Instead we have an essay bemoaning the lack of capacity to use it up!

I do not think that is the intent of the essay at all. I think he is bemoaning the fact that rather than build nuclear and renewables, the people who are trying to build power plants are assuming that coal will solve the problem. However, politicians in the west are blocking the building of coal plants, too, so that we will soon have power shortages. He does not even mention that there is good reason to believe that coal production will peak in about 15 years.

Conservation can mitigate the decline of fossil fuels but it cannot solve our future needs. The only thing that can is to build capacity of sources that have assured fuel and do not contribute to global warming. Those are nuclear, wind and solar.

Ah, Hansen is an expert in paleoclimatology and the implications for ice.

He is talking about a complete loss of ice from the entire continent of Antarctica at 450 ppm or so.

If W. Antarctica ice alone goes that's ca. 5 m (16 ft) sea level rise.

Never mind, no need for concern (sarcasm alert).

Antarctica temperature trend is very uncertain due to big interannual oscillations and short timeseries anyway recent data shows warming over most antarctica :
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=1...

The above link leads to following articles:

This image shows temperature trends for the icy continent from 1982 to 2004. Red indicates areas where temperatures generally increased during that period, and blue shows where temperatures predominantly decreased..
Although Antarctica warmed around the perimeter from 1982 to 2004, where huge icebergs calved and some ice shelves disintegrated, it cooled closer to the pole.

Why is Antarctica getting colder in the middle when it’s warming up around the edge? One possible explanation is that the warmer temperatures in the surrounding ocean have produced more precipitation in the continent’s interior, and this increased snowfall has cooled the high-altitude region around the pole. Another possible explanation involves ozone. Ozone in the Earth’s stratosphere absorbs ultraviolet radiation, and absorbing this energy warms the stratosphere. Loss of UV-absorbing ozone may have cooled the stratosphere and strengthened the polar vortex, a pattern of spinning winds around the South Pole. The vortex acts like an atmospheric barrier, preventing warmer, coastal air from moving in to the continent’s interior. A stronger polar vortex might explain the cooling trend in the interior of Antarctica.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=1...

In Sciencedaily Jan 22nd, /2008

The first evidence of a volcanic eruption from beneath Antarctica's most rapidly changing ice sheet has been reported. The volcano on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet erupted 2000 years ago (325BC) and remains active.
Co-author Professor David Vaughan (BAS) says,"This eruption occurred close to Pine Island Glacier on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The flow of this glacier towards the coast has speeded up in recent decades and it may be possible that heat from the volcano has caused some of that acceleration. However, it cannot explain the more widespread thinning of West Antarctic glaciers that together are contributing nearly 0.2mm per year to sea-level rise. This wider change most probably has its origin in warming ocean waters."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080120160720.htm

Then, on March 4th 2008

"Could Volcanic Activity In West Antarctic Rift Destabilize Ice Sheet? The West Antarctic rift is a region of volcanic activity and crustal stretching that is roughly the size of the western United States (from Salt Lake City to the Pacific Ocean).
It is interesting nevertheless, because volcanic eruptions beneath the ice could destabilize the ice sheet, leading to as much as 25 feet of sea-level rise. How likely is it that this could happen is a question scientists have debated for over a decade. LeMasurier addresses the question by comparing the West Antarctic rift with similar areas of crustal stretching elsewhere in the world.

The comparison shows that volcanic activity in rifts is most common where the land is a mile or more above sea level, and rising, which can readily be seen in Antarctica along the Transantarctic Mountains, and in the Pacific coast mountains of Marie Byrd Land. The large sub-sea-level interior of the rift does not, therefore, seem to be a likely place for present-day volcanic activity.

This is good news, because the sub-sea-level base of the West Antarctic ice sheet is already especially vulnerable to warming of the atmosphere and surrounding seas. However, this study also shows that the land in West Antarctica has been rising beneath the ice sheet in some areas and subsiding beneath it in others, over roughly the past 25 million years."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080229183818.htm

Hansen said he will soon publish a paper on Antarctica