Discouraged to see climate change denial still with us.

Have you graphed how the failed COP15 "Copenhagen plan" would have looked versus the failed Kyoto Protocol, accounting for proposed reductions against recent increases and current levels of atmospheric greenhouse gasses (GHG)? I have, and especially in light of poor counties' criticisms that neither plan went far enough to give the world a 50/50 chance of avoiding catastrophic climate changes, I must regretfully express sincere doubts that any such turnaround is possible at all constrained by a growing population within our free market global economy as it exists today.

When graphed by year, both reduction curves roughly resemble a checkmark based in year 1990 with a curved lower limb reaching into negative territory until bouncing at about -20% between 2008 and 2012, and then sharply inclining toward 2050 at about 70% or 80% reduction from the 1990 starting point.
80% reduction by 2050 is what older climate change science said would be necessary to achieve a 50% chance of avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with earth climate systems. Very few of us would board an elevator or a space shuttle with a 50% chance of catastrophic failure. The 80% figure was based on early assumptions with looser climate sensitivity that totalled 450 ppm, up from preindustrial 270 ppm CO2e in the air, as being a sufficient margain of safety for civilization. Actual levels already measure 390 ppm in places today. The more recent estimates would require deeper cuts more quickly, for the atmosphere already overran the apparent limit for climate stability at around 350 ppm CO2 way back in 1988, and we know of no near or mid term mechanism for pulling all that carbon "back into the bottle." The Kyoto Protocol, if extended through 2050, and the more recent Copenhagen plan appear so similar in trajectory as to be nearly indistinguishable from each other.
In either case the departure from business as usual at the bottom of the checkmark is just too stark and too acutely linear to be believed by anyone with a University of Michigan knowledge of politics, economics, or human sciences. I'll be happy to send my MS Excel spreadsheet for review or criticism to anyone with an email address.

The time for debating what to do about the problem of increasing anthropogenic carbon-equivalent emissions would now appear to have ended effectively around 1988. And contrary to much opinion, the hard questions were seriously voiced around mid-century: In 1959 none other than the real-life Dr. Strangelove, celebrated American nuclear scientist Edward Teller directly addressed the assembled oil industry elite with convincing explanation and concern about "global heating" as one reason to move beyond fossil fuels at latest before 1990. Dr. Teller was documented as one of the four speakers invited to the 100th anniversary of Colonel Drake's 1859 petroleum well, a symposium grandly titled "Energy and Man" (copyright 1960 by the Trustees of Columbia University, City of New York), and I'll also be happy to provide a link to anyone wishing to view it for personal and educational purposes.

The hard political and economic answers, partly due to the unwelcome obstruction of denialists, are still forthcoming.