Swiss researchers say that governments of the world have pretty much already missed their chance to avoid catastrophic levels of global warming.

The Paris Climate Accord set a goal of keeping global warming to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.  Writing in the journal Climatic Change, researchers from Switzerland said the planet is likely to overshoot those limits unless major efforts are undertaken to bring temperature rises under control.

They're talking about massive geo-engineering projects intended to change the climate for the better, such as inventing and constructing giant biological machines to grow vegetation which absorbs carbon, then burning the resulting biomass in power stations that capture the emissions. The world would have to immediately shift off of dirty, carbon-spewing technology and adopt en masse a system or systems based on renewables, nuclear, hydrogen, and bio-energy, along with with carbon capture and storage.

It reads like science fiction, but it could be done - if so many governments of the world weren't addicted to serving the false god known as "austerity".  Huge public works projects to save the world are unlikely to gain the approval of conservative spendthrifts and chiselers who'd rather cut spending to fund big, juicy tax breaks for their billionaire sponsors and campaign contributors.

Just this week, Donald Trump's administration announced it is disbanding the federal advisory panel on climate change, informing most of the participants via email.  Famously believing that the concept of Global Warming was a hoax invented by China to get other countries to slow manufacturing and output, the orange clown recently signed an executive order overturning a federal requirement that projects built in coastal floodplains and receiving federal aid should take projected sea-level rises into account.