"may buy us a decade or so but that’s it." Necessity breeds ingenuity. There is nothing like a deadline to provoke industry.(work) I believe the solution to this issue lies in mans creativity. The decade you speak of may very well afford mankind the "time" to allow for solutions yet undiscovered. A way to afford us yet more decades. Let us remember what old Ben Said.

"The Body of B. Franklin, Printer; Like the Cover of an old Book, its contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Gilding, lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be wholly lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once more, in a new and more perfect edition, corrected and amended by the author." ~B. Franklin~

My glass is half full :)