The difficulty with all of this, however, is the word "net" - ie, relying on later paybacks for current investment.  This is, broadly speaking, heartening, but there are real questions about what "net" paybacks will turn out to be.  For example, retrofitting industrial buildings with a five year payback is great...unless the industry goes under in 2 years.  An investment in home insulation with a net payback that assumes that I'll have an ongoing practice of heating whole house to fairly warm temperatures comes out rather differently when the utility company shuts off my deliveries of heating oil anyway and I'm heating my house with a single stove.  

I don't disagree that there's value here, but I would be more impressed by analysis that took seriously the question of what the real impact of an extended and profound economic crisis will be.

Sharon Astyk

Sharon, with dirt under her fingernails.

"...rolling the dice that we don't melt the tundra and liberate the clathrates and reach 1000 or more in a hurry ...."

I think the tipping point has been passed already, but no one is telling us about it.

Ice melt/solar absorption increase feedback is ongoing too.  This is a vital factor in tundra and methane gydrete undersea ice melt.  Arctic sea temps soar as capping ice dissappears.  Tundra no longer pryectyed by snow is doomed to 24 hour solar heating in the arctic summer.

Then there is firestorm GHG production/loss of bio-sequestration from burned forests.  Firestorms, man-made or accidental are just over the horizon.  Tornadic winds suck fuel into a firestorm, it's like a huge continuous fire powered tornado, or series of tornados along a fire front.

This is why I think human weather intervention in the form of cloud formation will be necessary.  It could start as a fire fighting/prevention effort on the western US coast.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by the time organized efficienservation measures reach the real planning stages we'll know better who's solvent and what assistance is right and good. now there's too much fog.