I think the problem is that "consensus" is the wrong word to use when dealing with objective science. "Consensus" is what you reach when a group decides on what flavor of pizza to order.

If you have objective facts to support a theory, the theory is consistent, and it stands up to experimentation, then a reasonable person would come to the same conclusions as the theorist. You don't need a "consensus" to decide if a house is painted fire-engine red or not.

The problem is climate science is about 80 percent "we don't know for sure." This doesn't mean the scientists are idiots, it means that climate science is a bitch. Under these conditions, if one is forced to put oneself on one side or the other for political or other reasons, then "consensus" becomes what you need, and you end up with the zoo we are currently dealing with.

We are in a difficult position with CO2. In the past, we could work on pollutants that were unfortunate byproducts of burning hydrocarbons, like soot, monoxides, sulfur compounds, and many others. They were byproducts, and one could theoretically eliminate or control them without affecting the basic industrial process. To our credit, this has largely been done, and I would be the first to admit that it would probably not have been done without government mandates (I do think that car mileage improvments would have happened without government mandates. Good mileage sells cars, all else being equal. Are there a lot of people who would buy a car based on the fact that its smog-creating emissions are low? Some maybe. Not many.)

But you cannot burn a hydrocarbon without creating CO2. This strikes at the very heart of our industrial civilization, and as such, it is a serious thing to begin squashing hydrocarbon-fueled civilization unless you're damn sure it's essential to do so.

There are alternatives to burning fossil fuels. Nuclear power is the main one, and I am disappointed that more work is not being done on development of new and safer nuclear systems instead of rehashing systems that have not changed significantly since the 1950s.

Fuel cell technology has some possibilities. Some fuel cells can crack simple hydrocarbons like propane or natural gas and use the hydrogen. I still have no idea where the carbon ends up. If CO2 still pours out of the cell, we aren't much better off unless it's more efficient.