My biggest skepticism is that solar, wind, and efficiency can do the job alone. When I go through the numbers, Asia and Africa swamp the US even if they are efficient (i.e., 25% of US per capita which is half the per capita of Switzerland). My guess is that some kind of baseload source will be needed (sequestered coal or LNG, fission, fusion, something that makes power 24/7 with little or no net carbon).

In the meantime, best wishes for 2008 to the climate movement.

You take down the grid, you kill people. You don’t care? You would if you had to watch them die.

Besides the solutions we are advocating that R Margolis has a right to be skeptical of, would reduce the health and ecological burdens of fossil fuels, increase employment, launch a new green economy, and maybe make the world a little more fair. If that combination of factors isn’t enough for us to launch a new, green economy why should we embrace some hideously expensive experiment that more than likely kill us all off?

I often wonder if much of the public’s hesitation for more immediate action on the carbon issue is that they keep hearing about social revolution as a siginificant goal of the climate movement. Any combination of solutions will have big social and economic impacts already and require amelioration. I would think that disempowered and impoverished people will need more electricity not less to give them health and economic opportunity.

As for “evil corporations”, they seem more followers than leaders. If the price of renewables becomes lower than fossil fuels when carbon finally gets regulated, then Exxon will build windmills and solar panels (maybe some sequestration and nuclear for baseload). My experience is that they have less of a grand agenda than most folks think.