James Lovelock in The Guardian:
I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change. The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful.
Ken Caldeira on the need for geoengineering:
Given all of the inertia in the physical climate system, in our energy infrastructure, and our political system, there's really no practical way that emission reductions can reduce the pace of climate change or greatly reduce the amount of climate risk. Emission reductions cannot start cooling the Earth this century, especially if we also control sulfur emissions from power plants, which exert a cooling influence today.
Charles H. Greene on the IPCC underestimating climate change impacts:
Furthermore, while the oceans have slowed the amount of warming we would otherwise have seen for the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the ocean's thermal inertia will also slow the cooling we experience once we finally reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
200 × 1021 joules is roughly equivalent to the energy release of 50 million megatons of TNT, and on the same order of magnitude as the Chicxulub Impact.
The word 'inertia' has an interesting etymology. In Latin it means unskillfulness or idleness. 'Inertia' entered the vocabulary of physics via Johann Kepler, and eventually became the subject of Newton's First Law of Motion:
In the absence of a net force, the center of mass of a body either is at rest or moves at a constant velocity.
Essentially, mass is the quantitative measure of an object's inertia. This definition of a physical phenomenon influenced the common usage so that it means more generally 'the measure of resistance to change'.
As it concerns global warming, inertia is both a blessing and a curse. There is a lot of mass on this planet:
Atmosphere: 5 × 1018 kg
Hydrosphere: 1.4 × 1021 kg
Crust: 1 × 1023 kg
Thus, the thermal inertia (heat capacity) of the systems relevant to climate are large. This means that it takes a significant amount of excess heat to change global atmospheric and oceanic temperatures.
The blessing should be obvious: it takes quite a bit to alter the earth's climate beyond the natural variation. The curse, though, is just as clear: once you have raised the temperature, it is difficult to bring it back down.
6½ billion human beings have inertia all their own. We demand a constantly growing economy. The rich nations enjoy an unsustainable lifestyle. Real estate developers refuse to give up on their anachronistic model devoted to sprawl, isolation, and endless miles of parking lots and strip malls, while leaving many walkable urban centers to rot.
Sometimes I feel like it is too much to overcome. Not just because of the willful ignorance that has overtaken the modern Republican Party. (In the spirit of this diary, perhaps the 'Party of Extreme Inertia' is an apt description.) As bad as they are, it is apathy that will ensure a less hospitable planet for our children and grandchildren.
How can you fight against societal and political inertia? We need more citizens advocating for climate legislation on state and federal levels. Think about your daily routine, and how you can reduce consumption. If you can afford it, sign up for renewable energy with your electric company. Bike, walk or take public transportation to work. And try to drop in and rec a DK Greenroots diary. IMHO, some of the best writing on this site.
Table of green energy programs and pricing by state with links
Photos from Wikimedia Commons, here and here
Plots from here and here