and probably what is going to happen. My best guess is that the great bulk of the carbon will be combusted this century and the only real reduction will occur as the coal begins to deplete. Despite what people claim "can happen" to subtantially alter this scenario, I believe it is doubtful that anything "will happen" of any consequence. The reality of energy scacity and the needs of the present will render long-range efforts ineffective and inadequate. They were always long-shots anyway.

So what we will have is a relatively short, but high amplitute pulse of CO2 that will begin to be scrubbed from the atmosphere in some kind of asymptotic fashion. Large reductions in the first 1,000-2,000 years, and a long tail lasting for several more millenia. Eventually, the net effect of positive forcings will be moderated and the 100,000-year solar forcing cycle will reassert itself, possibly resulting in a delayed return to the Pleistocene ice ages, which themselves are superimposed on a long-term cooling trend that began some 55 million years ago or so.

That's what I think will happen. I'm sure many will disagree.

I often wonder the following (only tangentially related to the issue): Suppose we were on the cusp of a natural cooling trend--a new glaciation--that would result in a continental ice sheet stretching across North America as far south as St. Louis. Would we try to stop it?

And I often wonder about the following: Suppose global warming were solved tomorrow. That would not solve the fundamental problem of the human condition.

who won't agree with you will be all of us who don't engage in magical thinking.

You know, the reality based majority....

where the magical thinking is? I paint a nearly textbook scenario for a higher CO2 atmosphere together with William Ruddiman's forecasts for resulting long-term trends.