That's not accurate. While the media may be reporting it more sensationally lately, there have been a lot of people that have been arguing this for more than a decade.

In that case, you're just confirming what I said. The Kyoto protocol was opened for signature a decade ago. Discussions on how to reduce the effects of global warming started well before that. The energy companies were well aware that any attempt at combating anthropogenic global warming would negatively impact their bottom line in the early 1990's, and that was when they started fanning the "controversy".

Heck, the IPCC was formed in 1988. That was two decades ago. And it was formed because most scientists agreed that there was a trend of increasing average temperatures which needed to be investigated.

And before you mention global cooling - that was a media fad. It was never taken as a serious trend by climate scientists, even though there actually were a few years of dropping temperatures superimposed on the long-term trend of increasing temperatures.

but do restrict freedom

Freedom is never absolute. Your freedom ends exactly where you start negatively impacting the lives of others too much.

There's something very suspicious about the whole thing.

I find the blatant lies that the oil companies' cronies are spouting much more suspicious. In fact, they're plain BS to anyone with even basic knowledge of chemistry. If their arguments were even halfway solid, they would not have to resort to saying things like "CO2 is a harmless inert gas." (blatant lie as soon as you consider that water is fairly abundant on earth, and what happens when CO2 dissolves in water. Try holding your breath for 2 minutes, or drink some carbonated mineral water, to find out just how inert CO2 isn't.), or "CO2 isn't the biggest contributor to the greenhouse effect, like the global warming alarmists would like to make you believe, therefore raising its concentration is irrelevant." (blatant lie - any serious climate scientist knows that CO2 is only responsible for a fraction (~10%) of the total 30 degrees Kelvin raise caused by the greenhous effect, and include this in their models and predictions. In fact, if CO2 was the biggest (or, for simplification, let's say the only contributor), we'd already be looking at an increase in average global temperatures by 10 degrees Kelvin, not the 0.5-0.7 degrees that we have measured), or "Water vapor is the only thing that really affects the greenhouse effect." (see above. Ironically, the easiest way to increase the atmosphere's content of water vapor is raising the temperature, which is most easily done by adding other greenhouse gases first).

Also, from the point of view of scientists who are out for grant money - wouldn't it make much more sense to never even come close to a consensus (like we have now) ? If they just split into even camps and went on arguing for decades, they could get grants from all sides during that time.

I reject proposals that drive us to alternative energies that aren't ready yet

So, let's crash really, really hard first and then pick up the pieces ? I'd rather avoid that type of transition.

When it becomes too costly to be inefficient, the inefficient will become efficient.

Just like the 600-pound gorilla is going to learn to live on 10 pounds of bananas a day. But before that happens, he's going to trash everything in the room.

Those that do it sooner rather than later will probably have an advantage at some point.

Unfortunatley, those who do it sooner are a very tiny minority. Laziness, inertia, convenience, shortsightedness and encouraged ignorance will ensure this.

So let the market work and it'll all shake out in the end.

"The market" does not work. It relies on way too many assumptions that aren't even remotely true in the real world. Like, for example, informed customers.
If the market worked, then consumer electronics companies couldn't save $3 worth of parts that would lower standby power consumption of their devices from 10W to 1W. But consumers aren't informed (in fact, marketing usually assumes they're downright morons, and that's not really too far off), so they'd rather buy the gadget that's $1 cheaper than the one that doesn't cost them $9 per year in electricity when left on standby.
That was just one example. The list could be continued almost indefinitely. Just like the beneficial effects of communism will never come true because it assumes that everyone is infinitely altruistic, the market is never going to show all of its theoretical benefits since it assumes everyone is infinitely informed.

But I have yet to see compelling evidence that how much I drive and/or how much CO2 I generate has any significant effect on any of those things.

Global warming aside, what about ocean acidification ? It's another effect of the increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere (chemistry 101: CO2 readily dissolves in water, forming carbonic acid). It is going to negatively affect ocean ecosystems (which are quite economically valuable, since much of the fish and seafood the world consumes comes from them) by interfering with the growth and reproduction of calcifying organisms (that includes a lot of the critters living in the ocean, corals and crustaceans just being two examples).