Vested interests are blowing too much "fairy dust" into the eyes of the public in order to misdirect or confuse debate. Research arguments are based on thinking and perspectives set so narrow so as to lead to a pre-conceived outcome.
Simply, the reality:
1: Using our resources more efficiently and wisely, eliminating waste will protect future generations. It is imperative that when implementing more efficient systems for conservation, reducing pollution, protecting the environment and the health of the public now is more cost effective than waiting some 20-50 years time. Remember! Fuel that is burnt wastefully; resources wasted can, not only pollute the environment or damaging public health, will effect your bottom line and profit.

2: E.g. I was amazed at the reply to a submission I was asked to write in reply to the Victorian Government's Central Regions water strategy a couple of years ago. The submission questioned the government’s lack of commitment towards water conservation and also to the community consultation process. The Planning Strategy was simply a Spin Doctoring or Public Relations exercise. I found the quality and accuracy of the report was less than what I would have expected from a first year high school student. If I had accepted the figures used in the report then I would have to assume that the Geelong community were the most efficient water users in the western worlds or; the dirtiest among the western world communities. E.g., the document tried to tell us that Geelong used 18.5 litres annually for both domestic and industry. Wow!! Let others learn from the wonderfully competent Geelong community:)
My reply to the submissions did not accept narrow parameters but tried to look at the whole picture of water conservation. Perhaps that was my mistake:(. Anyway, I received a very nice reply thanking me for my contribution and then the reply went on to say that my information was too technical and the technology was not available.

Well, submission only the present knowledge and available technology and was available elsewhere in the world. In some instances, it had been available for many years.

Isn't this just one more call to delay serious action? To insist we should be waiting upon some kind of superior technology to emerge before seriously addressing emissions? I absolutely agree that funding R&D is essential but the crux of this argument is that we shouldn't act if it involves any kind of difficult decision making or cause any hardship to any sector of the existing economy such as coal mining and coal power generation - the sectors that realistically must be massively cut back. The lack of political will to make hard decisions on emissions is very real but I don't see calls to delay imposing appropriate carbon prices as an appropiate response. Besides, it's early days, with a lingering reluctance to acknowledge a problem (thousands of published papers are wrong and a few mavericks who can't even get published in peer review are right). I'm all for more R&D, particularly around grid upgrade and expansion and energy storage, but most of the technologies needed are well developed (24 hr a day CSP, PV at ever lowering prices, Wind, Geothermal and new generation nukes like IFR).

Nair correctly points out the reluctance by politics and entreched interests to address growing emissions but fails to point to any alternatives to efforts barely begun to deal with climate change - beyond calls for more R&D, which people like myself have never stopped arguing for. It's a 'too hard, don't bother' kind of argument.Backing away from imposing high carbon prices in the hope that some technological silver bullets will emerge - whilst continuing a Business As Usual reliance on fossil fuels - is not a visionary approach at all. It's a "too hard, don't bother' argument used to justify more delay.

Nair's arguments might have been appropriate a decade or more ago, not now. If adopted they would add another decade of inaction on the basis that the consequences of doing very little won't really be worse than doing what we can because some magic bullet will emerge to undo the decades of inaction.

Sorry, I had two OLO articles open at once and misnamed the author of the one I submitted a comment to - should be Nordhaus and Shellenberger, not Nair.
Apologies to Chandran Nair.

I agree with you Ken Fabos that there is an urgent need for R&D. However, R&D can take years or even decades to implement.

I reiterate the need to reinforce the Environmental Protection Act while R&D is underway. The Act can be enforced immediately. It is already legislated but has been manipulated to allow polluters to pollute with relish. This nation is being duped as it has been for some forty years.

All the recommendations put forth by well meaning citizens to mitigate carbon dioxide are futuristic and are therefore unintentionally, delaying urgent action.

If we fail to take immediate action to reduce CO2 and other pollutants, we can kiss the future (as we know it) "good-bye."

With or without global warming, our rivers, our soil, our health and our right to clean air continue to be polluted and have already been seriously compromised.

The Australian Government's Taxation Office notice on this web page says " Don't take the Bait, Dodgy schemes can come back to bite you".... I couldn't have said it better myself!

Carbon credit trading is a fraud
All these schemes do is give permission to pollute.
The solution is encourage positive outcomes More carrot less stick.