> Global warming is definitely real enough.

No it is not! What is "real" are global climate changes...

> I think the vast majority of well-thinking people who comprise the reality-based
> community, including scientists, are agreed on that.

I suppose that is only if you base your personal reality on what other people think! Science is not a democracy only a process...

So you can have 1000 scientists agreeing and just one disagreeing and it could be that it is only that one who is right...

> What's not so agreed on is exactly the degree of current and anticipated warming,
> although most are agreed that the CAFE standards are way too weak.

Warming is not evenly distributed, it has been colder in many places...

> Also, for the extreme trillions it would take to make something as bizarre and
> unfeasible as an artificial ring of particles or spacecraft around earth, we could
> do something that would work much more elegantly and effectively, while preserving our
> ability to see stars and planets in the night sky.

IMHO you couldn't do either!

> Furthermore, this is a subject that has been dealt with over the years by cartoonists
> and by scifi writers for all media.

They have a very fertile imagination!!!

> But, getting real, I think if someone was willing to spend tens of trillions of dollars
> to combat global warming, they probably have many more land-based options than
> space-based, and probably much, much less expensive options. Check out Jay Inslee's
> (D-Washington) Apollo program for energy self-sufficiency and you can start on the
> right track.))

..and where are those "tens of trillions of dollars" going to come from!? Are they just going to print more fiat debt based money and we will all have to pay more interest and taxes on that? This is not realistic in any stretch of the imagination!!!

> In the long run, global climate control is going to be something that humans will need
> to have in the toolbox if the species is going to survive more than a couple of thousand
> years and get off this rock and into the rest of the solar system and the galaxy.

This makes no sense at all! So now suddendly for you the "species" no longer survive based on Natural selection!? This is fascinating to say the least!!!

> In the short term, spending trillions of dollars on what is essentially an experiment
> is unimaginable. First, the law of unintended consequences is liable to have major
> impact. Second, who's got 50 or a hundred trillion bucks floating around for this?

Of course there is no such large amount of debt based fiat money hanging around!

> This kind of project requires the entire economic output of the planet for a couple of
> years, if not decades, to be devoted to it. I can't think of many economic/political
> systems that can be so single minded, and the ones i can think of are not worth living
> in.))

This is, of course, un-realistic!!!