This good article is undermined by its technically incorrect opening sentence. "The world’s most difficult problem has a solution so simple that it can be expressed in four words: Stop burning greenhouse gases." Actually, the primary greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, is a product of combustion and does not burn. The simple solution is more correctly given as: Stop producing greenhouse gases.

We may be able to stomach the bill rather easily because since Income and Wealth Gaps continue to widen, stomachs are shrinking. Watching cable news channels you would not know those dangerous gaps exist.

Very big and important questions deserve a lot more thought that was put into this "memo." I read several other articles in the series and thought they were well done. But this doesn't come anywhere near their quality. Those who want more on this vital question might read "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate" by Naomi Klein. But there must be much shorter pieces that do better than the article here I am disappointed that the Times would bother with it

I was a little stunned to read the first sentence: "The world’s most difficult problem has a solution so simple that it can be expressed in four words: Stop burning greenhouse gases." -- say what?

Excellent introductory comments - Rich nails the tough problems. Just a minor suggestion for a modification: CO2 is made by burning stuff - it is not burned. N2O is neither burned nor made by burning anything. CH4 is not made by burning but when it is burned its greenhouse effects are substantially reduced. A better four words would replace burning with making or producing or liberating.

"The most fundamental question is whether a capitalistic society is capable of sharply reducing carbon emissions. Will a radical realignment of our economy require a radical realignment of our political system — within the next few years? Even if the answer is no...et al" But what if the answer is yes?

Part of the problem with the climate change discussion is a lack of honesty and a lack of respect for the other side. Psychopaths make up only one or two percent of the population. Pictures of clouds at sunset, and pictures of condensing water vapor from hyperboloid cooling towers and factory smokestacks, are not evidence of industrial "carbon emissions". Gaseous carbon dioxide is invisible. Climate change gets blamed for every forest fire, flood, drought, snowstorm, hurricane, heat wave, snowstorm, crop failure, pest increase, and animal die-out—even though these events have been occurring for thousands of years. "Carbon taxes" would raise transportation costs and the cost of electricity, and would harm the residential and commercial sectors, manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and construction. Raising domestic production costs would harm U.S. exports and U.S. employment, and lower the U.S. standard of living, while some of the production and employment would simply shift to countries with state-owned enterprises and energy and environmental regulations that are more lax. Shifting production nullifies any reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps a better alternative to carbon taxes would involve adaptation to changing climate, combined with advances in technology that could lower energy consumption and lower the costs of renewable energy sources and energy storage.

Most economists agree that a revenue-neutral carbon tax, with the revenue returned to citizens as a dividend, presents the most effective means of reducing carbon footprint. Rich casually proposes "coercion" as the means to this end, which is a dangerous (and intellectually lazy) approach. Besides, the dismantling of capitalism, aside from being politically unattainable, isn't necessary. Last I heard, it was the progressives who have been pushing back against a carbon tax (Washington State), and it's the progressives who are in favor of increasing immigration and support more broadly elevating standards of living -- both of which will contribute to a larger carbon footprint. It's a mistake to single out capitalism as the sole culprit. Humans are the culprit, and we need to work together politically and economically, without coercion, and with the financial and political tools we have, to solve this issue.

The problem is time. We are rapidly running out of it. Our planetary rain forests are shrinking rapidly, by more than 50 percent in some cases, our megafauna are dying off at an astounding rate, insect populations have dropped by more than 40 to 50 percent, and the seas continue to rise. The temperature in parts of Alaska, as one example, has risen by as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit. And yet, none of the signatories to the Paris Accord have done much of anything to address rising CO2 emissions and rising temperatures. What is most alarming, to my mind, is that it will take a real climate catastrophe to make governments begin to move, and there will be chaos, certainly. In some cases, countries will be forced to impose martial law to control their citizens, and in others there may be brutal force used as well. We must act now, it’s that simple.

A mixed view on this. The title and subtitle don't reflect the article. Yes, there are real "reckoning" issues regarding capitalism--and some underutilized ideas on how to reform/revolutionalize it, but that's another topic, as is costs. It's another mixed bag to say that something is "simple." Yes, in a way it partially clarifies, but not in other "Now, actually do it" ways. The article is best when listing the many questions which need to be debated, but aren't sufficiently, in part for the reasons Rich mentions. But it isn't helpful to call corporations--as a category, "psychopaths." That's pretty strong! Where it applies to a particular company or think tank than OK. Generalizations can often be unfair, cause resentment, and lose opportunities for potential allies. You want to bring as many companies as possible to the "seriously addressing climate change" side. Some of them are already there. An article in yesterday's NYT discussed another "movement" among corporate employees, Amazon this time on this very issue, to get their employer to take it more seriously. Let's keep an eye on how they respond beyond the perfunctory P.R. response. Patagonia is now in the business of "saving the earth," and not afraid to get to get involved in mucky, risky political action to do so. We're going to need much more of this, so don't discourage it by putting them all in the same bag. By the way, this also is a major, unrealized way to address some of capitalism' problems.

Until money is removed from the political process in the United States, nothing will happen w.r.t. climate change.

The idea that large corporations are psychopaths is the one to stress. As long as people think of them as benign or at least rational, they will be able to continue to behave psychopathically. They are very good at faking being benign and rational, so they cannot be trusted and some people and/or bunch of rules must have the power to stop them when needed. We manage to do this in sports.

Even this article doesn't grasp the scope of the changes we need to make. Read Naomi Klein's 'This Changes Everything' and you will begin to understand. To shorten up the book, we need to cast our form of capitalism along with the WTO into the trash heap of history and move to a more people and earth-centered model. We need to realize we are not masters of nature but rather a part of it. We must now begin to live in harmony with our mother earth. Proposing a 'carbon tax' as this article does, shows the author is still trying to solve global warming within the current system, which is impossible. How much will it cost is another question with blinders on. Let me help you think bigger: We need to go to a war footing. If we need workers, we should draft them by the millions and put them to work refitting houses, laying power lines, installing solar - everything. Remember, once, to save our nation, we were willing to use ration cards. Am I a radical? No, either we will change or die. It's that simple.

Thanks for this great article. I have a quibble: in the first sentence, we are advised that the solution to climate change is to "stop burning greenhouse gases". If only greenhouse gases were combustible! OK, some like methane are combustible, but the major culprit, carbon dioxide, is not. Perhaps the writer meant "stop burning fossil fuels" or "stop emitting greenhouse gases"? Other than that, I agree with the major point of the article that we can't rely on voluntary action to address climate change. Coercion (i.e., regulation) is the only way forward.

The train is leaving the station......

Good heavens -- if there was ever a case of The Pot calling The Kettle black -- this is it. Of course, that he advocates the same method and remedy practiced in Stalin's Soviet Union -- declaring ideological enemies psychotic thus justifying locking them in mental hospitals that were really prisons with special tortures -- may go unremarked here. I am not qualified to judge Nathaniel Black's mental state -- but I will admit that I would not want to be left alone with him in the same room. It worries me too that this newspaper would publish this outside of the Opinion Section -- where calls for the destruction of Western free society more usually appear.

Both capitalism and communism, and all isms in between, have built their economies on "cheap" fossil fuels. We need an entirely new "ism" if our children are to inherit a liveable earth. Check out Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics. It *is* possible to transition to a system that puts nature and humans above "growth" and profits. But a new economy calls for a new politics. Signs are everywhere that this is emergent. Question is, will we get there in time?

The world's largest polluter, China, is not a capitalist country; it is a communist country. It is therefore inappropriate to suggest that corporations are the sole or greatest source of our environmental issues. If corporations are people they are not psychopaths for following their own best interests; that is exactly what actual people do.

"Stop burning greenhouse gases." We don't burn greenhouse gases. We burn fossil fuels, which produces greenhouse gases.

Driving our environmental problems is the colossal human population on the planet. I see no evidence that the various political systems can deal with that. Eventually biological factors outside our control will force a dramatic drop in population, just as we see populations of animals crash when they exceed the capacity of their biome. We anthropomorphize these as the four horsemen of the apocalypse. You don't want to be here when they take over.