Part of what the googlers are saying is that price parity won't cause existing fossil-fuel plants to be closed, so the changeover would be much slower than necessary unless renewables are way cheaper - cheap enough to abandon existing capital investments.

I thought that was the whole idea of employment. Keep the people busy in their jobs so they have no time to get into trouble thinking about their capitalist overloads.

I would mod you up, but I've already posted.
From your link:

The atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) record displays a prominent seasonal cycle that arises mainly from changes in vegetation growth and the corresponding CO2 uptake during the boreal spring and summer growing seasons and CO2 release during the autumn and winter seasons

Using a terrestrial carbon cycle model that takes into account high-yield cultivars, fertilizer use and irrigation, we find that the long-term increase in CO2 seasonal amplitude arises from two major regions: the mid-latitude cropland between 25 N and 60 N and the high-latitude natural vegetation between 50 N and 70 N. The long-term trend of seasonal amplitude increase is 0.311 ± 0.027 per cent per year, of which sensitivity experiments attribute 45, 29 and 26 per cent to land-use change, climate variability and change, and increased productivity due to CO2 fertilization, respectively.

Why TFS didn't link to that, and why TFA didn't include that information, will remain a mystery in sloppy reporting.

Have you seen the movie Avatar? If we all lived like the blue people, the world would be a better place.

One word: "Unobtainium"

Turning things off when they are not needed.
DDC controls with better algorithms and controlling more building systems.
More efficient pumps, fans, motors, etc.equipment.
More use of variable flow pumps and fans.
Increased insulation.
Better performing windows.
Heat recovery between outside air intake and exhaust.
Gas fired heating equipment that use low flue temperatures to capture the heat of condensation from water vapor in the flue gases.
Lower wattage lighting.
Architects paying attention to the orientation of the building and shading of windows to maximize heat gain in the winter and minimize it in the summer.
etc.
Problem is, most of these require additional upfront costs and businesses are often more worried about being in business a year from now than they are about how much they'll save over 7 years. Combine that with the extra effort it takes to design with yet another factor (energy) to consider, and there's a lot of inertia to keep things as they have been. Fortunately, many of these are becoming mainstream off-the-shelf items now.

Don't worry, if the Saudis pump the price of oil below $70/bbl, all new fracking will stop and the cost of using natural gas will rise well above coal within a year or two.

I work in the HVAC field, and believe me, there is plenty that can be done relatively cheaply to reduce energy use. It is starting to happen now, but it could have been done 30 years ago if it weren't for the inertia of the construction industry.

Sounds like a lot of ordinary construction projects I've been involved in. For example, a large, 3-story anchor store in a shopping mall decided to move the escalator after the structure had been erected. And a famous business machine company suddenly realized that they couldn't put their remote backup service in the high rise office they were remodeling because the reception of the satellite dish on the roof would be blocked by their own building next door. And yes, sometimes regulations are involved, such as changes to completed work because of building inspectors' rulings.

People who only care about the cost don't rent offices in skyscrapers . . .

True, but people that care about having a large pool of workers to hire and close proximity to as many clients as possible tend to want offices downtown. Downtown is full of skyscrapers in order to house as many a commuters as possible during working hours. So many people rent a space with a "very expensive view" even though they don't care about it as a status symbol.

It is not just cost, we don't have the technical ability to make good enough robots that clean as well as humans.

I'm guessing that we would have the technical ability, we just haven't put enough time and money into developing it, since there is no great payoff at the end.

Being a business or not might not have much impact on liability for a particular incident, but the insurance actuaries know that business insurance is riskier.

You are not correct.
My home insurance will cover accidents that visitors have on my property, but will not cover customers if I'm using it as a place of business - that'd be a whole different level of risk for the insurance company.
Similarly, insuring a taxi driver is a much larger risk for an insurance company than insuring a private driver, even for the same number of miles.
Why should I, as a private driver, pay for the same insurance that covers the larger risks of taxi drivers?

Good question from AC

This eliminates the gap, which starts vortices (causing noise and other issues)

Those air gaps are essential to keeping the air flow attached to the wing surfaces at the large angles of attack required at landing and takeoff speeds.

I doubt that this could allow the large angles of attack provided by the flaps that deploy with multiple separated segments that are used on most commercial aircraft.