This is a straw man argument (use fossil fuels or lose all benefits of modern life. We can still enjoy these benefits by switching to renewables, or power. The

This is a straw man argument (use fossil fuels or lose all benefits of modern life. We can still enjoy these benefits by switching to renewables, or power. The naive nature of this comment seems pretty synthetic, but I'll give it a grown up response: One answer to preserve GDP while shifting to carbon neutral renewables is to increase the cost of fossil fuels through the use of a Carbon Dividend. This consists of three points 1. Taxing carbon fuels at the wholesale market. 2. Providing a dividend to every citizen of the U.S. (mitigates the impact on low income families, estimates range about $4k / person) 3. Provide an adjustment tax at the border punishing other countries like China that do not institute their own Carbon fee structure. This is a market based solution advocated by James Baker & others within the conservative establishment to help our society accelerate the shift to carbon neutral power. Currently a group of 17 house republican representatives support the measures. More information can be found by researching / participating / volunteering for the citizen's climate lobby - http://citizensclimatelobby.org/ http://citizensclimatelobby.org/