2014 was hotter than 1998. 2015 data in yet?

Looking at the bigger picture: What should our goal as a species be?

Okay. Another question: does this thread have a dedicated purpose or is it just a place for you to rant about pretty much anything that pisses you off?

If you're really talking about the supply of energy, lots of things beat solar: coal, oil, hydro, a horse on a treadmill.

Time for some citations.

Me go for citations?You can't be that dense.I want evidence from you to back up your claims about solar's amazing capabilities.

We'll see where we can go with this.I've posted on this topic elsewhere and can start by giving some links to those posts later tonight.

You're talking about costs to folks who have managed successful installations of solar panels.What I'm more interested in are claims such as: "Maryland has 10,000 square miles. It would only take a few square miles of solar panels (on top of roofs) to fuel the energy needs of the entre state." or that solar "is a technology that can produce an economic miracle."Those are some pretty hefty claims and they require some pretty hefty evidence.

We could end up blowing billions of dollars that could have gone to something more productive."Do it and see what happens" is usually not the best approach.

There's no guarantee of a better world.

That's not how it works.Just because you give the money to someone to blow doesn't mean the money isn't being blown.And endangering future generations' survival?Each generation has lived longer than the one before - and that because of, not in spite of, increasing our consumption of fossil fuels and the cheap energy they make possible.And that is really what my inquiries are all about: can solar be shown to have the same potential to offer cheap, plentiful, and reliable energy that fossil fuels provide? Right now the evidence shows that every generation that burns more coal, gas, and oil lives longer, wealthier, and happier lives than the generations before it. There is a possibility that alternatives to fossil fuels may not be capable of delivering this generational increases in standards of living and that using resources developing these technologies is what really endangers future generations by depriving them of the benefits we know they would have gotten from burning fossil fuels.

The claims your sources make about solar don't match up with the claims you make.For example, your sources say that solar can work fairly well when done in large installations in very sunny areas.Then you make the claim that: [i]t would only take a few square miles of solar panels (on top of roofs) to fuel the energy needs of the entre state [of Maryland].Solar sounds alright - where it works. But it doesn't work everywhere.It's also not true that: Solar is a technology that always gets cheaper ...Not only not true, but the opposite of true. The cost of solar increases as it is scaled up: as the most suitable locations for solar installations are used up, new installations must be made in less suitable locations, which may mean more panels required or reduced energy output (or both); that increases the cost.You also claim that solar can be cost-competitive, but then cite research (and apparently agree with it) that points out all the government protections and spending required to make it so - meaning it's not actually cost-competitive but just the opposite.So maybe I need to ask my questions in a different way:Dealing just with the claim that Maryland can meet all of its energy needs with just a few square miles of solar, I think you need to bring to the table:

• the amount of energy solar can generate in the least favorable conditions,
• the amount of space required to generate each of those units of energy in those conditions, and
• the maximum energy needs of the state of Maryland

Right now you're just pointing to people who are saying the same thing you are saying, but that's not really how evidence works. It's not just enough to show that others agree with you; you have to also show that they (and so you) are right.

One of the imbalances of these discussions is that emphasis is always placed on the benefits of 'clean' energy such as solar and the risks of 'dirty' fossil fuels.But that should not be the end of our discussion, nor should such a limited perspective guide our decision making.What matters most is the cost-benefit analysis of the two situations. They both have their good and their bad, and we need to consider the good and bad about both of them.Burning fossil fuels has costs, but is also comes with huge benefits. In fact, those benefits have more than out-paced the costs in societies that burn large quantities of fossil fuels. People forget just how wicked and unforgiving of a whore Mother Nature really is. In a 'natural' (unaltered by humans) environment, we live disgustingly miserable and short lives - if we live at all. Only by transforming our environment (e.g., cleaning water) or creating protections against it (e.g., housing) can we overcome this brutal reality. And fossil fuels allow us to do these things to an unprecedented degree. We suffer less at the hands of our environment today than we ever have in the past.It's why life expectancy continues to rise, child mortality decline, and all other deaths by environmental factors (freezing to death, heatstroke, insect-carried diseases, crop failure, etc.) are extremely rare - in societies utilizing the cheap, plentiful, and reliable energy provided by fossil fuels to transform their environment and adapt themselves to it.Hence my belief that we should not give up our use of fossil fuels unless the alternatives show themselves to be equal to or superior in terms of their benefits to costs ratios.At the level of societies, I have not seen evidence that solar's benefits are beyond its costs or that it even comes close to measuring up to fossil fuels in terms of its ability to improve human life. It's silly, to me, for folks in developed societies to enjoy all the fruits of fossil fuels while still pushing for inferior solar power - but our nations are rich and mighty and can afford such past times. Where I really take issue is in the green movement's expectation that developing societies meet their energy needs using only solar/wind and very little coal, oil, etc. - and the damning to disgustingly miserable and short lives that this entails - while the first world continues meeting their needs with the far superior technology of fossil fuels. This is, in my opinion, horrendously unethical.

Huh?More with less?That's utter bullshit and you know it!We have done more and used more - of everything - since the beginning of modern industrialism and capitalism.Doing more with less... what total nonsense...

Your statement is false no matter how you consider it because it presumes us doing more with less and that is crap.The beauty of our technology is that it allows us to do more with more. How many more uses for petroleum have we found? Do you think discovering those uses had led to us using less or more petroleum?Our technologies - and especially the most revolutionary ones - have all been directed at finding ways for us to consume more and more of the earth's resources. This example is about efficiencies within industries. If we look at the whole picture, it becomes clear that we are doing more with more. In fact, efficiencies for certain processes almost always lead to us using more of whatever resource we've saved than what those efficiencies eliminated the need for.Our societies are prosperous not because of all the efficiencies developed within industries but because the cheap energy of fossil fuels has enabled us to cut, mine, and extract more resources to turn them into more stuff. Fossil fuels have so far been shown to do the job the best. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, though, and that's the purpose of asking all the questions I've been asking here.

So as I already said, all that's focused on re fossil fuels are the negatives.Included in that mix is the silly attempt to blame almost every ill on the things. Civil unrest in Syria from fossil fuels? Don't be ridiculous! So let's balance it out; let's discuss the benefits:Fossil fuels have given us advanced societies with access to impressive amounts of cheap and reliable energy for improving lives. That's energy to build schools, hospitals, shopping centers, grocery stores, and the roads to get people to them. That's energy to light laboratories where life-saving medications are developed - and power all the energy-hungry lab equipment. That's energy to grow more food than we know what to do with and energy to get it where the hungry people are. And on and on; cheap energy makes the wealth and well-being of modern civilizations possible. And that cheap energy has almost all come from fossil fuels.That's why despite all the doomsaying, quality of life and life expectancy have skyrocketed in every society that has made the decision to fuel itself on those ancient plants. Meanwhile nations like Kenya have more solar systems per person than anywhere else and yet they remain nations like Kenya. The costs aren't hidden in the sense that we don't see them at all. Even if we don't tabulate them separately, their impact still shows up on the final account. And the fact that people live longer, happier, more productive lives than they ever did without fossil fuels tells me - and should tell any rational and honest person - that the costs of fossil fuels absolutely do not outweigh their benefits. Yes, the technology is there, and that technology has its own risks and benefits associated with it.Some of the risks associated with renewables include their unreliable and low output of energy and the related inability to power the modern societies that make us so much happier, healthier, and more productive. The production of renewable energy technology is also ecologically devastating and when all the costs for that industry are accounted for has been estimated by some to be more environmentally damaging than producing energy with fossil fuels (potentially an overestimation, but a demonstration, nonetheless, of the very serious, and comparable, environmental impact of renewable energy).It's very unlikely - close to zero - that the costs outweigh the benefits for either fossil fuels or renewables. But as to which one is better requires an honest evaluation of both from the cost and benefit side - including all the costs and all the benefits.