Climate Change, Population Change

So I was listening to my birthday present from Heather - Death Cab for Cutie's new album Narrow Stairs, which is good, but has a certain fatalistic bent (see, for example, the lyrics to "No Sunlight,"). It got me thinking about what's going to happen when the sheets of ice in the Arctic melt, and so on, raising ocean levels and (ideally) making my house beachfront property. Could the economy's woes, and the flooding and monsoons be part of the global warming trap we're caught in?

This scientist (James Lovelock) seems pretty sure that we've passed the point of no return. He may be engaged in a certain amount of hyperbole, but on the other hand, if our carbon dioxide emissions are irreversible and long-lasting, who knows when we will have passed the point of being able to do anything about this?

This shouldn't seem like a cheery topic, but on the other side of the coin, people in Europe have been experiencing lower-than-replacement-rate birthrates for many years. And, the worldwide average birthrate is down from 6.0 per woman to 2.9. A major shift like this might be the only thing that can really make a difference in our consumption and emission habits. The question is, will it have come too late?