Frankly, the world as we know it is going away, soon.

[wickerwoman]

142. The OP is actually working off one of the better case scenarios.

Basically, if all the governments in the world bust their asses to hold global warming to 2-3 degree celsius (and this would mean a massive cut back in fossil fuel emissions to pre-1990s levels) we would get away with drought, famine, hundreds of thousands of people dying or being displaced and something like 10-20% of the species on the planet going extinct. This is actually the best case scenario run by the Stern Report which was commissioned by the UK government, written by an economist and is relatively conservative. And as the OP correctly points out, holding global warming to this scenario requires a literally unprecedented and frankly unlikely level of international cooperation and coordination. It requires national governments acting against their own best interests and many, many people in the first world accepting significantly more primitive living conditions.

The actual worst case scenario is Earth turns into Venus. People don't survive on Venus- not even in underground caves. And the tipping point for the worst case scenario is so close most peoples' brains literally will not process it.

I think good stuff is being done, but I'm skeptical if it's enough good stuff and if it isn't already too late. Every second we waste means turning things around will be more and more expensive and unlikely. We're getting into serious hail mary territory in terms of technological innovation and the remaining resources to implement solutions. And an obscene number of f'in Congresspeople still won't accept that global warming is happening in the first place.

And as one of the poor people who will probably starve to death, I don't take a hell of a lot of comfort that the "best and the brightest" will be breeding a super-race underground. I'd much rather walk to work, eat beans, not have too many kids and stop buying useless shit now. If only I could trust my fellow 7,068,682,000 citizens to do the same... but how when most of them won't accept the reality of the trouble we're in?