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Or is it an actual solar cells of some sort that directly produce electricity?
They really need some sort of better name to differentiate between these...

No, it's the kind of solar that kills all those birds from the trucks having to haul all those raw and intermediate materials and finished goods around.

No, it's the kind of solar that poisons Chinese children from all the exotic materials that are needed to be refined and disposed of.

C'mon, let's not pretend that there are any perfect solutions - there are only trade-offs. Apple is choosing the trade-off that it thinks will project the best marketing image to its customers whilst having the lowest downside profile in their eyes, and hopefully Greenpeace which has found Apple to be one of its favorite whipping boys.

Greenpeace will probably still picket it, though - most energy policy objections are emotional, not rational. Their founder proselytizes nuclear for being zero-CO2 even though they picket that too. He feels good about finding solutions, while the protesters mostly feel good about being mad.

A bit more for you.

Russian and Chinese espionage in Australia - News Weekly, August 18, 2007

Chinese spies currently outnumber the Soviet intelligence presence that existed in Australia during the Cold War, it was revealed late last year. .... Last month, The Australian's Cameron Stewart revealed that the number of Russian spies in Australia had increased to near Cold War levels, "forcing ASIO to respond by training a new generation of counter-espionage officers" (The Australian, July 23 and 24, 2007).

Canada spy case rocks ASIO

I think it will be important in 5 years to say: We've got a climate model that's made correct predictions for the last five years, so you should trust that model as a good guide to the future.

They've made plenty of predictions. They're just always wrong. The IPCC was established in 1989 and published its first assessment report in 1990. In that report, they predicted an increase of 1.3 to 2.3 degrees C. That didn't materialize and in 1997, the IPCC had their asses handed to them in front of congress:

However, it was apparent that when the first so-called consensus was imposed upon the issue of global warming by the First Scientific Assessment of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, such an equilibrium had not been reached.

That report in 1990 stated, `When the latest atmospheric models are run with the present concentrations of greenhouse gases, their simulation of climate is generally realistic on large scales.'

The suite of climate models extant at that time predicted that the globe's mean temperature should have risen by then between 1.3 and 2.3 degrees Celsius. Slightly revised versions of these models provided the technical background for the Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed in 1992.

The observed warming since the late 19th Century has only been 0.5 degrees Celsius, or less than one-third of the predicted value. Critics argued, as I did before this committee, that there would have to be a dramatic reduction in the forecast of future warming in order to reconcile the facts and the hypotheses.

By 1995, in its second full assessment of climate change, the IPCC admitted the validity of the critics' position: `When increases in greenhouse gases only are taken into account, most climate models produce a greater mean warming than has been observed to date, unless a lower climate sensitivity to the greenhouse effect is used. There is growing evidences that increases in sulfate aerosols are partially counteracting the warming due to increases in greenhouse gases.'

Let me translate this statement. It means either it is not going to warm up as much as we said it would or something is hiding the warming. I predict that every attempt will be made to demonstrate the latter before admitting that the former is true.

So, the IPCC went back to the drawing board and returned with Mann's infamous Hockey stick graph. They declared DOOM. End of the world. Humanity was fucked. They extrapolated from 1998 temperatures (an unusually hot year) that climate change was 'for real' this time and was about to run out of control. When the skeptics got their hands on his computer model, they found that entering random data produced hockey stick graphs too. Oops.

So, uh, yeah, they've got egg on their face with that one. Nevermind that their prediction was wrong, again. Temperatures peaked in 1998 and haven't been that high since. In fact, it doesn't take a lot of searching to find examples of where their model predictions do not match reality.

In spite of all this, there are still people out there who believe in the IPCC. They cannot explain how this planet managed to have an ice age with atmospheric CO2 levels around 4200ppm during the Carboniferous period. They cannot account for three gigatons of CO2 that simply vanishes right out from under their noses each year. But hey, there's a consensus. The IPCC says so. So "the debate is over."

Nevermind Hansen's faked data. Nevermind the

"Imagine you've got motor neurone disease and you've got no movement below your neck. You hear reports of benefits from stem cells in news reports, on the internet. That person would be very enthusiastic."

Imagine that the treatment fails to restore movement, but also gives you horrible shakes that make your life unbearable or simply just kills you when other treatments may have worked.

Like any medical treatment, stem cells have the potential to do more harm than good. Dying people should be allowed to try whatever treatments they want, as long as they understand the risks of the treatment rather than just the hype. Those which are not dying should stick with standard medical procedures and wait until stem cells have been proven to do more good than harm on animals and those with terminal illnesses.

With stem cell research, you're talking about taking cells from something that hasn't even evolved beyond a tiny ball of cells---far less alive than that infant---and yet most parents would gladly give up that infant's organs so that someone else's child might live, but a surprisingly high number of those same people would not be willing to give up a handful of cells from a frozen embryo so that adults can live.. It's an appalling ethical contradiction.

1. You mean it has not developed beyond a ball of cells. Human embryos, since they are by definition part of the human species, have evolved the same as you and me.

2. The cases of embryo and infant would only be parallel if it were a question of the parent choosing to destroy a healthy infant.

3. At this date, embryonic stem cells do not help adults to live. They are used for research.

The researchers hope one day to make useful therapies from this work. But the therapies do not yet exist.

To call it anything other than research is overselling. It will probably lead one day to a backlash, much as the overly-hyped promotion of "gene therapy" of the early 1990s has led to criticism, restrictions, and poor PR starting in 1999 and continuing through 2005.

You do know that Mann writes this website, right? You do realize that the source of your argument (http://www.realclimate.org/) is a shill for Mann and his cronies?

Second of all, there was a flaw in the original algorithm that was pointed out by McIntyre and McKitrick before they even got to the bad data being put into the equation.

And, to top it off, Mann's equation always produces hockey-stick graphs, even with randomly distributed data.

Don't point at Mann's own site as a defense of Mann.

Canadian scientists Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick have uncovered a fundamental mathematical flaw in the computer program that was used to produce the hockey-stick.

And what about this article?http://www.newsweekly.com.au/articles/2004 nov20_c.html

I think the point here is that we as humans can't predict the weather a month from now much less the climate in the next 10 years. And if we can't do that what makes us think that we can or should change it. And if we do change it for the better (in our opinion) now, what future problems will it create?

Everyone should read State of Fear, I'm not saying its the next bible, but it does bring up some good questions.

I like the idea, but it's not as feasible as you think, mainly because of the earth's 7 year "el nino" cycle. Where I live (central western PA), we get less days of direct sunlight than Seattle (known for it's dreary weather). So solar is not much of an option.
We have lots of rivers (See: Pittsburgh, Johnstown, Harrisburg, etc ..), but routinely go through periods in the summer (several years in a row) where the 3 month total of rainfall is under 6". We were in a drought status for *4* years until this past June. Up until mid July, my county (centre) had more inches of rainfall this year, than ANY other county in the US. We also go through odd winters where 3 winters in a row we'll get minimal snow fall, followed by the next 2 years with multiple blizzards of 18" or more (up to 36" 0r 40"). This makes hydro power unattractive. Not to mention that the city most likely to benmefit from it (Johnstown) has had 3 major floods in it's history from damns breaking upstream, including the great flood of 1889 where 2100 died in under 15 minutes. Those people are hell bent against another damn being built because of the local geography and the random heavy rains (see above about this year's rainfall so far).

The entire landscape is rolling hills, lacking the necessary open terrain to sustain consistant winds necessary to run a wind farm.

Now, I understand the concept put forth is to cover for areas like us when we can't provide our own power, but we would go through MONTHS if not YEARS of a power deficit. Would neighboring areas in the grid want to cover "free-loaders" like us or even be able to for such an extended period of time?

We have several co-gen plants that run on coal, but scrub the air and send the heat to the surrounding towns/industrial areas. There are at least 8 nuclear towers that I know of in PA, and countless coal plants. We actually supply more power than we can use and sell it to neighboring states. During the black-out last week, we (most of PA) were the only area in the mid-atlantic/NE zone there that didn't lose power.

That all being said, I am all for alternative sources. I am planning on having my own home built in the next 5 years and I've already looked into getting solar panels to help off-set electricity costs. I'm not naive enough to believe at this point in time (nor even 5 years) that they'll be efficient enough to satiate all my power needs, but they'll help.

As for CO2 emissions, there are many scientists that debunk the Kyoto Protocol as feel-good myths. I know I'll hear "well, that's just American Scientists with oil money in their pockets," so here is a link to an austrailian site which includes Canadian scientists as well (2 countries know for there more environmentally sound stances than the US).

-Ab

Easy.

Given that genetic engineering will start to impact the human race in unprecedented ways, future intelligent beings will look upon us old fogeys as obsolete models.

Incidentally, anyone interested in this subject ought to read Francis Fukayama's Our Post-Human Future , which discusses these matters, as well as touching on other significant modifications to the human race like neuro-pharmacology.