[brooklyndavs]

I'm just a software developer with a side interest in climate science so please excuse any ignorance on this topic. What I find troubling is it seems, from what I have read, our climate models currently have a poor handle on co2 and methane feedbacks, both positive and negative. For example there seems to be a general scientific consensus that NOx from industrial sources (mostly coal power plants) is having some cooling effect. When these are removed, which will happen slowly but steadily as coal is retired, there will be a warming response but it is not clear how much this response will be. Similarly, you have positive feedbacks coming into place like the decline of sea ice in the arctic, less forests and more combustion of those forests, and co2/methane releases from permafrost. These are other feedbacks are known but nothing I have read has convinced me we have a full scientific understanding of the impact that these feedbacks will have.

Thats why like others in this thread I feel rather hopeless about humanity ever getting global warming under control. We of course have the problem of humanity to continue putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere via our economic activity. This of course is co2 but also methane and HFCs. The challenge of bringing these down to safe levels while keeping not only the standard of living we enjoy currently in the west but also bringing billions more people into the middle class world wide is impossible with existing technology and incredibly hard with emerging technology. To get to a carbon neutral prosperous, middle class society for everyone on the planet will take many decades. If we ever get to that point I'm afraid feedbacks and built in system inertia will be so strong that the planet will keep on warming for 1,000s of years despite our best efforts.

TL;DR I think we as humans really screwed this up and I don't have much hope of us collectively being able to fix it.