One of the things that most perplexes me about climate change politics is that folks who I find to be generally bright frequently take clueless positions on the subject.

So, if we're resolved to avoid end-Permian-like CO2 levels, what can we do? If you think that human-generated CO2 makes no significant contribution to the global CO2 levels, then you don't have many options that don't involve actively extracting CO2 from the atmosphere (e.g., planting lots and lots of trees). On the other hand, if you, like the vast (vast!) majority of climate scientists, think that human-generated CO2 is the main culprit of rising CO2 concentrations (and temperatures), then we have lots of options, since we theoretically have control over how much CO2 we as humans emit [2].

There are many ways to extract CO2 from the atmosphere. Even if you restrict your view to tree planting there are still many options, not least the development of enhanced trees that sequester far more CO2 than any current trees. Sneering dismissal is merely politics - a particularly obtuse kind of politics.

And which theory is it that allows control over how much CO2 humans emit? Are there any human behaviors that can be controlled, even in theory? Perhaps, but only for very small values of theory.

To keep CO2 levels from approaching end-Permian levels, we basically have to eliminate almost all CO2 emissions from human industrial activities, everywhere on Earth, within the next 50 years.

The agenda. The various methods of managing the atmosphere are dismissed without thought because the objective is to advance the agenda, not deal with the threat. Believers would consider solving the problem without advancing the agenda to be a lost opportunity.

the usual argument against doing anything is that it will hurt hurt economic growth, cost jobs, etc. This is ridiculous, of course, since there are huge economic gains to be won by being successful at creating clean, abundant energy.

If you don't want to do what the believers want to do then you are a do nothing. Most of the things that the believers want to do will indeed be hugely costly. The idea that make-work schemes are economic gains fails to consider the big picture. What will the economic gains otherwise be and how do they compare? If the believers don't rule the world will we never get better energy systems?

Fortunately, there's a good solution at hand: solar energy. Unlike other sources (wind power, tidal power, geothermal power, biofuels, etc.), solar energy is incredibly abundant (1000 times more abundant than wind power), and could satisfy the energy demands of the entire planet using today's technology.

You know that you are dealing with the uninformed when you hear the words "using today's technology". It means that some scenario that completely blinks reality (turn New Mexico into a solar farm) has intoxicated them.

The hurdles to a solar-powered future are twofold (there are others, too, but these are the big ones). First, there are the political problem with getting all of civilization to embrace this solution now, rather than in 50 years when it's too late (that is, in 50 years, if we've done nothing significant, CO2 levels will already be at their end-Permian levels). The political climate does seem to be changing a little, but the inertia in the direction of ignoring the problem and burning our way back to the end-Permian is very very strong. The second problem is that energy from the sun is still a lot more expensive than energy from oil and coal, so there's not yet an economic incentive to get behind solar power.

Ruling the world is not a political problem. The words "getting all of civilization to embrace" are fantasy fiction, proof that you are not dealing with sane people though the insanity is voluntary and localized. They may be perfectly sane on some other subject, or at least functional.

This last part is where carbon taxes or a cap-and-trade system can change the balance, by making oil and coal more expensive relative to solar. If these systems can be put in place relatively soon, and the political climate continues to become more favorable to large-scale changes to where we get our energy and how we use it, we may be able to avoid end-Permian-level CO2 concentrations. Plus, if we solve the energy problem (and with it the CO2 problem), there are other important problems (e.g., water, food, etc.) that we will, in principle, also be able to solve. It's a bright future, if only we can find it in ourselves to collectively get there.

Back to the rule-the-world fantasy. Global tax. How can any thinking person say that with a straight face? Such a thing can never happen. Hanging your solution to current threats on impossible conditions is nuts!

Politics is not helpful. "using today's technology" and "collectively" are code for we don't really give a hoot about the threat but we want to rule the world.

Fortunately there are bright, sane people concerned about the threats too. While the political thinkers enjoy their daisy chain and accomplish nothing useful, progress continues. The political types can do huge damage, as ever, but I don't think they can do enough harm fast enough to prevent real solutions from emerging. It's too late for them to screw things up so much that we can't deal.