1) What changes will occur in the global environment in the future and 2) how we should react to it are separate issues. You will note that (1) is a completely scientific issue, whereas (2) is not. Science can inform the choices we make in response to global warming, but there is no correct scientific answer to how we choose to make the tradeoffs between carbon abatement, economic growth, and etc.
What the authors of the book were primarily guilty of was not questioning the scientific orthodoxy about the effects of global warming, but suggesting that carbon abatement was a costly way of addressing global warming compared to alternative remedies. In short, they arrived at the "wrong" political/economic conclusions, where wrong == unpopular.
Right. In order to prevent global warming, we'd have to stop putting carbon into the atmosphere entirely. Otherwise we're just slowing global warming, not stopping it. And that's not going to happen. Aside from that, it's completely unrealistic that we'll even be able to slow it, given that it needs to be done in all nations,and that's just not going to happen.
What we need are large scale technological solutions.
> In order to prevent global warming, we'd have to stop putting carbon into the atmosphere entirely.
There are processes that remove CO_2 from the atmosphere. Take photosynthesis as an example. Animals have exhaled CO_2 as long as they existed. We do not need to stop it.
(There may be a point that restricting the output to sensible levels is worthwhile. But the sensible level can be above zero.)
Yes, there are processes that remove CO_2 from the atmosphere. And these only have enough power to compensate for natural outputs of CO_2, like that produced from respiration.
When we burn fossilized fuels, we're taking fossilized carbon and putting it into the atmosphere- billions of years worth of the natural process of fossilization reversed nearly instantaneously. In order for that to be compensated for naturally, we'd have to increase fossilization rates. This is impossible. Only a comparative technological solution to increasing fossilization rate (i.e. figuring out how to bury all that atmospheric carbon) will work.
What the authors of the book were primarily guilty of was not questioning the scientific orthodoxy about the effects of global warming, but suggesting that carbon abatement was a costly way of addressing global warming compared to alternative remedies. In short, they arrived at the "wrong" political/economic conclusions, where wrong == unpopular.