonderful, easy to understand table in there, though I fully expect that even being easy to understand offers little hope that it will be understood.

The link provided by Depakid, which I highly recommend reading is Robert May's address to the Royal Society, which includes these cogent remarks that I now reproduce from the section on Enlightenment Science:

In short, I guess that the same ill-understood circumstances that allow complex human societies to arise and persist also - and perhaps necessarily - have elements that are strongly antithetic to the values of the Enlightenment.

What are these values? They are tolerance of diversity, respect for individual liberty of conscience, and above all recognition that an ugly fact trumps a beautiful theory or a cherished belief. All ideas should be open to questioning, and the merit of ideas should be assessed on the strength of the evidence that supports them and not on the credentials or affiliations of the individuals proposing them. It is not a recipe for a comfortable life, but it is demonstrably a powerful engine for understanding how the world actually works and for applying this understanding.

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/publication.asp?id=2181

The added bold is mine.

[skids]

1. K&R

I'll be stealing this link for some crossposts elsewhere, for sure. :-)

[NNadir]

2. Feel free to steal it. I stole it myself. It's worth telling.

I'm not so sanguine about some of the options, particularly those involving coal, but I think they have the right idea.