Too late for what exactly? Majority of climate scientists agree the situation is dire, but there are many actions that can be taken to reduce the short-term and long-term impact, via both adaptation and reducing carbon emissions.
Now things have got bad enough that we would need more radical changes to keep to 1.5-2 degrees. But radical changes are just the kind of thing that swing voters don’t like, so we probably won’t do them.
I doubt we will come together and implement radical economic changes or geo-engineering solutions. More likely in my opinion is every country for itself, the rise of new, authoritarian governments and 3+ degrees of heating. I would take some kind of corporate tech bro dystopia.
Am I the only one thinking that it reminds me of a bunch of priests in ancient time who claim to speak to the gods and tell us what we shall do? I'm no climate denier but I hate how everything is framed to induce panic and fear.
And aren't there enough religious people inducing fear and panic into society still today?
I once heard that you will not meet a more dejected and depressed person than a climate scientist. Imagine warning about things for literally decades or your entire life, being ignored the entire time, and only to be asked in the present "why didn't you warn us?!" or "what's going on?!".
Fear is justified because we honestly don't know about some of these things. Dynamic systems with bifurcations, chaotic behavior, and tipping points are difficult to understand even when they're laid out in front of you, much less when you're trying to figure out what the dynamic system is (in the case of the climate and environment, although we do know a lot). Does it even make sense to continually push the boundaries to see what we can get away with? Do humans realize that this Earth was not made for them and that there were times that humans could not be supported by the Earth's environment? In our daily lives, we stress certain behavior of planning and restraint, but we are incapable of doing so collectively.
Literally the simplest thing in the world to do is to restore lawns and grass areas with native plants (wildflowers, bushes, trees, etc.), and yet no one is doing it. In fact, we're still destroying habitat. And then people write articles like "where are the bees and butterflies?".
Restoring lawns with native plants is just like sacrificing your elder child to appease Gods, you thing it will help where in fact we just need to go back to the a sustainable equilibrium (which noone knows precisely).