"on the scales of time relevant to itself, the earth doesn’t care about any of these governments or their legislation. it doesn’t care whether you turn off your air conditioner, refrigerator, and television set..the earth plans to dissolve the bulk of this carbon dioxide into its oceans in about a millennium, leaving the concentration in the atmosphere slightly higher than today’s. over tens of millennia after that, or perhaps hundreds, it will then slowly transfer the excess carbon dioxide into its rocks, eventually returning levels in the sea and air to what they were before humans arrived on the scene. the process will take an eternity from the human perspective, but it will be only a brief instant of geologic time".