Or, so it is said lately, TV forensic crime labs. It's not real, or even realistic, and at some level we know this, but we suspend disbelief. That's entertainment. But through long exposure the fictional aspects, overlooked and tucked away in a distant corner of the mind, cease to ground the experience so well. So it is with politics, which is merely bad theatre.

What is missing from the debate over targets and timetables is any conception of the realism of such proposals. If a proposal is not realistic, it is not really a policy proposal but an exercise in symbolism, a “magical solution.” Symbolism is of course an essential part of politics, but when it becomes detached from reality — or even worse, used to exclude consideration of realistic proposals — the inevitable outcome is that policies will likely fail to achieve the promised ends. This outcome is highly problematic for those who actually care about the substance of climate policy proposals.

The U.K. targets are a perfect example of what happens when symbols become disconnected from reality. To achieve a 34 percent reduction from 1990 emissions by 2022 while maintaining modest economic growth would require that the U.K. decarbonize its economy to the level of France by about 2016. In more concrete terms, Britain would have to achieve the equivalent of deploying about 30 new nuclear power plants in the next six years, just to get part way to its target. One does not need a degree in nuclear physics to conclude that is just not going to happen. Colin Challen, Member of Parliament (Labour) and chairman of its All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group, has concluded that the U.K. targets are “well beyond our current political capacity to deliver.” Perhaps there is some consolation in the fact that the U.K. targets are symbolically strong.

I am constantly amazed that politics is such a popular pastime. The actors (politicians) aren't that good looking or interesting, the plots are sophomoric, and even their sex scandals are amateurish and boring. The dialog and oratory which in the past salvaged some value for such third rate productions no longer satisfies or moves us. I never understood why people swooned over Obama's weak efforts. It was a sort of Special Olympics of oratory I suppose where standards and expectations were dialed down. He was cheered for beating a group of other special needs candidates, not for the absolute quality of his performances.

From that low standard we have fallen further, and faster, since the government is now well populated with intellectually and ethically challenged performers.

Political debate over climate policy is such that the facts on the ground often make little difference. Another good example of this dynamic can be found in New York Times columnist Tom Friedman’s views on the cap-and-trade bill now being considered by the U.S. Senate. Friedman recently evaluated the bill as it emerged from the House of Representatives as follows: “There is much in the House cap-and-trade energy bill that just passed that I absolutely hate. It is too weak in key areas and way too complicated in others. A simple, straightforward carbon tax would have made much more sense than this Rube Goldberg contraption. It is pathetic that we couldn’t do better. It is appalling that so much had to be given away to polluters. It stinks. It’s a mess. I detest it.”

He then concludes, “Now let’s get it passed in the Senate and make it law.”

The greatest disappointment though is that even those who complain of empty symbolism and magical solutions pay little attention to reality, they just market a different fantasy.

In the context of modest economic growth, emissions are reduced when energy efficiency improves and/or when energy supply is decarbonized. A direct approach to efficiency and expansion of low-carbon energy is much preferable to the indirect approach enshrined in current policies. A low carbon tax (priced as high as politically possible) could be used to raise funds to invest in technological innovation and deployment. While there are lessons to be learned from past policies (in places such as Japan on efficiency, France on nuclear power, the EU on wind and gas, and so on), the reality is that no one knows how to rapidly decarbonize a major economy or how fast decarbonization can actually take place. So there is merit in trying different approaches in different places.

Ultimately, depending on the relative success of mitigation policies, we may decide in a few decades to adopt a more brute-force approach to removing carbon directly from the atmosphere. In the meantime, however, we should take advantage of every opportunity to learn from efforts to decarbonize economic activity, with particular attention to realistic approaches and costs, such as contained in the Japanese proposal.

Is there any realistic possibility that political machinations and regulatory controls of any sort will actually accomplish anything useful so far as climate is concerned? No, none at all. If the US and EU ceased to exist this afternoon, whisked away to another dimension or galaxy by omnipotent aliens, the climate would barely notice. There would be a brief plateau before the process continued as before.

Better energy systems are required. We don't know how to do that yet. We have some slightly better methods - some new ones are obviously better than some old ones - but they aren't enough better to make a difference on a global scale even if we could deploy them in a timely manner for a price we could pay. We don't need new taxes to fund investigations into advanced power systems. There is so much money sloshing around in the plague of pork barrels with which we are afflicted that such efforts could be funded easily. Like old drunks, we spill more than we drink, no matter how much we drink.

We have all the incentives we need to be energy efficient. It's good business and good domestic engineering. The reason we are not more efficient is that the fantasy of magic fixes promised by bad TV actors (politicians) freezes sensibilities. Why even think about such things when mommy will do a big fix tomorrow? Why work hard, stick to the knitting and plan for the future when the rules may change on a whim? And so, the economy and society in general are degraded by the political fantasies, empty symbolism and mythical magical solutions of the never ending soap opera that we call government.