How can society transition away from depleting conventional fossil fuel energy without exacerbating climate change by using poorer quality fossil fuels in greater quantities, such as coal or tar sands, and without causing major economic collapse(s) and or massive starvation and famine?

Climate change is of the utmost importance but is, at a fundamental level, a symptom of over-consumption of fossil fuels. We live, to put it simply, in the Age of Oil, and oil is depleting rapidly, and to properly address climate change we need to properly address the cause of the symptom, not the symptom itself. Analyzing current energy consumption patterns so that we as a society are able to slowly power down from a fossil fuel based civilization to a solar based civilization will, in the words of Faber et al. (1996), define how we transition to the next “paradigmatic image of the world”.

What technologies and strategies should we adopt in order to minimise our non carbon neutral emissions with the limited resources available without having to make drastic changes to our way of life?

On the basis that global warming may cause catastrophic climate change, if left unchecked, leading to catastrophic effects for the humanity and many other living things and that the evidence indicates that human activity, specifically our desire for energy using technologies, is probably the major cause of climate change.
Considering also the following:
> Generally speaking people like the energy-using technologies, travel, computers, central heating, modern medicine etc. and it would be almost impossible to turn the clock back to the pre-industrial age and in any case it would also require a massive population reduction to be viable anyway.
> There is no shortage of clean energy, the Sahara desert alone receives about 150 times more solar energy daily than the energy used by entire human population each day, the world receives nearly 10,000 times more.
I believe we need an integrated global strategy that integrates energy supply, distribution and use of energy, the latter includes use reduction from efficiency measures and population control but not banning private cars, etc. Population control is actually more important with regard to food and water supply, at the current population growth rate of 1%, then in a about 1,170 years we would run out of dry land for everyone to stand on let alone for growing crops.

Why should we perform artificial photosynthesis? What could be the potential directions?

Photosynthesis is the mechanism by which plants combine carbon dioxide (CO2), water (H2O) with sunlight (using chlorophyll) to make glucose and emit oxygen (O2). In the artificial version, there can be two scenarios, I call them type 1 & 2.

Type 1. Just splitting the water (H2O) into hydrogen and oxygen, without needing the carbon dioxide. The hydrogen can be used for fuel.

Type 2. Utilizing CO2 to imitate the plant photosynthesis, in order to reduce carbon dioxide, make some glucose (food), and some by products like methane for energy.

Utilization ideas:
Type 1: For fuel cells, hydrogen source, energy harvesting

Type 2:
a. Clean energy (one can use such a system to suck up the CO2 and emit O2, near industrial plants, roads & highway (on the street light poles, road dividers, reflectors etc), inside tunnels, etc. In fact, CO2 is so abundant that if such a system works, one can turn the environmental issues into an advantage. This will reduce CO2 emission, filter pollution, balance further economic/industrial growth which could be under scrutiny due to CO2 emission problem.

b. Make some glucose, sugar (in the direction towards food development). This can help global food problem. Although it sounds funny, still we should not underestimate the mechanism by which plants are living after all!

c. Produce other carbon compounds and by-products like methane for energy harvesting.

There has been some advancements in the technology. I’m providing few pointers below.

Type 1:
Daniel Nocera, MIT, head of MIT’s solar revolution project. http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/faculty/nocera.html
Akira Fujishima, Univ. of Tokyo, http://www.nanonet.go.jp/english/mailmag/2005/044a.html

Type 2:
Bjron Winther-Jensen, Monash Univ., Australia http://www.eng.monash.edu.au/mat/staff/bjorn-wintherjensen.pdf
CSIRO, Australia, http://www.csiro.au
Vijoleta Braach-Maksvytis, Univ. of Melbourne, Australia, http://uninews.unimelb.edu.au/news/3135/