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The debate continues to be depressingly polarised, mostly, it must be said, because of the belligerent defensiveness of free market/small government fundamentalists like Krauthammer, though confusion among the non-deniers also contributes.
Assuming we can even get people to agree that something does need to be done (a big ask already clearly) what should be the role of government in averting climate disaster? Well, thought experiment time, what has the role of government traditionally been in safeguarding national security? That's right, it subsidised the technology (weaponry) (allegedly) required for the job, freeing the private companies that supplied it from the ravages of the market; and it legislated against citizenry within its jurisdiction who might appear to be hostile to the good of the country(terrorists, spies, communists etc.) All of which, of course, represent a hell of a lot of government control, but nevertheless are traditional bedrocks of conservative policy good and true.
But even pointing out these kinds of inconsistency still leaves us stuck within the terms of a debate about the virtues of big vs. small government and the populace thus governed. Not that this debate is totally artificial, but the focus on it, and the general sowing of doubt about the climate change, obfuscates about a billion little areas of certainty, both about the problems facing us and the (often legislative) measures we could take without curtailing anyone's freedom. We know, for instance, that the vast majority of home electrical appliances are manufactured with standby lights that are left on constantly, causing huge energy wastage globally. We know that many more appliances come with transformers that cannot be disassembled or easily recycled by consumers and simply go to landfill at end of life. We know that the wastage involved in both these examples contributes to manmade climate change if it is real (which I believe), but also that it is wastage anyway of resources that are running out. And passing legislation forcing these appliances to be manufactured differently would limit no one's freedom and would, in the case of making products more recyclable, even create economic opportunities.
Not that this is a complete solution in itself, but as we tussle over big emotional symbols like the 'right' to drive, we miss tons of potential efficiencies at a point where we can't really afford to miss any. Virtually every aspect of modern life, from the grid right through to the way our homes are built and the things we plug into them have been developed according to now outdated assumptions that were unable to take account of either resource shortage or global warming. Again, these things could now be updated without the tiniest curtailment of personal freedoms and, in many instances, with improvements to ordinary people's cost of living and quality of life. The introduction of Passivhaus standards for all new build homes, meaning they would largely regulate their own temperatures come snow or sun, would simply render obsolete the tedious air conditioning argument.
That's the interesting thing about comparing a notional national security policy on climate change with existing policy on 'defense'. The former has the potential to bring immediate benefit to ordinary people as well as preparing us for the long term. The latter depends on far from immediate bogeyman threats, depends on the ongoing fears of a suspicious populace and is currently used as a justification for curtailing numerous freedoms we had thought basic. Not to mention, of course, that it's all bound up with a grotesquely futile end-game battle for diminishing resources (just ask Georg Soros). You may stir your conspiracy theories and season to taste.
Still, there's a problem with Romm's 'technology will save us' argument and that's that it ignores the same certainties that Krauthammer et. al. do, touting dubious and rarefied solutions such as the plug-in hybrid. Sorry, but this is dumb. If you want to tout technology and the scientific argument in one breath, you need to be as rigorous and careful as a scientist about which technology you're touting. We've already seen the hell that good intentions like bio-fuels can bring us to. It's no good fighting the warming fire of conservative irrationalism with irrationalism of our own.
