Scotty, we'll need everything you've got!

Aye. Warp drive standing by.

The global-warming debate's great un-mentionable is this: we lack the technology to get from here to there.

It's all just too damned difficult. We'll never ever be able to figure this out. It's hopeless, so let's just sit back and...

What to do about global warming is a quandary. Certainly, more research and development. Advances in underground storage of carbon dioxide, battery technology (for plug-in hybrid cars), biomass or nuclear power could alter energy economics. To cut oil imports, I support a higher gasoline tax—$1 to $2 a gallon, introduced gradually—and higher fuel-economy standards for vehicles. These steps would also temper greenhouse-gas emissions. Drilling for more domestic natural gas (a low-emission fuel) would make sense. One test of greenhouse proposals: are they worth doing on other grounds?

Wait. Wait. You mean there are things we can start doing right now? Well, why not just, you know, do...

But the overriding reality seems almost un-American: we simply don't have a solution for this problem.

Boundless pessimism coupled with a can't-do attitude is un-American? Say it isn't so! I'm sure someday in the future someone will go to where no man has gone before and come up with the silver bullet to stop carbon emissions and then that dreaded media bias will hopefully also finally be over.