Drastic changes needed to avert global warming?

Why bother reducing my carbon footprint? That's probably what many people asked after reading about a new study that predicts that even if carbon emissions were drastically reduced, droughts and other severe climate changes tied to the emissions would persist for 1,000 years.

So why drive less? Why buy a hybrid? Why promote renewable energy?

Because doing nothing, or doing less, would mean even more dire consequences, the study's authors and other scientists argue.

"If we don't slow down or stop emissions, the climate changes will get much larger and quite intolerable," Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said in an interview with msnbc.com.

The more dire scenarios for global warming envision water wars, food shortages or famine due to drought and the loss of huge swaths of farmland, torrential rains and severe flooding in some regions and rising oceans.

more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28874983/

I have an idea: Shut down our coal plants. Then target China and India's coal plants with cruise missiles if they don't do the same. If China threatens to nuke us, position ballistic missile submarines nearby to act as a healthy deterrent. They said "drastic" didn't they? I can't say I would mind. Fuck Kyoto. Nobody is gonna follow those rules unless someone enforces them with a heavy hand. The scientists are saying we are on the brink of irreversible catastrophe.

RealClimate has a handy explication:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/02/irreversible-does-not-mean-unstoppable/

I say sooner is better than later. The sooner we shut down, however violently it's done, then the sooner the rest of the species will have a chance of recovering.

I'll hope for the best but I am afraid. There's something so Evil about one species wiping out so many others that I'm afraid we'll have to pay for it somehow.

the profound pessimist in me has to wonder if this sort of violence might "prevent" more nasty violence in the future....but then that's the logic the Bushies used to justify THEIR violent adventures, so...... Ms Bigmack