Going way off topic here...
Popular opinion has all the power.
I'd argue not. Nuclear weapons were developed around the world in secret. Thousands of detonations of nuclear weapons have also occurred in secret. Popular opinion had little to no effect on the trajectory of nuclear weapons. The decommissioning of massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons were accomplished through back room negotiations (specifically, the START programs). Public opinion actually has surprisingly little effect when you look at the fabric of history. Prime example: popular opinion is almost always against war but human history is littered with it. Democracy is a façade to hide the power plays.
That's why even horrible places like north korea rely so heavily on brainwashing to get the peoples favor.
Brainwashing? No, that's more prevalent in the West. North Koreans live in an information black hole. They know nothing outside of what they're told. Can sheep be brainwashed or are they simply functioning on what they know to be true? Case in point: they know that if they speak against the Dear Leader, they'll be reprimanded likely for life. It's obedience through conditioning, not brainwashing. Brainwashing is living with the belief you are free but guess what are most doing almost every day? Working to pay off debts. Most of us live under a system of indentured servitude; the only reason we don't call it out for what it is because it is the modern day normal. We're all notches in massive cogs whom no one has absolute control over. This speech comes to mind:
Even their leaders fear the people during times of unrest.
That's a personality trait common with all dictators. I believe it is narcissism. When they see control slipping, they instantly turn their attention to their own survival and run--usually trying to flea the country. Again, won't happen in North Korea because most of the population knows no alternative.
Back on topic...
As I said previously, the only solution to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in the foreseeable future is nuclear fission and fusion. The only way we stop using anthropomorphic reserves of carbon is to completely and utterly replace them. Any carbon that is needed otherwise (e.g. to produce plastics) would have to be extracted from the atmosphere.
The current strategy of improving fuel economy and using more biofuels only slows the trend but will fail to stop it.
Ethanol, without engines specifically designed to run on exclusively ethanol (Cummins is working on one), actually end up saving nothing. In an E85 Ready gasoline engine, the loss in power when running on E85 is compensated by higher fuel consumption so all savings are wiped out from having used gasoline in the first place. When you factor in all the carbon costs to produce E85 compared to gasoline, E85 ends up being much worse at the end of the day per distance traveled.
B20 is cheaper than petro diesel because of
subsidies.
I could go on...
