We Need to Revise our Climate Goal

Matt - Agree. I would look at setting five or 10 year goals to better assess progress. It's just foolish to keep saying things like - we need to quadruple our current pace... That never happens. Shorter, intermediate goals allow you to approach the problem in smaller, and hopefully more manageable bites.   

Mark - I understand your position but reality matters. And reality says there is virtually no way that the current goal will be met. At this point the wise thing to do is reset expectations and rethink the overall approach because the current path isn't getting it done. 

Jim - You may be right in which case nothing we do will matter. However, no one knows for sure whether the point of no return has been reached or whether it's 10 or 100 years from now. Climate science has not proven to be particularly accurate. It sort of reminds me of the fanatics that keep predicting the end of the world and when it doesn't happen they just pick a new date. I'm not saying that climate scientists are fanatics. I think their models are getting more and more accurate, but they are not definitive.

What I do know is our entire approach is misguided. We throw all this money at wind and solar when the grid is the critical path item that needs to be addressed first. To accomplish that we need to revise how decisions are made because the current structure "has too many cooks in the kitchen." Not to mention how inefficient both solar and wind are in generating electricity. We also should be allocating more resources on carbon capture/sequestration technologies.