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I don't know but to base billions and billions of dollars being spent on what seems like a lot of uncertainty seems to be ridiculous to me.
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I think this is incomplete. You need to factor the costs and the potential benefits (adjusting for uncertainty.) It might be that billions is too expensive, or it might be that billions if, for example, it has a 50% chance of saving all of humanity, is a bargain.
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Points well taken and I actually thought about that. You could probably say that about a lot of things. Not convinced at all that humanity is in any kind of immediate danger. Certainly not by some of the doomsday predictions of what some modeles are saying. I see no reason to draw that conclusion. Nonetheless still will buy carbon offsets for the forseeable future. Here's a blurb on something Senator Bingaman proposed and I think it's fair to say that Senator Bingaman is a moderate. Therefore I'd consider this approach a "middle of the road" policy:
EIA: Bingaman Climate Bill Poses Little Economic Pain
Somehow I have the feeling that costs of implementing something like this are underestimated and I see no evidence that it will actually have any effect or is actually needed. We're doing all this based on findings of a new science with not much data (when we're looking at long time periods with climate cycles) and uncertain, unproven models. Seems more likely to be a waste of money than saving mankind to me but maybe not.
BTW I'm serious about buying carbon offsets. For the price of $120 a year I can offset the CO2 my autos emit each year. What about if this was done for every vehicle? Of course some can't afford $120 a year but seems lik the government could pick the slack. I realize that industrial CO2 emissions remain as a problem but how many people would it take offsetting the CO2 their automobiles emit to make a big difference? Maybe wacki can shed some light on this.