Can you live in a world without tailpipes and smokestacks?

That was the question asked a few times by Ken Caldeira, Climate Scientist at Carnegie Institution for Science, during Friday's session of "Operation Sierra Storm (OSS)" in South Lake Tahoe.

One month ago, Caldeira was at the Paris Climate Conference, COP21, and shared that experience and discussion with national meteorologists and interested locals gathered at OSS.

While most of us are concerned with our short-term local weather, Caldeira researches the long term, and long scale climate changes.

"The last two decades of this century will be the hottest on record," said Caldeira. "Crops will have heat failures and the land will be more like it was during the time of dinosaurs with inland seas."

During COP21, 195 nations made commitments to reduce their greenhouse emissions, something that hadn't been done during any previous conference. No two countries are alike when it comes to their emissions, so each entity created their own goals. The United States agreed to reduce their greenhouse emissions by 17% from their 2005 totals. In five years, they will meet again to check on progress.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) sent into the atmosphere in the next few decades will affect earth for thousands of years according to Caldeira.

In tens of thousands of years, he said the melting of ice caps could raise the ocean by 200 feet, covering Florida and most of the Eastern seaboard with water and creating an inland sea in California. As he said early on during Friday's talk, he looks at the long range affects, but did bring those figures down to annual amounts.

"CO2 emissions have the potential to cause sea levels to rise, on average, by more than an inch per year for the next 1,000 years," said Caldeira. That is almost 100 feet. "After that, the rising water will accelerate by three centimeters a year."

Caldeira also highlighted the changes CO2 emissions have on the ocean's reefs, which he said are in danger due to the chemical change in the water.

"Most of the CO2 emission and warming expected this century will come from the infrastructure that has yet to be built, the visiting scientist told the group of 60 gathered for the discussion. "If we stop tailpipes and smokestacks, we stop global warming."

It does cost more to build things that don't have those tailpipes and smokestacks, but Caldeira stressed that greenhouse gases need to be dramatically reduced to keep the temperature of the world down.

"I think the average person can get behind not using the sky as a waste dump," he said.

During COP21, the richer countries who have already gone through the industrial age agreed to help out the poorer countries to help them meet their goals and put changes into place. Even though China is quickly getting to higher emissions per capita, Europe and China combined are still at one-half of the United States totals.

What becomes of the agreement will be seen.

"I have about a 2-3 on a scale of 10 regarding confidence that the plan will ever be implemented,” said Caldeira.