Thank you for raising these important questions and for expressing them through your own personal experience. Our go-to-points about CO2 emissions and global environmental catastrophe are largely made in other comments in this thread. Depending on context, other scientists will emphasize other points and other issues. We know that reducing and eventually stopping CO2 emissions is necessary for stabilizing temperatures, and also for reducing the risk of the kinds of events we’ve studied, but how to best do this and balance it with other important trade-offs is complicated and involves a number of things outside of our particular expertise. We hope that this helps at least a little.