Only twenty nations are responsible for 80% of the CO2-e emissions now being pumped into the atmosphere. There is no cogent reason to believe that they will be held to account by the remaining 180 nations attending Copenhagen and even less reason to believe that they will commit to reducing their emissions.

Contrary to a widely held view of climate scientists, I believe we have already reached a point where we can no longer limit global temperature to a +2C increase or 450ppm of CO2-e by 2100 or avoid significant melting of the east Antarctic ice sheet.

The Grace satellites have already confirmed that the Antarctic ice caps are melting and seem destined to continue doing so more rapidly. Without taking this into account, the Committee on Climate notes at Chapter 2 of its Report that sea level can be expected to rise by over 1m. by 2100, placing over 200,000 coastal properties in Queensland alone at risk of inundation.

With anticipated failure of countries to adequately reduce CO2-e emissions, there is good reason to believe that accelerated melting of polar ice will occur and that the predicted 1m. rise in sea level will occur long before 2100. Indeed the view has been expressed that global sea level will rise by more than 2m. by 2100 and with good reason.

As for the oft heard call by politicians that we must learn to live with and adapt to climate change, perhaps Premier Anna Bligh of Queensland (responsible for the worlds’ highest per capita emissions) would like to explain how we are to adapt when housing is drowned by rising sea levels, how the economy is going to operate when transport infrastructure is destroyed and how we are to cope with flooding of coastal agricultural land and fresh water sources?

Good science.
OK, now some good news...
Human induced climate change may well save us from extinction!
Instead of being caught out by an unexpected "Dino-killer" impact or a few years of volcano-caused winter, this slow death of our civilisation may provide a way to:
a) Sort out the Humans from the human-parasites (kidults, bogans, scum...call them what you like).
b)Give us time to learn to live without soiling our cradle, but without having to leave the planet.
Basically space based colonies where we learn to live off energy and rocks is the only (really)long term option. Trouble is, these are very expensive and many folks believe they are useless. (They would rather spend money on war, banking, marketing and big houses)
If we start building our space colonies on Earth because this is the best way to do agriculture, preserve water, live and work comfortably then we'll be ready to leave or adapt when the Big One comes.
Of course before we can start on space colonies we need to build at least one sustainable city! (food, water, energy, politics)
I'm sure adapting is possible by talented humans. Keeping the parasites out of the Ark will be the hard bit.

Here is a passage written by Carl Sagan, astronomer and author. He seems to be looking at the problem from another point of view, Ozandy.

"What has evolved on our planet is not just life, not just grass or mice or beetles or microbes, but beings with a great intelligence, with a capacity to anticipate the future consequences of present actions, with the ability even to leave their home world and seek out life elsewhere. What a waste it would be if, after four billion years of tortuous biological evolution, the dominant organism on the planet contrived its own annihilation. No species is guaranteed its tenure on this planet. And we've been here for only about a billion years, we, the first species that has devised the means for its self-destruction".

Coping with a Co2 rich atmosphere will be the greatest challenge facing the future of homo sapiens and other earth life forms for perhaps the next 2,000 generations.

The evolutionary rule, survival of the fittest will reshape the survival of species to what will become an alien world climate.

DNA records of all racial groups have established humans eveloved from a common ancestory in Africa almost 2,000 generations ago.

Mastery of fire was perhaps our species greatest invention, yet ironically, our love of burning coal and trees to derive heat and energy, now poses our greatest threat as our human population grows to unsustainable levels.

We have reached Kevin's fork in the road. It's extremely disappointing to see our Prime Minister strutting the world stage, marketing the hoax promise of 'clean coal' as a viable alternative whilst our new Opposition Leader is filmed at the coal mines vowing to protect coal and boost exports of this pollutant.

Only the Greens in Australia and a few national and state governments around the globe have advocated and started implementing the kind of policies that have any chance of avoiding catastrophio climate change.

In 2009, we are presented with an historic opportunity to participate in a technological revolution, by rapidly replacing machines that burn carbon with machines that utilise renewables.

Sadly, the world lacks national political leaders that can inspire by their example and meet the challenge thrown up by nature. There are a few exceptions, but they are in the minority. In Australia, China, India, Russia, Canada and The United States, powerful miners and the industry lobbyists from gross polluting industries have a track record in unsettling weak, nervous or dim politicians to stave off any Copenhagen inspired threats to their profits and continuity. Who will win? Nature, as always, will be the decider.

Poirot.
The closest thing to a "faith" that I have is the conviction that being better humans is a Good Thing. Unlike the cynical religions who use heaven to justify turning Earth into Hell...I "believe" that reality is where things are played out.
Sagan says it well: "What a waste". Given that a dino-killer or general ecosystem reset button *will* someday be pressed, we have the opportunity to be the saviours (Ah-la Noah's Ark)...or the villains (nuclear winter), or just the clowns (auto-destruction).
Personally I believe we will do all 3. The villains and the clowns are in full force in the media. The Noah's time is yet to come.
As I've said, Noah's hardest time will not be the Ark, it will be the Clowns and villains.

"However, the $-trillion-scale funding needed to implement these methods continues to be poured into the military, casinos and games"
Burn, sinners, burn.

"sea level can be expected to rise by over 1m by 2100.... explain how we are to adapt when housing is drowned by rising sea levels"

Do you know anybody that lives in a house which is 100 years old? I'm sure it wont be difficult to adapt to this one, houses get demolished and rebuilt at a greater rate than sea levels are predicted to rise. ditto for transport infrastructure, however I'm not sure how you see higher temperatures destroying our rail/road networks.

Personally I believe adaption is quite alot easier than many people believe. Perhaps with age many of you lose your imagination. Do you think anybody living 100 years ago thought that they could video call someone on the other side of the world or go and buy some preserved/ refrigerated food from the local shops?

Stezza you are not thinking of the reality and what we stand to lose. It is a lot more than a few houses.

How will you all feel when beachside homeowners convince governments that they are too important/rich to be left at the mercy of a rising sea and get them to pass laws allowing them to "protect" their property with seawalls and dikes. The resulting erosion will leave nothing in the way of beaches only waves battering up against walls of rock and concrete. Gone will be our surfclubs and rockpools. Bondi will be a distant memory and the same will happen Australia wide. A few beaches without houses built behind them will survive by retreating inland but all of our best and most loved beaches will be gone. One big series of storms like 1974 and it will all be gone overnight.
Maybe that is what it will take to wake people up!