Well, whatever we do, it needs to be soon. Because, like I said, once the permafrosts start melting en masse, the release of all that carbon is gonna screw everything up for certain.
It might not be quite so bad in the end... But getting there in the meantime is gonna be messy as all hell.
Prevention... There are two major fronts for this: Automobiles and Power Grids.
For autos: getting most automobiles onto some kind of low-emission system would be a great start. We don't even have to go completely without fossil-fuel here. Use a setup much like diesel-electric locomotives here in the US, and collect regeneration from braking into some capacitors. Also, make them all plug-in diesel-electrics, so you can charge the main batteries while your doing the shopping or at work, etc. Gas stations will probably disappear for the most part, though convenience stores will still be a thing (plenty here in my city that don't sell gas at all). Reason being people will probably top off their tanks at home. (Don't laugh. Automotive diesel is not far removed from home heating oil. And people usually have 400 gallon tanks right in their basements.) Advantage: you can get your auto-fuel straight from the distributor. Disadvantage: careful budgeting will be required to make sure you have all the fuel you need for the month.
Truckstops as fueling stations will probably still be around, though.
For the Power Grid: Nuclear Power- full stop. Fully carbon-free, high density, and even renewable to an extent. Safety issues abound, but they would be largely rendered moot if they would switch to carefully managed pebble-bed reactors instead of light-water boilers. These can be heavily backed by solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, and even tidal energy. Also, super-conductive power lines are feasible now. You can even use them to transmit a secondary form of energy by making the superconductor coolant simple liquid hydrogen. Nuclear power plants can crack it easily from water because they operate that hot, so it's two birds with one stone. This will also make it easier to centralize large nuclear complexes and get power to areas that are deficient.
Can we coerce everyone to get in on this? Maybe. The technology for all the above is present and readily available. All it needs is for someone to free up the funding so we can get cracking on the biggest infrastructure overhaul ever. (This would mean hundreds of thousands of jobs along all parts of the educational spectrum for decades to come, but try explaining that to the Republicans.)
China is the one that I can imagine that people would be most worried about, but don't be. Everyone in Beijing knows how bad it is - they only need to look out their windows to see it. The PRC knows this and understands this... the problem is making the technology cheap enough that they can jump onboard with it. However, as with many things, if we can get this to be mainstream here in North America, I'm pretty sure the rest of the world will follow.
Places where we'll really have a lot of trouble are developing nations that are clearcutting and burning forests for grazing and farmland. This does pretty much the exact opposite of what we need - exchanging greenhouse-gas neutralizing old-growth forests for greenhouse-gas producing farms. It's pretty bad in Africa, but it's an even bigger issue in South America. This is because we're losing all kinds of biochemistry goldmines in the name of cheaper food. (While a bit preachy, the movie Medicine Man staring Sean Connery is a very realistic scenario.)
As for where we want to set the planetary thermostat? Easy. Average out the almanac for the two-decades before and after 1900. That was about the time when America (and other big countries) REALLY got industrialized, and the temperatures should still have been fairly normal. If we can keep it in that range, then I think we should be fine.
And yes, I know that there's gonna be factors that we have little-to-no control over, such as fluctuations in our sun's output, volcanic eruptions, polar shifts, etc. However, this is all the more reason to get things in-hand so when the time comes we can adjust on the fly.
Also, getting more funding into our space programs so we can start working on space colonies is not a bad idea at all. We're just one modest-sized space rock away from cataclysm, ya know?
It might not be quite so bad in the end... But getting there in the meantime is gonna be messy as all hell.
Prevention... There are two major fronts for this: Automobiles and Power Grids.
For autos: getting most automobiles onto some kind of low-emission system would be a great start. We don't even have to go completely without fossil-fuel here. Use a setup much like diesel-electric locomotives here in the US, and collect regeneration from braking into some capacitors. Also, make them all plug-in diesel-electrics, so you can charge the main batteries while your doing the shopping or at work, etc. Gas stations will probably disappear for the most part, though convenience stores will still be a thing (plenty here in my city that don't sell gas at all). Reason being people will probably top off their tanks at home. (Don't laugh. Automotive diesel is not far removed from home heating oil. And people usually have 400 gallon tanks right in their basements.) Advantage: you can get your auto-fuel straight from the distributor. Disadvantage: careful budgeting will be required to make sure you have all the fuel you need for the month.
Truckstops as fueling stations will probably still be around, though.
For the Power Grid: Nuclear Power- full stop. Fully carbon-free, high density, and even renewable to an extent. Safety issues abound, but they would be largely rendered moot if they would switch to carefully managed pebble-bed reactors instead of light-water boilers. These can be heavily backed by solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, and even tidal energy. Also, super-conductive power lines are feasible now. You can even use them to transmit a secondary form of energy by making the superconductor coolant simple liquid hydrogen. Nuclear power plants can crack it easily from water because they operate that hot, so it's two birds with one stone. This will also make it easier to centralize large nuclear complexes and get power to areas that are deficient.
Can we coerce everyone to get in on this? Maybe. The technology for all the above is present and readily available. All it needs is for someone to free up the funding so we can get cracking on the biggest infrastructure overhaul ever. (This would mean hundreds of thousands of jobs along all parts of the educational spectrum for decades to come, but try explaining that to the Republicans.)
China is the one that I can imagine that people would be most worried about, but don't be. Everyone in Beijing knows how bad it is - they only need to look out their windows to see it. The PRC knows this and understands this... the problem is making the technology cheap enough that they can jump onboard with it. However, as with many things, if we can get this to be mainstream here in North America, I'm pretty sure the rest of the world will follow.
Places where we'll really have a lot of trouble are developing nations that are clearcutting and burning forests for grazing and farmland. This does pretty much the exact opposite of what we need - exchanging greenhouse-gas neutralizing old-growth forests for greenhouse-gas producing farms. It's pretty bad in Africa, but it's an even bigger issue in South America. This is because we're losing all kinds of biochemistry goldmines in the name of cheaper food. (While a bit preachy, the movie Medicine Man staring Sean Connery is a very realistic scenario.)
As for where we want to set the planetary thermostat? Easy. Average out the almanac for the two-decades before and after 1900. That was about the time when America (and other big countries) REALLY got industrialized, and the temperatures should still have been fairly normal. If we can keep it in that range, then I think we should be fine.
And yes, I know that there's gonna be factors that we have little-to-no control over, such as fluctuations in our sun's output, volcanic eruptions, polar shifts, etc. However, this is all the more reason to get things in-hand so when the time comes we can adjust on the fly.
Also, getting more funding into our space programs so we can start working on space colonies is not a bad idea at all. We're just one modest-sized space rock away from cataclysm, ya know?