Source is I am a meteorologist who has studied climatology. The residence time of GHGs ensure that we will have elevated levels for at least a century, even if

Source is I am a meteorologist who has studied climatology. The residence time of GHGs ensure that we will have elevated levels for at least a century, even if we do all the nice things like plant trees. The terrestrial biosphere is too small, and not a long-term solution. Here in California, carbon-credit forests are going up in smoke. We have already committed to levels that I consider catastrophic. Particularly in the oceans, where CO2 partitioning into the oceans is bleaching coral and the habitats they create. In the terrestrial habitats, desertification widespread and rapid. The long-term solution offered to us by the Earth system is getting carbon below the carbonate compensation depth to be buried, or at least dissolved into the entire ocean, and not just surface waters. But the ocean overturning time is 500 years, and our timescale is somewhat shorter. I think how you look at catastrophe solely from a perspective of civilization is wrong, but even from the perspective of a state, things like the drought that caused the famine that caused the civil war in Syria which caused a refugee crisis in Europe are troubling. Imagine how much worse it will be when a massive typhoon hits Bangladesh. But from a human perspective people are already suffering loss of income, home, and lifestyle from climate-exacerbated natural disasters. And the biosphere has been hit hard — adaptation will happen, but the mass extinction means we will lose ecosystem services that will be hard to replace.