Assuming global warming is real - can someone tell me why we are fixated on cutting CO2 emissions?

Question

Should we really cut the branch we're sitting on, metaphorically speaking?

Much more attractive and creative alternatives come to mind.

Reduction of CO2:
*Storing CO2 underground by pumping it there.
*Filtering CO2 from the air with chemicals
*Grow biomass to use up CO2 (fertilize oceans)
*Use chemicals to turn CO2 into limestone

Reduction of energy from sun
*Increase albedo by seeding clouds
*Put a mirror into space (orbit)

What gives?

Source: Popular science.

Answer 1

It's a question of what is are the most important forces creating global warming and how we can best (lowest cost, easiest for people, easiest for technology) reduce those forces.

Fundamentally, we need to reduce man's contribution to the greenhouse effect (which is known as "global warming"). We can do that by:

Conserving energy. There are many websites about how to do that.

Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, focusing on the big sources, cars, trucks, and electric and industrial power plants. It's easy to get diverted by smaller sources.

Developing alternatives to burning fossil fuels, including all of them; nuclear, solar, wind, and biofuels. It's a big problem, we need all the tools.

Developing methods to capture ("sequester") greenhouse gases produced by man.

By greehouse gases produced by man, I mostly mean the big one, carbon dioxide.

There are other, more imaginative solutions. We should look at them, but need to not get diverted too much from the important things listed above. There is no magic answer, this will require hard work.

These discussions always attract people who don't believe in global warming. I think the overwhelming weight of science contradicts them, but that's an argument for another place.

Answer 2

Certain gases don't let the heat escape from the Earth's surface. It's like putting on an extra blanket or an extra sweater. If you put on a sweater, the sweater does not actually make any heat. It just makes it so that the heat from your body does not escape as easily.
The major natural greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds); carbon dioxide, which causes 9-26%; methane, which causes 4-9%, and ozone, which causes 3-7%. It is not possible to state that a certain gas causes a certain percentage of the greenhouse effect, because the influences of the various gases are not additive. (The higher ends of the ranges quoted are for the gas alone; the lower ends, for the gas counting overlaps.)[2][3] Other greenhouse gases include, but are not limited to, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons (see IPCC list of greenhouse gases).

Millions of tons of crap DAILY into the atmosphere is nothing to sneeze at. Pun intended.

We are shrewing ourselves over for a buck.
Shooting ourselves in the herd.
Stepping on our own ducks.
Cutting off our nose to spite our finch.
Kicking ourselves in the asparagus beetle.

For the almighty dollar we're ruining it for everybody and everything, and people who deny it are three fries short of a Happy Meal.
Have a nice day.