It may seem rude to interrupt the Bali fantasy, but reality will rear its ugly head at some point. Better now.

Here's a recipe to head off the worst effects of global warming:

1. Start with 30 new nuclear power plants around the world.
2. Add 17,0000 wind turbines, 400 biomass power plants, two hydroelectric dams the size of China's Three Gorges Dam, and 42 coal or natural gas power plants equipped with still-experimental systems to sequester their carbon dioxide emissions underground.
3. Build everything in 2013. Repeat every year until 2030.

It's an intentionally implausible plan presented this week by the International Energy Agency to make a point: For all the talk about emissions reductions, the actual work is way beyond what the world can achieve.

As delegates from 190 countries gather here on the Indonesian island of Bali to negotiate a "road map" for the successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming, some experts are wondering whether the meeting has lost touch with the reality of tackling climate change.

So far, the thousands of delegates have been consumed by a debate over caps on emissions of greenhouse gases that are the primary cause of global warming.

The United States and China -- the two biggest carbon polluters, each accounting for about 20% of worldwide emissions -- have opposed any hard caps.

But while the debate continues, the most fundamental question of what it will take to achieve meaningful reductions has gone largely forgotten.

Bali, like Kyoto, is not about climate change. It's about money, politics, ideology and fun for lear jet activists.

Those of us who insist on tediously engaging with reality are just party poopers. . . or so they seem to think. But note the behavior of the party goers well since they expose themselves more than they realize, and will later regret making their shortcomings so public. Those who seem reluctant to be there and less than enthused about the party games are the ones most likely to be worth listening to in future. Declining to drink the kool-aid is a wise decision.