And seriously? “Strapping solar panels to car roofs”? We both know electric cars will get energy from the grid via charging stations. And the grid is in the process of being converted to renewables. It was either you or RL who pointed out that steel and concrete still require fossil fuels based on current technology, but hopefully that will change. And there are big costs in extracting fossil fuels from the earth, while collecting power from the sun, wind, water is now cheaper and getting more so.

Also, what I find interesting is the carbon tax idea and cheaper renewables are essentially the same solution to vastly reducing fossil fuel consumption. Both approaches make fossil fuels the more expensive option, thus reducing demand for them. My guess is you so favor the top down, command and control by government option, and find the free market option so repugnant to your political predilections, you refuse to accept that the market solution is, obviously, more enduring in the long run. I think we should go full bore on both approaches but only one of them will stand the test of time.

Maybe it’s time for a little intellectually honest self reflection here on why you favor the less sustainable approach? Please don’t just come back with another snarky response about how I “worship the free market” and ignore the point that any carbon tax would get repealed.

Homo Sapiens may not be the first species to go extinct. But we may be the first to do so because of its own stupidity.

Like all propaganda, there may a germ of truth to these articles, perhaps a valid chemical reaction or the preliminary work of an obscure but legitimate researcher somewhere. The whole point is to convince the casual reader that “they” are well on the way to solving this problem and we need not adopt any policies that might cause real real economic disruption and pain.

We’ve seen this before, right here on the Zone. We’ve seen it about AGW, cigarette carcinogens, pesticides, lead platformates, the ozone hole…I could go on. Since most of the journalistic community is science-illiterate, they often pick up on these feel-good stories and even help circulate them.

These people (the ones originating this stuff) must know enough science themselves to make these (on the surface plausible) proposals, but surely they must see they won’t stand up to…well, even a good high school preparation in basic science. What we are seeing here are the TBs and Lindsey Grahams of the tech community.

They tried to take over this chat room before. We must never allow them to try again.

There’s nothing “deep down” in me about accepting who is to blame for AGW. But it’s not just the rightwing constituency, it’s everyone. It would be nice to throw all the blame on rightwing asswipes, but in reality we are all to blame. Everyone who uses electricity for anything is to blame. Sure rightwingers have a bigger share due to their knuckle dragging denialism, but not all of it. We all have a carbon footprint.

You might want to actually read the entire long article I linked to in the thread titled: Renewables’ growing price advantage over fossil fuels paves way for industry dominance.

Your recognition that any carbon tax will be threatened by repeal from right-wing politicians tells me that deep-down, you agree with me! Its the constituency of those right wing politicians who are destroying the planet.

Fossil fuels pack an enormous amount of energy per dollar in their chemistry. There are a lot of accumulated and concentrated eons of ancient sunlight in coal, oil and natural gas. Alternative fuels may substitute in certain applications, but they are nowhere near as cheap as you seem to have convinced yourself they are. Renewables are not cheaper because the energy density is simply too low. Their energy is too dispersed, and the develop costs have not yet been fully invested.

For a few gallons of petrol (the price of a modest restaurant meal) you can move a ton of car for hundreds of miles. Strapping a solar panel on the roof won’t even get it out of the parking lot.