So we're stuck with things like subsidizing Green Tech.
It always sounds great to be "investing" in infrastructure or energy or whatever. But pols don't invest, they cater to voting blocks. Politics can't solve these problems.
The reality is that the market left alone won't solve these problems, and politics can't solve them perfectly. What you're left with is the state of human existance: muddling along.
Additionally, if no green tech change occurs, then you're stuck with the job losses by lower consumption of the good you're taking, but don't get the job gains of the good you're hopping will spring up to replace it.
So from a economics perspective, seems like it might be the pure way to go. From a policy perspective, it's iffy.
If you want a good solution then make it fight for life in the current market, eventually it might win - in this case you will really get a good solution.
Here is the basic problem with the market for energy. Say I give you the choice of two candy bars: one costs you $1.00, the other costs you $0.75 and also costs some random third party $0.75. Which do you pick? The latter, of course. Everyone always picks the latter, and the end result is economically inefficient.
This is the same choice when it comes to energy. A Harvard study found that the externalized costs of coal range from $350-500 billion: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/us-usa-coal-study-.... Fully half the true cost of coal power is externalized to people outside the transaction of power producers/power users. The market doesn't yield efficient results when costs can be externalized like this. That's Econ 101 level knowledge. There are only two ways to fix this market failure: either tax coal power to reflect the externalized costs, or subsidize green tech to compensate. In our political system new taxes are pretty much impossible, hence we adopt the latter solution.