First you need to kind of ignore what the media says, it's no state secret they will run with what seems like the most eye catching story just to get ratings. Coupled with that they tend to not be terribly accurate when it comes to scientific stuff, picking and choosing what quotes they see from a paper that seem ok, or down right rewording to make it senseless. Most people get their information directly through the media, so it's really easy to dismiss the nuggets of information that pop through.
Climate change is not a quick fix regardless of what is done. One solution is reduce our consumption of energy/goods, how the hell is that going to be a quick fix? It's not, while some people might go ahead and make changes most will not, look at CFL bulbs how long did it take those to replace incandescent bulbs? No, instead we complain about how it'll damage our economy, we had a 'leader' who said "The American way of life is not negotiable", we blame that China will get an economic edge over us (like they don't already) because they exploit a "developing nation" clause, and you want to talk quick? Carter was practically laughed out of office when he told the American people we consume to much, and history repeats itself when Al Gore did it with most pointing out the hypocrisy considering he flies everywhere and has a mansion that's bigger than most neighborhoods.
No, the only thing we really are capable of doing quickly is making excuses. We want to not destroy the economy? Umm hate to break it to you, but we're really good at doing that without doing anything about climate change, we destroyed our economy to the point where it couldn't recover the minute we demanded cheaply manufactured goods, we destroyed our economy to the point of making more excuses when we put our last eggs into the one thing we had left for making money... which was betting that borrowed money is actually worth something.
So pray tell how will making cars more efficient destroy our economy? How will shifting to energy sources that don't pollute as much destroy our economy? How we spending a bit less than we take in destroy our economy? I hear about how online sales of fish related goods have forever changed local stores and they have to learn to adapt to the different business models or they'll sink, how digital distribution of music requires a huge change in how businesses are run. Why is a paradigm shift away from inefficient beast of cars a bad thing? We did it in the 70's when we had an energy crisis, we switched the other way in the 90s when we were dazzled by the commercials that showed how cool owning SUVs are, why can't we go back? Nope sorry, people want vroom, they want acceleration, and most are unwilling to bend. Hell when governments (local or federal) try to fund clean energy projects we complain even more, it'll kill birds, it's not as cheap as coal, it takes a decade to recoup the cost, it'll ruin my view, the sound is dangerous, someone is getting rich off this 'scam', we can't afford it (as if that has stopped us with anything in the past), like I said we're really good at making excuses quickly.
But in the end it all comes down to us wanting to have everything we have right now and not changing any way we work, and magically want things to get fixed. It makes me wonder, if we've known about the problems for many years, and we were really good at dismissing them, at what point does a quick fix become a necessity and becomes fundamentally ok?
p.s. sorry for being a bit ranty (and yes I freely admit I'm a hypocrite in someways)