I found this a challenging read but I think I get the gist of it. We stand at the dawn of a new era; the threshhold of a carbon century. In the coming decades we have to learn to run the carbon cycle in reverse from the way we have done it since first carrying coal to Newcastle.

To me a better analogy than sports would be the emergence of commercial air travel and nuclear energy at mid-20th century. In both cases federal agencies were established to task the industry with setting engineering standards for safety that would compete with profitability in the short term but inure to their benefit in the long term. An important feature of both of those examples was a regulatory review process, such that after any major mishap there was very thorough analysis and subsequent rule changes. In the example of airlines, this brought down the cost and made the industry more attractive and profitable. In the case of nuclear, it did the opposite, but I would argue that was because the fox had captured the regulatory chicken coop and kept its paw on the scale, thwarting or warping legitimate rule changes so that the industry remained both expensive and dangerous. The lesson for CDR is to follow the example of the airlines and welcome tough standards and not allow yourself to be captured and stuck with weak standards that will ultimately defeat both your industry's future and the climate goal that is the point of it all.