... I actually was inclined to give CCS a chance until you put it into perspective for me. Thanks! And thanks, too, for the touches of black humour. Much appreciated.

Would the Manhattan Project and the Marshall Plan have succeeded if big energy was threatened?  The suppression of solar is far more sophisticated and brutal than publicly known.

What worries me is the complete lack of regard for everything except profit. Are these CEO's and senior executives so far removed from reality that they cannot see further than the bottom dollar?
It worries me that the world as we know it could be destroyed by the actions of a small group of rich and powerful people who are outside the democratic process. It's not just the US though, Europe is as bad but with less fossil fuel resources.

"Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money."

One of those 15 wedges about how we were going get out of this carbon dioxide mess was 1300 coal plants with CCS.  If that's not going to happen, how do you convince coal companies politically to stop mining coal?

Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) has reached a point, where there will be many positive feedbacks from greenhouse gas (GHGs) in the atmosphere, which have already caused excess ice sheet melting in the arctic region. Even if significant fossil fuel emission reduction steps have been taken immediately, as long as GHG emissions are not zero, the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations will continue, and greenhouse effect will strengthen, temperatures will keep on rising, and ice will melt in the polar regions.
This is not to say we should give up trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but decreasing the rate of emissions does not stabilize the greenhouse gas concentrations, it simply decreases the rate of their increase. My question is: do we have some other constructive suggestion? Or, we just say we are doomed?

Although I agree with the general conclusions of this post, the numbers at the beginning of the article lead to an inaccurate conclusion.  Montague cites that the US spent $168 million on solar research in 2007, while spending $169 billion subsidizing fossil fuels since 1991, and then claiming that this represents 1000x more spending than solar.  But, if you note that there is a fifteen year time differential, you'll see that we actually only spent 62.9x more on fossil fuel subsidies (assuming a constant level of solar funding since 1991 at 2007 levels). Again, I agree with the conclusions, but I feel the need for honesty in data presentation.

See, once it was a plot device on a cartoon show:

"Frisky Dingo
In the second season premiere, Killface's plan to destroy Earth backfires---to his benefit. The Annihilatrix moved the Earth slightly off its orbit and cured global warming."

Now, it's a legitimate plan.

That's legitimately our ONLY hope to reduce GW. The feedback cycles assure that if we stop emitting any extra CO2, the globe will STILL warm for the next 50 years. So, umm, if anyone has a better idea, make it happen.

The numbers aren't misleading... "On the other hand each year since 1991 the U.S. government has spent 1000 times that amount -- $169 billion -- "  notice how it says ...EACH YEAR SINCE 1991... not since 1991.  Thinkdharma, I agree with you that honesty is important but so is reading the information that is presented to you carefully.  Make sure you understand something before making accusations.  

Carbon Sequestration
That's legitimately our ONLY hope to reduce GW.

Thats the catch though.
It's not that legitimate.

Also carbon sequestration i.e. Making plants grab it out of the air.

Apparently, plants have diminishing returns on how well additional CO2 means more growth.  (It's a plateauing R-curve)

Especially since temperature, water, and nitrogen availibility are much more crucial.

So the imaginary "linear growth increase" with increasing CO2 is bull.

____

So that leaves our only "legitimate" strategy is to not put it up there in the first place