Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change And The New Geography of Violence

I appreciate your having Parenti on to talk about risks from climate change from a somewhat different perspective than many (including myself) focus on, the one that so alarms the national security types. However, not everything Parenti says reflects best scientific understanding, either about climate change or the solutions. For example, the public discussion about the goal of a 350 parts per million atmospheric carbon dioxide (we are now at 390 ppm CO2) led to a major analysis (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/28/0812721106.full.pdf+html) that shows we won't be returning to 350 ppm this millennium. Additionally, the idea that we can reduce greenhouse gases without significant amounts of nuclear power and carbon capture and storage has not been explored in the sources Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change depends on, and indeed, even with those, it appears almost impossible to reduce GHG emissions to the level that scientists prefer (http://www.iea.org/index_info.asp?id=1959) 8/13/11