Another P3 comment related to this link about recent permafrost stories (arstechnica; New Scientist).
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Update: MT corrects me. "I was pleased that the Ars and New Scientist articles did not flog the tundra-carbon-feedback-bomb panic, which does not have much support among scientists. I am a bit chastened that you still read it in there. // We are being quite stupid indeed. But this particular aspect is a concern that is widespread in the public but not among scientists. It’s not quite as baseless as the “Gulf Stream shutdown” one was a few years back. But both concerns were extremely overdrawn and basically inaccurate."
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This really drives home a sinking realisation. While pretty much all our political and research structures continue to develop around a 2 degree target, the reality is turning out to be very different. As a researcher, I see the various UK funding councils fitting into that ‘how do we fix the climate problem’ way of thinking. This is leaving us with no systematic research agenda to address what are looking to be fairly likely outcomes, including a global permafrost hand-grenade thrown into the climate system.

Our research institutions have foresight enough to see the change in currents ahead but they’re ignoring the massive waterfall and the drop beyond.

That’s a huge generalisation, I’m sure there are many working on these kind of what-ifs. My point is, those what-ifs need a much more strategic, broad attack. We are managing to push ourselves towards territory that, really, not that many people bothered to consider in depth because no-one thought we’d be this stupid. We are this stupid. So we have mainly only vague statements like “may threaten the very fabric of civilisation” etc.

For anyone who thinks our civilisation has some value worth fighting for, we’re going to have to do a lot better than that. If we are going to be this stupid, can we at least do it intelligently?