Ezra Klein takes the words right out of my mouth:

I’m a climate pessimist. I don’t believe the United States — or the world — will do nearly enough, nearly fast enough, to hold the rise in temperatures to safe levels. I think we’re fucked. Or, at the least, I think our grandchildren are fucked.

His seven reasons America will fail on climate change:

1. We’ve waited so long that what America needs to do is really, really hard — and maybe impossible
2. The people most affected by climate change don’t get a vote
3. We’re bad at sacrificing now to benefit later
4. The effects of global warming are not easily reversible
5. The Republican Party has gone off the rails on climate change
6. The international cooperation required is unprecedented, and maybe impossible
7. Geoengineering is nuts

Related: Zadie Smith’s “Elegy for a Country’s Seasons”, The Dark Mountain Project, and Alyssa Battistoni’s “Alive in the Sunshine”.   See also “The WAIS and Resilience” at Rabett Run and Joshua Foa Dienstag, Pessimism.

UPDATE 6/6/2014:  Joe Romm with a rebuttal to Klein, “7 Reasons America Should Succeed on Climate Change”.