Reply #6: In theory, we could do all those things very quickly.

[phantom power]

But it would be in a sort of "apollo project" mode. The government and the citizens would have to be on more or less the same page, and all thinking in the mode of "we have to make this happen in 10 years, and no obstacle is standing in our way."

It would probably require an exercise of eminent-domain on a historic scale. Appropriating people's property to build mass-transit, fast-tracking nuclear reactors (or vast wind farms, or whatever).

Our usual way of doing business, where we argue about the various rights of property, land use, etc, or demagogue endlessly about the "unfair cost to taxpayers," would have to be thrown out the window.

As you say, it would take some kind of national emergency to provoke that kind of thinking from Americans. And by that time, it's too late to prevent anything. It might still be worth doing, but we'll be doing it while dealing with climate chaos.