Earlier this year, the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change declared that “the pace and scale of climate action are insufficient to tackle climate change”. They also pointed out that we need to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half by 2030. So how are we doing? We will look at the extent to which current efforts might allow us to address the economic, social, political, cultural and technological challenges posed by this and related goals. We will also discuss “silver bullets”, like carbon sequestration and geoengineering, that might allow us to avoid catastrophic climate change. Finally, we will discuss which actions make sense for individuals and which ones don’t, given the challenges and realities of the situation.