Looking at many of the comments above (and in other article comments), I don't know whether to feel despair or amusement at the number of (assumedly) literate people who don't understand the global carbon cycle and can't figure out gross energy/material budget concepts.

At least, overall, it's not as bad as the reader comments you get in the so-called quality newspapers. The governments and industry have been able to lie and cheat and mislead for so long because people really don't understand the subjects they are fed lies about.

What the world needs is more education. Unfortunately, what you can teach children in schools is controlled by politicians so they'll never learn to figure things out.