Copenhagen demonstrated that governments don’t compromise and cooperate like regular people; neither do corporations. The prisoner’s mindset may be anathema to many individuals, but it’s a worldview more central to capitalism (an economic system that rewards greed above all else) than some may like to admit.

This is an interesting point. Of course, we don't want governments and corporations to act like people in some respects, however, they could be incapable of dealing with certain problems by design.

We have systems at work, and some of them have aspects that represent (simplistic) notions that we have about how things are, or ought to be. Unfortunately, we are sold slogans such as 'free-market' or 'big government' or 'equality' or 'environmentalism', and as long as something carries the labels that we like, we buy in, regardless of our inability to understand their actual nature. We pretend that we do.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature doesn't give a damn. We will emit a certain amount of greenhouse gases at a certain rate, and we will experience the consequences. Our global political situation is not designed to tackle these kinds of issues, so I have to assume that we will fail. I have no more faith in cap-and-trade than I do in one-person-one-share. Both are designed around ideological realities, not effectual ones.

IMHO our only hope is technology that will be adopted for primary reasons that have nothing (or very little) to do with greenhouse gas emissions. IMO we can only hope that we can be tricked into saving ourselves.

EDIT: Wow, that sounds cynical. :/