It is good to learn in the opening paragraphs of your special report on climate change that your newspaper “believes that, as an insurance policy against a catastrophe that may never happen, the world needs to adjust its behavior to try to avert that threat” (“Getting Warmer,” December 5, 2009). Nicely put. Although some scientists think that the planet is already on an irreversible course to fatal warming, we cannot just sit and wait. As you show, scientists broadly agree that greenhouse gas emissions must be curbed. Also, economists broadly agree that emissions can be curbed without debilitating the world economy. However, you point out that the problem is essentially political in nature. Being a prisoner’s dilemma, a free-rider problem, and the tragedy of the commons “all rolled into one,” you consider it “the hardest political problem the world has ever had to deal with.” In this context, your concluding paragraph offers the clincher: “Everything depends, in the end, on the voters and their political leaders.” Nicely put, again. Returning to your insurance policy, our only sober hope is that the catastrophe will never happen. Or have I missed something?