Footprint, I'm waiting for everyone else to catch up.

we and most of the animals on the planet will become extinct. But it won't do any good. We will just make prayer rugs and stick our head in the sand.

we might as well move on to mitigation versus correcting. What is required to get to 2 metric tons on an individual basis will never fly with a majority of the electorate and would have to be forced. This would lead to bloodshed and terrorism that would make the Troubles and the Intifada look like Summer Camp hijinx. We could have pushed for expanded Nuclear power to compliment solar, hydro and thermal (Hydro and Nuclear work well in tandem), Hybrid models of personal transport (versus All Electric which looks to only be viable on the mass market if forced by mandate), a New Deal/ Eisenhower level of public investment with reductions in military spending and a new CCC geared toward environmental work (and eligibility for GI Bill college benefits), and research and development grants to Universities to create next generation power and infrastructure. Instead we have a loud 10% on one side whose only idea is stacking and packing people in urban conglomerates with only public transport and controlled diets(while the rich and connected will still have freedom of movement and space which we even see today. Al Gore, who has done good work, isn't living in a multi unit 900SQFT apt riding the bus). On the other side is a loud 10% who see no problems with pollution and could care less about efficiency and could care less about science. In the middle is the spectrum of concerned, unconcerned, can kickers, NIMBY-ist, and those who want clean air and water.

I live in an apartment. I'm single and that's all I need. I drive a hybrid approximately 500 miles per month because I make a point of living close where I work. I eat meat, but not processed foods. I have a capsule wardrobe with approximately 30 items of clothing that I mix and match. About half the items were purchased from resale shops.

The thing is a "lifestyle with no car, multi-unit housing, very little meat, and no vacations whatsoever" isn't just poverty from an American POV. That would pretty much be a poverty lifestyle anywhere. Even though Americans may have the largest carbon footprint per capita, we still belch out half the CO2 and other greenhouse gases that China does. The reason China's per capital footprint is lower is because their population is 5x bigger.

It's population that's the real issue. We need to allow the world population to be reduced by half, and kept that way,. Even if everyone rides bikes, lives in apartments and goes vegan, we still cannot sustain a world population of 10 Billion by 2055. Countries with aging populations, like the US, need to deal with how to care for over 100 million adults who no longer work right now, but no amount of birthing (white) babies is going to fix that. More open immigration policies would help. But to tell the developing world, like India, that they may not expand their economy because it causes too much pollution is kind of a "we got ours and screw you if you want it too".

Too many people = too much food, fresh water and energy needed = too many greenhouse gases emitted. Lower population, greener energy sources, conservation and carbon sequestration are the only ways to roll back the climate change clock.

It would require rebuilding the entire country. Abandoning millions of single family dwellings which would be inaccessible without automobiles, and building multi-unit complexes to replace them. Remaking the cities to be friendlier to walkers and bicyclists than to cars. Rebuilding a lost network of consumer services distributed throughout cities so that all the necessities of life are within a reasonable walkable distance of every apartment unit instead of centralized in a small number of big boxes. That would require remaking production and distribution chains. Even if everybody was willing and eager to change their mode of life to a more sustainable one, the effort necessary to make it possible for them would itself be a decades long carbon intensive project.

A lot of the responses to this post are coming from the point of view that correcting our activities is either impossible or so undesirable that we simply won't do it.

That would be fine if there was a choice, but the science tells us that if we don't make these corrections now, under OUR terms, time will force the neccesary societal changes upon us without our input.