How about a bigger hat for that head?

From a Industrial design perspective that could be the solution and I suggest a manHATtan project size effort is in order.

Publicly-held companies live and die on their quarterly numbers.

I don't worry about that, after all there are enough people claiming that money is evil, and will therefore be offering a large percentage of their pay to research institutions, helping to solve the problem.

Like for example "PeakOil Tarzan" here, who is sorely in need of a demonstration that he considers more than "the bottom line". He's going to, today, move to a smaller home, not sell but destroy his car, ... like he demands of the rest of us.

Do I think we're screwed? Yes. Does that mean we can't profit during the descent? No.

Oh yeah, and I'm sure someone could have figured out a way to bottle their farts and sell them at enormous profit to the passengers of the Titanic as it was sinking. Ladies and gents, step right up and get your emergency self contained breathing mixture, right? I mean you have to admit it would still be better than trying to breathe cold water.

I used to think "Mad Max" was the worst scenario. But with all this talk of geoengineering maybe the worst scenario is "Highlander II": all the resource depletion of a Mad Max scenario combined with incredibly dodgy accents and the "narrative flow" of events in the the world becoming frankly incomprehensible. (Still at least it's not yet at the Zardoz level where we're all wandering around in red man-nappies.)

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I know, I know!

How about we put a giant aluminized mylar parasol up at the L1 point? You know, where the SOHO observatory is now.

/near-sarcanol

Yes and we continue with denial, delusion and deception.
Before we can mitigate our problems of AGW and PO we MUST be honest with ourselves.

Those that buy a hybrid car and announce they are assisting the environment and mitigating peak oil are guilty of all three. The same applies to the manufacturers and retailers.
Similarly those that advocate the use of more electricity, like for electric trains and other transport and claim that it mitigates PO and AGW need to get truthful with themselves.

In this era of peak production, supply and use of FF's just switching to an alternative energy or just using less will not do.
Unless we can sequester the co2 we WOULD have sent into the biosphere after we adopted our personal mitigation we are wasting our time.
As in using less fuel, unless we can prevent someone else using what we have not used, then the exercise is probably moot, as any fall in demand would lower price and enable an increased use in other areas, for instance air travel, transport and the military.
If on the other hand we had begun our mitigation thirty or forty years ago we MAY have been able to spread the depletion and co2 build up over a larger time span. That of course again, is dependent on business and personal use not increasing in other areas to take advantage of extra supply.

IMO power down, really is/was the correct and likely the only answer.

This is interesting.........http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/?area=&lang=eng

I mentioned a new study, in a previous DB, about the amount of carbon in the permafrost. Here is a new article on the study. (Note that this is only the permafrost and does not include the methane being released from the Arctic Sea sea floor.) :

Thawing Permafrost Likely To Boost Global Warming, New Assessment Concludes

...carbon dioxide emissions from microbial decomposition of organic carbon in thawing permafrost could amount to roughly half those resulting from global land-use change during this century...

The study, by Edward A. G. Schuur of the University of Florida and an international team of coauthors, more than doubles previous estimates of the amount of carbon stored in the permafrost: the new figure is equivalent to twice the total amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide...

Schuur and colleagues' new assessment indicates that thawing is likely to dominate known countervailing trends.

This is not just cave-man history.
If you intend to hang around for the next twenty years, you can watch it happen with your own eyes...
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/06/25/2283071.htm

...Important safety tip - choose an observation point more than six metres above current sea level!
;-)

Re: Extreme and risky action the only way to tackle global warming, say scientists

This is why most of us on the "right" side are so sceptical of global warming "solutions". It seems that politicians look at it as an extra source of revenue ie "carbon credits", Marxist/"greenies" look at it as a way for them to control other people, researchers look at it as an excuse to propose the most outrageous non workable solution that will result in significant funding and prestige and economists look at it as the next ponzi scheme ie "carbon credits" again. None of which will make a difference in the global temperature. "Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing."

Starting basic would be nice, something everyone can embrace, something like......clean water and better solar panels. Face it, the global warming solutions are a bigger toilet than the subprime lending. Atleast the houses actually got built and provide scrap copper down the road.

Definitely a bigger stonehead. Sounds like someone wants alot of funding for research.

It definitely looks like we're past the point of no return on alot of fronts, ie too late to fix it too early to scrap everything.

I worry about some of these solutions gaining traction, some of these proposals are downright scary due to Unintended Consequences. The models don't account for everything, especially human greed in twisting a cause to suit their own purposes. in my mind, doing nothing and jumping off the cliff might be the best way to handle this. I would prefer to take my chances with mother nature, but I like to avoid having to deal with the others.

Of course, I'm on the "right wing/libertarian" side of this one, and therefore extemely skeptical of any large "mandatory" solution implemented nationally. A call for national sacrifice (ala Boone Pickents) would be a better way to handle it, but our current group of pols (both parties) has no credibility since they will just waste more than we can save. Its hard enough to get them to show up and vote, let alone lead by example.

I've got an idea - why don't you show how they are wrong.

VS just handwaving.

"Where on earth are the fossil fuels going to come from to do that?"

They probably base their numbers on WAGS from the EIA or other agencies like them. The EIA and others project significant increases in the use of petroleum, natural gas, coal etc in the decades ahead...

garbage in, garbage out

They may or may not be ill informed. Normally they try to nail down one thing at a time. You don't cite a reference so I'll guess that you are referring to a paper about what might happen if CO2 reaches 650ppm. That is a legitimate thing to research, whether or not it is possible for CO2 to reach that level. If the paper actually asserted that CO2 will reach 650ppm then they would certainly support their argument with testable data. By the way, there are other paths through which CO2 levels could increase such as deforestation, melting and decay of permafrost.