As many people have noticed, the temperature has been unusually hot in certain parts of the world this year. The heat wave has in turn prompted increased attention on the issue of climate change , and whether the two are related.

Human-caused climate change, the steady increase of temperatures due to the presence of human-emitted CO2 in the atmosphere, has caused unusually hysterical reactions from both governments and ordinary people. The Biden administration has banned oil and gas pipelines and is restricting the exploration and drilling of fossil fuels. Extremist groups, such as Just Stop Oil, have taken to blocking traffic and super-gluing themselves to works of fine art.

Protestations that the current heat wave is not necessarily related to climate change, and that the latter is not the immediate, existential problem that activists make it out to be, have fallen on deaf ears. Indeed, a piece in Eos suggesting the current heatwave is the result of water vapor blasted into the upper atmosphere by a sub-ocean volcano has been ignored by the media. The water vapor will dissipate during the next few years, the article argues, returning global temperatures to “normal,” however one defines it.

Of course, the temporary spike in temperatures caused by the volcanic eruption does not mean climate change is not a problem. But it does mean that now is not the time to panic and that the problem remains a long-term one.

It seems the federal government is quietly acknowledging this reality. Robinson Meyer, a former writer for The Atlantic, has discovered a new climate change policy tucked away in last year’s appropriation bills that offers some promise. Congress has mandated the Department of Energy to devise a way for the federal government to pay private entities to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequester it underground.

On the face of it, paying private entities to conduct direct air carbon capture does not seem to be a bad idea. It has attracted bipartisan support. It is less draconian than banning gas stoves and gas water heaters. It is preferable to enacting a carbon tax, though such a levy could be used in combination with subsidizing carbon capture. It also helps address the fact that, even if the West went to a full carbon-free energy economy tomorrow, such a change would not account for China and India building new coal-fired plants, since they are more interested in fostering economic growth than fighting climate change.

Direct air capture has some problems that must be solved before it becomes widespread. So far, the technology is expensive. Meyer thinks that even if the cost is reduced by orders of magnitude, it will cost $1 trillion a year to keep climate change in check.

How other climate change mitigation schemes, including nuclear power (also eventually fusion), carbon capture at the power plant source being developed by NET Power , and even planting lots of trees, figure into the overall strategy remains to be seen.

It’s also clear the government hasn’t fully thought through its carbon capture plan. Captured carbon does not have to be sequestered into the ground permanently. Carbon can be used to create useful products, including food , fuel , and materials such as carbon fiber. SpaceX’s Elon Musk, for example, would like to take direct air capture carbon dioxide and make rocket fuel out of it.

Still, the policy is a welcome change from the drastic solutions previously proposed. Even if we admit that climate change is a real problem, we need not impose overreaching policies that impoverish people. Those kinds of solutions are especially hard to take seriously when offered by jet-setting environmental warriors such as John Kerry and Bill Gates. The spectacle of the elites proposing lifestyle constraints that they do not follow fosters the suspicion that climate change is a scam concocted by elites to control the masses by keeping them poor and dependent.

Robust economic growth and fostering a safe, clean planet are not mutually exclusive things. Sound, rational policy that does not presume people are idiots who can be easily frightened into bending the knee and accepting that they must do with less, would be welcome.

Mark Whittington writes frequently about space policy and has published a political study of space exploration entitled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? , as well as The Moon, Mars and Beyond , and, most recently, Why is America Going Back to the Moon? He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.  He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, among other venues.