Global Warming Happens: But is it "Catastrophic"?

"I'm a bit preoccupied that the media, having contributed to every day making another doomsday news headline, then in six weeks time will declare it hysteria and move on," said Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme.

Still, Steiner said it was clearly right to use words like "catastrophe" to describe effects such as a projected rise in sea levels in coming centuries that could swamp Pacific island states or cities from Shanghai to Buenos Aires.

"It is legitimate to use those words in specific scenarios," he told Reuters. "But does that mean that the whole climate change debate should be about doom and gloom? No, because we are finding that we can do something about it."

Too little, too late, perhaps, but ultimately global warming can be looked at as a massive engineering challenge. We already know (if only roughly) how we'd go about terraforming Mars. The true test is whether we can apply that same knowledge to our home planet, only in reverse. And while there's reason for hope, we must concede the possibility of failure.