I agree that Kyoto did not adequately address China and India. I'd point out, though, that China and (particularly) India are likely to be severely affected under most models of global warming. Doing nothing will not be an option for those countries either.

Doing nothing hurts the poor the most, btw, since they can not pay to get out of harms way or the likely extra cost of food and water.

The real key here in the US, though, is to build a response nationally that can be extended internationally, or joined to other national responses. And that response has to include economic rewards for conservation.

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.

Your argument, is the precise reason why stupid people are running the public discourse.

There are some people who are just plain thick. They aren't presenting some sort of truth, because they haven't studied the subject and the basis for their arguments is paranoid crap like "The scientists want us to live in mud huts."

So long as we pretend the truth is somewhere "In the middle" and nobody is every actually downright wrong, actually getting things right is going to be a problem.

Black isn't white. The truth isn't somewhere in the middle with them both being grey. There are some times when people are just plain wrong.

wrote:Somewhere between the two extremes probably exists a reasonable approach to the problem.

Why would an extreme based on ignorance help define the solution?

The global warming data is many experiments all concluding the same thing. These include physical measurements such as temperature, plant and pollen distributions,ice gases,ocean flows, levels and temperatures, satellite data, and geophysical modeling. The controls are historical (then is different from now,) and forward looking - are predictions working on small and large scales and interlinking with other data.

The issue with global warming isn't whether man will disappear but quality of life. Civilization is finely tuned to what we have now - cities and agriculture are all dependent on existing rain, ocean levels and weather. The 1930's dust bowl was a 8% change in rain for 10 years. Climate models show a permanent 20% decrease in rain in the whole American west. Africa and the middle east will likely starve and fall into more turmoil. 80% of the world lives within a few percent of sea level - subject to storms and level changes.

Man has not survived big temperature changes - DNA data shows that early humans almost disappeared in the last ice age.

Romm's point about caps is that peak oil is also real - oil will get more and more difficult and expensive to get. Seismic mapping has gotten really good- there are fewer new places to look.

The political and economic deck has been stacked against energy efficient technologies. Big cars and trucks, roads and inefficient housing have all received tax and regulatory breaks. Solar, wind and nuclear and conservation are all capital intensive, paying off in the longer term. Companies need short term capital return. We are seeing an explosion in these technologies now because peak oil means the price can no longer come down to bankrupt new construction. The government can help by supplying longer term capital to these industries. Interestingly, nuclear has received huge subsides for years - but not gone anywhere. The issue with nuclear is whether it is still too expensive to be worthwhile.