Personally, I think we are past the tipping point i.e. screwed. I am not a scientist so given the opportunity one day I asked James Hansen if he thought we were past the tipping point. I got him alone walking the several blocks to one of Tim DeChristopher's hearing's.
"Dr. Hansen, do you think we past the tipping point?" I looked him right in the eye. They welled up. I pretended not to see the tear slide down his cheek as he stared at the sidewalk. I think he said something like "...a lot of scientists..." I don't remember exactly, but I got the point.
While the fat-headed, gas bags lurk in the weird shadows of climate denial, sniffing for any specter of scientific uncertainty, like dogs among the carcasses of dead scientists, the mother load of scientific errors, the narcotic of righteousness awaits them in the most recent IPCC report. From the first prediction to the last, scientific consensus has underestimated pretty much everything from ice melt and sea-level rise to temperature.
Why should I care? I'll be dead before the real ugliness happens. Who should care are the kids. Last chance, maybe. We certainly couldn't do it.
And today for the first time, I saw a real kid-driven protest march and rally for the environment in progressive Salt Lake City, Utah.
I pray that someday, some good kids from Santaquin will join these smart young activists and make their parents listen.