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And that approach won't work. What is needed is increased efficiency with existing energy technology and new energy sources (as well as upgrades to existing and proven technologies, like nuclear power).
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The free market will factor in efficiency based on cost. But this is totally apart from the issue of climate change. Notice that "climate change" is distinct from "global warming".

It is foolish in the utmost to assume that human activity is responsible for climate change and then attempt to mitigate the climate. Why? Simply because at this point it remains to be proved that humans are responsible for climate change.

In truth, the climate is always changing. Or to put it another way, the climate never stops changing. We have examples of this change under our feet, and before our very eyes almost all the time. Even if we spend our lives in the concrete and steel canyons of Manhattan, the very limestone in the concrete our feet are standing on testifies to climate change.

I am sure you have seen photos of the Anastasi Indian cliff dwellings in northern Arizona. Here we have an entire civilization that was driven into a mass migration by climate change so that by 1300 AD, they had totally left the area.

History records that Erik the Red along with 450 followers, colonized Greenland in the summer of 986 AD. At that time the island was warm enough to permit raising row crops and cattle. By 1350 many of the farms were abandoned because the climate had changed to being much colder and wetter.

The weather was trending (climate change) to a period that we call the Little Ice Age. This period had three distinct minima, about 1650, about 1770, and 1850. It was so cold that the River Thames started freezing over in the winter. The first Thames freeze was in 1607; the last in 1814.

(This period of colder climate can be seen today in the paintings that are still published or can be seen in antique books. The winter scenes were popularized by the firm, "Currier & Ives", items of that style are popular on eBay. When you see a quaint winter scene, you are seeing the weather during the Little Ice Age.)

It is signal to me that not a single climatologist, who today cares so much for our climate, cares to test his models and theories on the climate change that enabled Erik the Red to settle Greenland, or the climate change that froze the River Thames.

No! That climate change is not so urgent that is pays for AlGore to burn hundreds of thousands of pounds of jet fuel flitting around the globe to show his movie. That climate change doesn't get grants approved, and that climate change will not allow socialists to increase the size of government along with permeating the regulatory system into every area of our daily lives to such an extent that we will have to ask government for permission to use energy.

The questions remain unanswered even as we are given the bum's rush to approving a vast destruction in our national and personal liberties:

1) To what extent is the climate really changing;

2) To what extent is human activity responsible for any change that is harmful;

3) To what extent, and at what cost, can humanity mitigate their behavior to reduce or eliminate any harmful climate change.

Unless and until these questions are addressed, in an open and honest scientific and policy debate, I refuse to accept the basic premise that climate change is the same as "global warming".

It is foolish in the utmost to assume that human activity is responsible for climate change and then attempt to mitigate the climate. Why? Simply because at this point it remains to be proved that humans are responsible for climate change.

There is an increasing body of data indicating the strong likelihood of anthropogenic causation of the current warming trend.

You provide a nice summary of recent global climate.

It is signal to me that not a single climatologist, who today cares so much for our climate, cares to test his models and theories on the climate change that enabled Erik the Red to settle Greenland, or the climate change that froze the River Thames.

But they certainly do! And there is fairly widespread agreement that the LIA was primarily due to a period of slightly lower solar activity called the "Maunder Minimum". The earlier Medieval Warm Period, with strongest effects observed in the North Atlantic region, was a naturally warm period with potential (slight) augmentation due to ocean circulation variability.

1) To what extent is the climate really changing;
2) To what extent is human activity responsible for any change that is harmful;
3) To what extent, and at what cost, can humanity mitigate their behavior to reduce or eliminate any harmful climate change.

1) It's getting warmer.
2) Harm remains to be seen. Human activity is indicated to be responsible for the majority of the current warming trend.
3) My conservative answer is that the response of "humanity" shouldn't be focused on reducing CO2 emissions (as the Kyoto Protocol did). It should be about improving the global energy infrastructure to improve efficiency and provide the benefits of increased energy availability while reducing the global (and national) dependence on fossil fuels. The U.S. will benefit in terms of economic stability and national security if dependence on foreign oil resources is reduced; if that happens, the benefits to the climate will accrue as a consequence.