And the better question is if it's time critical for the planet .. then WHY aren't we going to extreme measures as a collective world of nations to eradicate or slow the process already ?
Why are ordinary people worrying about it more than global leaders ?
We plan to do this by 2040 2050 doesn't scream URGENT , when some on here are talking about their grandchildren feeling the effect
Financial self-interest and greed of those with wealth and power. There's a lot of money in things like oil and gas and those that have massive wealth because of it don't want it to change. If everyone uses renewable energy then they're stuffed so they're going to try and prevent it happening as much as possible.
Besides that they're incredibly narcissistic and as long as it doesn't seem to be affecting their nice lifestyle they don't care. As long as they're not around when it happens then it's not their problem. Some of the extreme narcissists probably think that a world where they don't have control isn't a planet that's worth saving anyway.
The timescales are there to get people to at least do something. Like with kids and you try to get them to eat one spoonful of vegetables. Really you want them to be eating ten times more but you know that's not happening so you go for what you can get even if you know it's not enough. I'm sure lots of people really think "we needed to do this yesterday!" but they know it's not going to happen. We're probably already past the deadline to stop some of the changes but being alarmist and saying "we're fucked" is just going to turn more people off.
Politically it's also difficult to change beliefs, customs and practices in a short space of time that would help towards this. Population growth is probably the biggest factor in this and many other world problems but you can't just go and tell people to stop having as many babies when culturally and religiously it is something that has been believed for thousands of years.
Then of course there's the cost and time of building the new infrastructure etc. We could and should be doing things quicker than we are but it can't happen overnight.
IMO we're WAY too late to the party and if we actually wanted to stop a climate catastrophe we'd have probably needed to start in the 90's.