> ... totally confident in the predictions of economic ruin that they don't even bother to explain their reasoning.

I don't predict economic ruin -- I predict slower economic growth. It's not the same.

What I do think, is that there's a huge moral dilemma when we in the western world who're enjoying the fruits of economic growth are now ready to push much poorer parts of the world into slowing their growth, and thus slowing their ascent to the prosperity we're all but taking for granted.

> Why this spurious equation of energy efficiency with a halt to economic development?

Energy efficiency is going to advance itself, since efficiency equals money saved. But the kind of energy efficiency sought under the banner of saving the planet has nothing to do with efficiency, and everything to do with forcing us into using less energy at whatever the cost.

> Your argument implies that economic development in poor countries must follow the same path that of the west during the industrial revolution

Burning fossil fuels is by far the cheapest and easiest way to generate mechanical and electrical energy on demand. Especially when bootstrapping an infrastructure, it's also the most efficient. Gasoline, diesel and oil are simply the only readily available sources of energy that's immediately and cheaply transportable and storable. There is no reason to believe that rural Africa is going to go anywhere without burning a lot of fossils. China and India are sufficiently densely populated and able in terms of infrastructure that they can probably fuel much of their growth electrically -- but barring a breakthrough in nuclear power, there's only so much of it that's going to be generated without fossil-burning.

However: That might change, come economic development.

Taxing (in whatever way, directly or indirectly) carbon emissions -- and that's really the only political proposal that's on the table will curtail economic growth: It will make it harder for the "little man" in China, India, Africa and Russia who can create economic growth by driving his car to the next town, or who can increase yield from his field by using a tractor, or mechanised irrigation pumps, or who tries to run a factory. To hundreds of millions of people there is simply no way of doing these things available, that doesn't involve burning fossils.

Since rich countries for this reason will be expected to lead the way, it will also mean that the inventor of something that might change this dynamic, would have a harder time raising the necessary capital. The richer an economic is, the more money it can afford to throw into universities, research and startups.

> I've been following (but not crusading for) environmental issues for 20 years

Good. Then I'm sure you'll agree it would have been disastrous if humankind had sat down in 1989 and decided to implement a world-wide scheme that would essentially dampen economic growth and development.

> We have greatly enhanced our technology over the last 20 years, so why can we not put that expertise to work now, instead of waiting for some future panacea?

Because we still don't have a solution that doesn't involve dragging down the world economy. Our solution today is to try to stop doing the things that emit carbon, but as long as those things are also to a large extend the things that create wealth, it has some extremely bad side effects. Wind turbines are fine for up to about 15% of the electrical supply in the developed world. Solar is promising where and when the sun shines. Water plants are fine where are water for them (not many places left, if any). Nuclear is nice, except for the waste and the extremely high requirements for safety (making them slow and expensive to construct and operate).

We are getting there, and we have several outs. Electrical cars and hydrogen infrastructure would allow a much higher share of wind and solar in the mix. 3rd gen. biodiesel might help. Efficient scrubbers would allow us to stop caring about coal, oil and gas plants. But we are not there yet.

> As for being in better future financial shape, you assume an inevitable upward trend (...) Only a few short years ago the bull market was hailed as a great economic success

Energy creates wealth, because it makes the same person more efficient. That's the essence of the industrial revolution: harnessing energy in machines, suddenly one person can create much more. Since then, machines and how we operate them has developed massively in favour of efficiency -- from the steam hammer to Tim Ferris operating business on an iPhone lying on a beach.

And we need to look at the economy at a much grander scale than 10 years. Economies expand and contracts, but over a longer time, it invariably expands. When there is talk of global climate change, a scale of 100 years is more appropriate.

> To believe that some future market will be so awash in capital as to render environmental improvement a trivial overhead is to subscribe to a form of socioeconomic teleology

I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that it's going to be richer than this one, and not least, more developed than this one. About 120 years ago we worried about the wether the supply of whale oil could meet the demand -- in other words, it seemed unlikely that in the future, the market would be awash (pardon the pun) in whale oil. Then we refined mineral oil, and that was that. Nobody knows what the future holds. The officials going to Copenhagen (which reminds me, I need to find a place out of the city to park my car for those weeks) think they know what the future holds. I claim that they can't and that history speaks against what they are trying to do.