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China is the most dangerous country in the world today. And the information about how horrible the Chinese, despite them getting MUCH worse given the economic situation, the information flow has been nearly shut down since 2007 timeframe. There were big 60 minutes type exposes in 2007 but since then the Police State has seen that information regarding our forced consumption of Chinese Walmart Plastic with Federal Reserve Notes remains in place.

China tires bad:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118278927863547228.html

The organizing committee of Beijingâ(TM)s Olympic games has promised to investigate charges that official merchandise is being manufactured using child labor.

The PRC Chinese poison dog food:
http://www.themoneytimes.com/articles/20070523/chinese_protein_export_scandal-id-104033.html

The PRC Chinese poison toothpaste:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/02/us/02toothpaste.html?ex=1181620800&en=d26dab8b2bd85303&ei=5070

The PRC Chinese poison Children's Toys:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070614/thomas_recall_070614/20070614?hub=CTVNewsAt11
http://blogs.eastbayexpress.com/92510/2007/06/thomas_why_hath_thou_forsaken.php

Chinese Seafood Detained for Safety
http://www.topix.com/forum/food/TFSGN6836LFM2QFV7

Melamine put into milk formula, dog food, etc.
http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/got-melamine-53000-chinese-children-did-in-their-milk.html

- Cow milk so inundated with antibiotics you can not make Yogurt from it.

- Pigs force-fed waste water.

- Lard made from separating fats from sewage.

Made in China: tainted food, fake drugs and dodgy paint
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2118920,00.html

China Jails 2 Protestant Church Leaders
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/china-jails-two-protestant-leaders/58150/

The PRC Chinese government has murdered countless people:
"DEATH BY GOVERNMENT: GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER"
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.TAB1.GIF
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.FIG1.GIF

Given modern industrial process and productivity, I don't even see how using Chinese slave labor saves that much in the face of having to crate up and ship the goods from china to consuming markets.

The bean counters saved maybe 10% at best making product, and now with the price of shipping goods going up due to petrol, they are probably paying more to have it made in China.

The only real reason it may never come back to the US is a host of states (NY, CA) and The Fedzilla / US government that have a long list of anti-business laws making a return to the US difficult.

You want Made in the USA? Tell state and federal congress to stop doing everything to drive up the cost of business compared to China and India (the only two competitors that matter); stop buying Chinese crap where possible.

Slave Labor rented at a PREMIUM with low quality results is still apparently cheaper than coming back her

I saw your comment, but I couldn't find your data. The only information I could find regarding expected life was 25000 hours. Some examples:

"Lasts at least 22.8 years", "22.8 years means rated average life based on engineering testing and probability analysis where the lamp is used on average 3 hours/day, 7 days a week"
22.8 years * 365.25 days/year * 3 hours/day = 24983.1 hours
- http://www.usa.philips.com/c/energy-saving-light-bulbs/ambientled-12.5w-a19-soft-white-dimmable-046677409906/prd/en/;jsessionid=2F0BBF3F454415D0EF4B126D0DAC020C.app102-drp4

"The unit that I am reviewing is warm-white (2700K) and has a CRI of 80. Warranty is 6 years, and Philips rates it at 25,000 hours of operation (it should last for decades if you take good care of it)."
On picture of the box: "Life 25,000 hours"
- http://www.treehugger.com/interior-design/philips-ambientled-125-watts-led-lightbulb-product-review.html

"The LED bulb will last 25,000 hours compared with the 1,000 hours that consumers normally get out of the average 60-watt incandescent bulb."
- http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20004766-54.html

"The next question you need to ask yourself is would you pay $40 (around £25) for a light bulb? Answer is probably not but if that light bulb was to last as it is advertised for 25,000 hours then of course."
- http://www.solarkinguk.com/blog/new-philips-led-light-bulb-lasts-for-25000-hours

"Other features include: instant-on, dimming capability to 10% of maximum brightness, a 25,000 hour life and a 6 year warranty."
- http://www.polar-ray.com/Philips-AmbientLED-A19-LED-Bulb-12E26A60_p_235.html

Long-term lumen maintenance testing
Continuing to run; now > 12,000 hours
Lumen mainteance at 25,000 hours -> 99.3% (95% confidence, 200 units)
- http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/lprize-webinar_01-18-12.pdf

Meanwhile in Texas...

Texans Using Guns to Resist Smart Meter Installations

I think I heard guns were illegal in Australia. Too bad. Not that I'm really a proponent of guns I'm more of a hippy treehugger sort but just look what happens when you're not armed.... Government and industry tries to walk all over you.

I think the best solution is to dismantle all central authorities for everything and let little localized communities run themselves. Then they can decide what equipment works best in their area and what info to retain/share/etc. Central governance and management is always bad news as they're too far removed to care or understand what any local center wants/needs.

Of course all that is excuses and pretense. The end game is here. You are a resource, a battery or slave of sorts to be sucked dry and used up for some elite's whim. You're not allowed to organize or take action to better yourself or your own life. You are the terrorists: like this informational video explains in more details...

You are a Terrorist (Du bist Terrorist) German, English Subtitles on YouTube

Politely say no to them. Peaceful polite resistance. Anything after that whether civil disobedience or more radical stances is on you. Remember Ghandi effected a great deal of change with non-violent methods...

All limits are political.

Can't be more true than that.

Hemp is band in many many countries just because some species of hemp happen to be marijuana.

But the use of the hemp plant is much more than marijuana.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp

http://www.informationdistillery.com/hemp.htm

http://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/perfect-plant-7-great-uses-for-industrial-hemp.html

And most importantly, hemp grows very fast, and it can be grown in many soil types and also under various climate (from damp to arid) condition.

If that researcher took into account on the cultivation of hemp his conclusion would have been different.
 

That article I linked talks about wind powered ships. It claims what is probably obvious, that most of the fuel is used near the ports to get the ships up to speed and to slow them down. Another reply below mentions kite-based "hybrid" ships that claim to reduce 20% of fuel consumption emissions.

I'll put these numbers together: 20% savings over 90,000 ships is equivalent to taking 18,000 container ships out of the ocean. That is the equivalent of 900 billion cars. Since there are just over one billion cars in the world, I'd say there couldn't be a more obvious solution.

And these hybrid ships don't cost any more or take longer to sail across the ocean. With $2000 in fuel savings, we could see the price of shipped goods reduced instead of increased.

That's old stuff: http://www.livescience.com/11022-herb-quells-cows-methane-laden-belches.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/7873998/Curry-for-sheep-could-curb-global-warming.html
http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/new-cow-diet-reduces-methane-emissionsand-no-its-not-mms.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/jul/10/ruralaffairs.climatechange
Even garlic appears to help.

Internal power supplies that don't make a lot of noise are becoming increasingly common now. But for most of the PC's 30-year history, PC PSUs have been noisy power hogs. It was only when people started worrying about energy waste that anything was done about it.

I'm probably guilty of overstating the potential of passively-cooled PSUs. I just noticed that they seemed to work well on some pre-PC systems I worked with (you dislike cables, but I dislike noise, and everybody dislikes wasting energy) They only disappeared because an extreme level of IBM PC compatibility become essential to anybody hoping to manufacture systems at a reasonable cost. But I don't have the hardware engineering skills to defend their wide applicability, and indeed I notice that Google's special low-energy PSUs are internal and fan-cooled.

But Google PSUs are also very different from PSUs in standard rack-mount systems, with unusual form factors and lack of support for lower voltages. This suggests that they are one of many custom components that would make Google's servers uncompetitive in the open marketplace. And that's really the only point I was trying to make.

1: Climate science is very complex. You don't seem to realise this.

How do I not? It's the exact complexity you mention which causes me to doubt the veracity of "100% proven science".

2: It is a good thing that they are being scrutinized, but please leave the scrutinizing to people who are qualified to do so.

And I'm assuming you mean "climate scientists" with that statement? And how do we account for bias then?

but these numbers are based on complex physics-based models.

Models which are changing frequently as our understanding of climate changes over time. Which brings us right back to climate complexity and the flawed nature of our understanding of it. So how can I not doubt the certainty these scientists approach the topic with?

My question to you is, what would it take for you to believe that global warming will be a problem in the not-so-distant future? What evidence would convince you?

In truth? Consistency would be a good start, or even a little bit of humbling of the climate scientists (as in toning back the "sky is falling" dialogue). If they could start getting things right without going "oops, forgot this" or "ack, that doesn't match what we expected, it must be this" or "crap, that model is wrong, we need to muck with these coefficients". Basically, if their actual results showed the kind of certainty their publicity does, I could more easily get on board. And that's just going to take time. Right now, our own understanding of climate is simply changing far too frequently to be certain of future trends. Hell, our understanding of aerosols alone saw a dramatic shift just three years ago (a time when climate scientists were just as 100% certain of their predictions): http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/aerosols-more-important-to-global-warming-than-acknowledged.html

I think they have a good theory, and clearly alot of knowledge in their field...but I also think that like many people who are experts in their field, they're also subject to confirmation bias, anchoring in particular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring

In the mid-1950s abstract expressionism was the rage. Congo was a successful artist. Here are some of his paintings. Some sold for about $30,000. Most impressive, given Congo was a chimpanzee. It’s not surprising if Neanderthals did early cave art, cave art surpassing its contemporary human art. After all Congo has already established, artistic talent isn’t restricted to Homo sapiens sapiens.

Read that even doing daily exercise isn't enough to overcome the effects of sitting for an hour. The body puts metabolism way down when you sit. Boss just got me a stand desk so hoping this helps. If you get one, make sure you also get one of those checkout person mats to stand on.

Your perspecitve directly ignores the tremendous cost of environmental compliance on US steel production. Given that we want to llive in our planet, we triple the cost of coal and tacenite production by requiring environmental compliance, and similarly, the emissions controlls for steel mills mean that only mini-mills can possibly be compliant. These things were not considered in the WTO ruling. Besides blatantly dumping sub-costs steel on the market, China is still dumping billions of pounds of toxins into the environment.

Portable nuclear reactors are cost efficient and you never have to argue with your power company again!

Great that Microsoft is going carbon-neutral, that they're "hopeful that our decision will encourage other companies, large and small, to look at what they can do to address this important issue," but Google's been carbon neutral since 2007:
http://www.industryleadersmagazine.com/how-has-google-managed-to-be-a-carbon-neutral-company-since-2007/

Dell has been carbon neutral since 2008:
http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/dell-reaches-carbon-neutrality-goals-5-months-ahead-of-schedule.html

If anything, Microsoft is a bit late to the party. Still, good work.

Beats what they had at Beijing 2008:

http://www.treehugger.com/cars/beijings-olympic-security-forces-drive-segways.html

A very simple thing you can do to get the attention of the console makers is to call them and ask them how much power your particular system draws when playing and when sleeping, how this will cost you where you live, what you can do reduce the power usage, how to enable deep sleep mode and when they will come out with a reduced power model. Also let the game makers know that you want them to support auto power down.

BTW, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is really an amazing environmental group. They are just the environmental group that shows up at those deadly dull EnergyStar standards meetings and they do it with a full time electrical engineers. The NRDC engineering team is very bright and well informed. Very much worthy of your support.

Whisson Windmill at least as old as 2007. Also, patented.

Following France and Germany, last year the Italian Agriculture Ministry suspended the use of a class of pesticides, nicotine-based neonicotinoids, as a "precautionary measure." The compelling results - restored bee populations - prompted the government to uphold the ban. Yesterday, copies of the film 'Nicotine Bees' were delivered to the US Congress explaining the pesticide's connection to Colony Collapse Disorder. Despite the evidence, why does CCD remain a 'mystery' in the US?

http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/nicotine-bees-population-restored-with-neonicotinoids-ban.html

Apologies. Reread the GP post and realized the above links don't really deal with what he was getting at.

Here's one that's a bit more helpful, but still doesn't have all the details. It appears all the sites and cached pages are gone.
http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/blog-debunks-13-year-olds-solar-power-breakthrough.html

My g/f's from Japan and when we went to visit recently I noticed a lot of homes had toilets with a sink built into the top of the toilet tank. When you flushed, the water to fill the tank came out a faucet and you could wash your hands with it. Not only recycles but saves room in a 1/2 bath... a simple little thing we should see more of here in the states. As an example...

Why not use the wind energy to make hydrogen, and store the hydrogen (as a gas, as a liquid, or in metal hydrides)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage

Or why not use the wind to make compressed air, and store the compressed air?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_energy_storage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy

Or why not use the wind to charge batteries?
http://arpa-e.energy.gov/ProgramsProjects/GRIDS/ARobustandInexpensiveIronAirRechargeableBat.aspx

Or why not use the wind to heat up molten salts, and use a steam turbine to make power? Solar does it, but so could wind:
http://grist.org/solar-power/2011-07-05-groundbreaking-solar-plant-in-spain-generates-24-hours-of-power/

Or why not use the wind energy to produce liquid synthetic fuels from carbon from the air?
http://www.staxera.de/announcement.105+M5320325207d.0.html?&L=1

Or why not use the wind energy to run energy-intensive industrial processes that can run intermittently (like grinding up rocks for fertilizer or chilling nitrogen out of the air)? And so on.
http://www.remineralize.org/

There are solutions for the lack of buffers for renewable energy. Put them all together, and you have a way to use wind.

That said, LENR and cheap solar panels seem more likely to succeed, one because it is compact (if it really works) and the other because it has now moving parts and requires little maintenance.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/01/15/0226219/can-nasa-warm-cold-fusion
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/05/29/ge-solar-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-in-5-years/

"A Road Not Taken: Solar Panels, Jimmy Carter, and Missed Opportunities for Change "
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2010/06/a-road-not-taken-solar-panels-jimmy-carter-and-missed-opportunities-for-change
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2010/09/obama-no-thanks-to-carter-solar-panels

The true cost of fossil fuels:
http://www.treehugger.com/energy-policy/true-cost-fossil-fuels.html
"For decades now, fossil fuel company executives and D.C. politicians have worked together to ensure that coal and oil prices stay low enough to keep the American people hooked. In his new book Greedy Bastards, Dylan Ratigan explains how "vampire industries" like oil and coal have forged "an unholy alliance with government based not just on the money that they contribute to political campaigns and spend on lobbying but on their ability to hypnotize us with false prices." Industry gets tax breaks, subsidies, military support in volatile regions, the right to use our air and water like a sewer, and assurance that the government will clean up its environmental messes. Politicians get campaign contributions, a steady flow of dirty energy, and a talking point to brandish about how they kept gas affordable. But the Ame

But this time other trends set in motion by the last oil shock that sent gas above $4/gallon may trump all that. If you've been paying attention the last 4 years, nearly every major car company has been working on and rolling out production model hybrids and EVs. Tesla, despite the scoffing ICE fans, has not only survived but is about to release its 3rd generation of vehicles. And what's more, EV delivery vehicles are starting to hit the scene; Ford is rolling out its own. Another smaller one called Mia has another.

The delivery vehicles are a significant one because if you could spend $1.34/60 miles to make your deliveries vs. $20/60 miles paying for gas at $4/gallon, 12mpg, you'd be insane as a business owner to not be all over that. Trucking is an extremely competitive business where fuel costs and the means to shave them are a major concern. And that's the thing, if delivery vans break the ice with commercial use of EVs, then you can bet the long-haul guys won't be far behind clamoring for semi-versions of EVs.

So, on the consumer and commercial fronts the options have developed to give everyone a real window to jump from the ICE ship. 2/3rds of American oil consumption goes to transportation, so if the price spike last time was enough to get people to abandon SUVs, then this time, if the spike is severe enough, especially in a down economy, we might all wake up in 2013 in an America where the oil industry is 1/3 its former size. That is the definition of a sea change.

Tree ring music:
http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/record-play-adapted-play-music-tree-rings.html

http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/et-tu-minnesota-another-law-proposes-making-factory-farm-photography-illegal.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/us/14video.html
http://animalrights.about.com/b/2011/03/23/bills-to-ban-undercover-factory-farming-videos-moving-ahead-in-iowa-and-florida.htm
http://www.dvafoto.com/2011/03/two-us-states-move-to-outlaw-unauthorized-photos-of-farming-operations/
http://www.silha.umn.edu/news/Summer2011/StatesConsiderBanningUndercoverRecordingatAgriculturalOperations.html
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/03/in-the-past-decade-modern/

Because this.

Really?

http://www.treehugger.com/culture/photo-will-start-real-revolution.html

Belgium has quite a bit of a renewables coming online:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Belgium#Renewable_energy

I'll be the last person to bash nuclear. New designs are safe, efficient, and cost effective. But once you put enough solar and wind generation out there, and back it with proper storage/buffering facilities (large battery/flywheel banks, pumped storage, etc), the argument is moot.

The price of solar is dropping so fast, solar businesses are struggling to stay afloat. Their loss is our gain, and you'll continue to see the price per watt of solar plummet. Wind is only getting more efficient, as gearboxes are being replaced with more efficient magnetic bearings and transfer systems:

http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/super-smooth-magnetic-bearings-glide-closer-to-the-mainstream.html

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/25188/page1/

If you read my second link, you'll see GE is building 4 MW direct drive turbine systems. Yeah, 4 megawatts. As efficiency continues to scale up, you'll see windfarm nameplate capacity rival the largest coal and nuclear plants. Yes, yes, you'll still have to deal with generation peaks and valleys, but the energy is there for the taking!

They're sure trying!

Right now about 50% of US land goes to produce animal products which are overall killing us with bad fats:
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
http://peakperformance.runnersworld.com/2011/05/may-9-the-great-fat-debate-does-the-total-fat-in-your-diet-matter.html
http://nutsci.org/2011/05/04/the-great-fat-debate/
http://www.adajournal.org/article/S0002-8223(11)00291-4/fulltext
http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html
http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

And we can always grow food indoors using cheap energy and rock dust:
http://www.remineralize.org/
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR06.txt
"Why is the Food Outlook Made to Seem Gloomy?"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2011/10/17/hello-cheap-energy-hello-brave-new-world/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php

In general, people living longer is not going to have as much effect on the population as how many kids people have -- and that amount is falling with industrialization; in Italy, every woman has about 1.2 kids but would need to have 2.1 kids to keep the population from declining. The entire industrialized world has this problem (but not as bad as Italy in most places).

Just think of all the people around to pass on wisdom to the next generation.

Using your "spare CPU cycles" makes the CPU use more power, it is by no means free.

This is true for other things, like ads using flash animations for example. I always find it ironic to see it in sites like TreeHugger, which is full of flashy animations. I would expect a green site to use mostly static HTML and text based ads to reduce the carbon footprint of all it's viewers.

Is GE greenwashing too? http://cleantechnica.com/2011/05/29/ge-solar-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-in-5-years/
http://www.solarbuzz.com/facts-and-figures/retail-price-environment/module-prices
http://www.cleantechblog.com/2011/06/will-crystalline-solar-kill-thin-film-a-conversation-with-applied-materials-solar-head-charlie-gay.html

Anyway, that's why this article is silly. Solar will displace fossil fuels and nuclear through market forces alone at this point over the next decade. We are passing the tipping point, even though, if you account for externalities like pollution, risk management, and defense costs, renewables have been cheaper than fossil fuels since the 1970s or earlier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php

I even stated that was not what was beng proposed in the post you are responding to. This indicates to me that you have an agenda and are unwilling to listen to facts. However, in the event that you do remain open to persuasion, please reference the Desertec Foundation, and others who have run the numbers. This is not going to be an overnight process, it will take decades, but each year the amount of renewable capacity climbs. By 2100 our grandchildren will view the age of coal, gas, and oil in the same way we view the age of steam.

I might resent the fact that you're calling me a pessimist but the only thing I can actually infer from your statement is that you're an optimist. I'm a realist. Have been all my life so I look like a pessimist to the optimist and an optimist to the pessimist.

But, you've missed the point. The bicycle is more efficient than the bus or the train so it's a poor choice for people with bikes to put the bike on the bus or the train. I've seen commuters in our city go from one end of town to the other and have to cross bridges and go through down town to do it without resorting to putting their bikes on a bus or train. Before I injured my back I used to do the same thing. What's the matter with these other people that they have to put their bicycles on a bus to cross town? It's simple, they're as lazy as all the rest of the people who ride the bus or the train.

As for me, after so long my back is probably pretty much calcified so I could probably go back to riding some sort of adult trike for short trips but, to be honest, I wouldn't want to be associated with the cyclists in this town. They have a sense of entitlement that results in them running red lights, stop signs, ignoring the 30 Kmph speed limits on their much fought for bike routes and even starting a campaign to have the provincial laws re-written so that bicycles are legally exempt from any traffic control signals or signs. Unfortunately, I've seen indications that the lawmakers in the area are starting to go along with the idea. There are already plenty of signs up indicating where the bicycles can abandon the street and compete with the pedestrians for space on the side walks. The day that happens I really will hand in my driver's license and just sit on the front porch, watch the bicycles crash into each other ( I live at the intersection of two bike routes. ) and make bets on who can get up and dial 911 for help first. (if no one moves after three or four minutes, I might call 911 myself.) I've already seen too many near misses. We just need a few more riders coming at the intersection with the belief that they have the right of way since they're on the bike route for the collisions to really start happening.

Oh, yeah, and an electric assisted bicycle is going to be just the method of transportation for my 76 year old mom with osteoporosis (a crumbling back) to get to her doctor's appointments. She can't even walk around the block but, with the car, we can get her out for her appointments and she can see some sights. All that would stop when the car is finally banned from Vancouver. She and many like her, some who still can drive for themselves would become shut-ins.

AS for whether or not there are serious movements to eliminate the car from the urban landscape I might point to these sites.

http://www.peopleforbikes.org/blog/entry/bicycle_cities_a_plan_for_car-free_communities
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/creating-a-car-free-community/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/how_to_build_a_1.php
http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/south-carolina-to-build-car-free-community-26499/
http://www.worldcarfree.net/resources/free.php

and these are only a few of the things you'll find if you google "car free city".

And, of course, there is the planned future jewel in the sustainable city crown, Masdar City, http://www.masdar.ae/en/home/index.aspx , where you couldn't even bring your privately owned electric car. There won't be any roads to accommodate it.

So, you'll have to pardon me when I say that he

If you have a computer, you're richer than 95% of the world.

Maybe next time you can try NOT pulling numbers directly out of your ass.

A variety of solutions is great, even if mainstream nuclear may be questionable given our social systems being unable to have the required transparancy and accountability.

But 100% solar is not "insane", especially with energy storage. For energy storage, molten salt, compressed air, and lifting weights or water are all currently viable options, with more on the way, but it is still a bit awkward compared to much better batteries or fuel cells. But those are not unmanageable compared to the kind of things civil engineers and industrial engineers already manage. Storing hydrogen in nickel-metal hydrides may be a workable safe solution.
http://www.hydrogencomponents.com/hydride.html

Fossil fuels use a lot of land already for mining and transportation and rights of ways, which could be used for solar. We could have solar roadways, too:
    http://www.solarroadways.com/

Also, about 50% of the US land area is devoted to the production of animal products (mostly growing grain for livestock) so clearly the USA is willing to devote huge amounts of land for questionable endeavors (as animal products and refined grains together ingested in mass quantities are killing many Americans who should be eating more vegetables, fruits, and beans instead).

Going 100% solar would only take 1% or so of the USA, maybe less.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php

So, people in the USA could cut back 2% on animal products and be healthier and get cheap sustainable power from that freed up land, as that is as much land as it would take to go all solar. Having lived near working farms sometimes, most of them look like moonscape industrial wastelands a lot of the time anyway, and many are dosed regularly with pesticides, so I'm not sure solar would be that much of a worse thing -- it probably would be better for the groundwater. Maybe more native animals and plants might live between panels than on poisoned farms?

New York City just did a study that it could supply half its electricity by solar roofs, so we may not even need that much other land devoted to solar. Also, energy efficiency and using solar as process heat directly instead of electricity can cut the land area needed too.

So, I'm not saying we will go 100% solar as you are right about geothermal and wind etc., and there is algae too, and we may even see hot or cold fusion, but 100% solar is not "insane" in any way I can see, just unlikely.

Still, as I see it, solar is so convenient being quiet and low maintenance, that once more innovation goes into it, it will likely be cheaper than anything other than some type of fusion. Now that solar being at grid parity is three to five years away, it is within the planning horizons of US companies. I read recently in an article interviewing a researcher in thin silicon-based panels that something like as much money is now going into PV solar research in two years as since it was invented.

More on GE:
http://ceramics.org/ceramictechtoday/2011/06/01/ge-expands-on-thin-film-solar-becomes-near-term-grid-parity-believer/

Presumably, there should have been some kind of safety system in place to deal with a relatively common natural phenomenon...

That's for sure. The Japanese have done well with a much more complex safety issue, rapidly shutting down their high speed trains upon notice from their Earthquake Early Warning system.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Earthquake_Early_Warning_(Japan)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen#Safety_record

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/03/earthquake-derail-japan-high-speed-trains.php

But wait: http://www.allcarselectric.com/news/1063329_aptera-answers-our-questions-shares-no-new-information At least Tesla is still making the roadster, but wait: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/06/tesla-stop-production-electric-roadster-focus-model-s-sedan.php At least there's the Corbin Sparrow or the Sinclair C5 or ??? http://jalopnik.com/5809904/whats-historys-most-awesome-failed-electric-car I'm an electrical engineer and this is depressing. Oh yeah, and there are still no batteries good enough!

Japan's nuclear disaster has proven to me that neither the companies responsible for nuclear power plants, nor the people responsible for ostensibly regulating them can be trusted

So because one company in one country screwed up and had a disaster resulting in precisely 0 deaths, we need to move to Coal? Where we hear of non-compliant coal mines killing hundreds of miners a year, and causing large amounts of pollution?

Or what about Hydro, surely we can trust people with hydro. Oh wait, there was (among others) Banqiao Dam which failed in 1975, killing 171,000 people in a moment (incidentally, about 30 times as many people as Chernobyl is expected to kill over the next 50 years-- cancer deaths included).

Or geothermal... except that it can cause earthquakes

I guess if you will accept nothing less than a perfect energy source, we'll just have to do without electricity.

It's cost effective to mine our refuse already.

Does it run on fossil fuel? If so, then this tech will only last until we run out of this fuel.

I think we need something that can fly on electricity.

You can run airplanes on biodiesel or alcohol if necessary.

See also:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/10/worlds_first_100_percent_biodiesel_jet_flight.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_EMB_202_Ipanema

So... "I think that if one aspect of the solar power cycle is a criminal enterprise, then perhaps the whole thing is. And, certainly the disposal of waste is one of the most risk ladened parts of the whole dirty business." Right??

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030802595.html

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/solar_pollution_china.php

Yikes! And i thought it wasn't just "too cheap to measure" but it was FREE!

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php

Take a look at that. And I'd rather have a blade breaking loose than irradiate the area for tens of kilometers in every direction.

I found this pretty interesting:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php

Interesting points. You'd probably like Julian Simon's writings:
    http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

And this:
    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php

Long term though, if we expand into space, we can get plenty of soalr power using big mylar mirrors.

And consider even this for current needs (though it perhaps questions your point on increasing energy use when better design sometimes outpaces growing demand):
    http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!). So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!"

The primary problem with our current system is externalities. If users of fossil fuels were paying the true cost of pollution, disease, defense, and risk, solar and wind would have been cheaper since the 1970s...
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

Still, ironically, people have known since the 1940s or so how to make safer thorium nuclear power, but it was not developer precisely because it was safer (you can't easily make bombs with it).

As for the question you pose on moving forward socially, James P. Hogan had some ideas in "Voyage From Yesteryear":
    http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
"The book has an interesting corollary. Around about the mid eighties, I received a letter notifying me that the story had been serialized in an underground Polish s.f. magazine. They hadn't exactly "stolen" it, the publishers explained, but had credited zlotys to an account in my name there, so if I ever decided to take a holiday in Poland the expenses would be covered (there was no exchange mechanism with Western currencies at that time). Then the story started surfacing in other countries of Eastern Europe, by all accounts to an enthusiastic reception. What they liked there, apparently, was the updated "Ghandiesque" formula on how bring down an oppressive regime when it's got all the guns. And a couple of years later, they were all doing it! So I claim the credit. Forget all the tales you hear about the contradictions of Marxist economics, truth getting past the Iron Curtain via satellites and the Internet, Reagan's Star Wars program, and so on."

Other ideas:
    http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science.html

http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004123.html
http://pesn.com/2011/01/17/9501746_Focardi-Rossi_10_kW_cold_fusion_prepping_for_market/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle
http://www.remineralize.org/

Lots more if anyone looks..

When you can have organic water, from organic land and organic charcoal air filters that I suppose will give you organic air.

"When fossil fuels are exhausted, there may be a mass die-off event within the human species, due to the massive reduction in possible food production and transportation. "

Baloney. Who is feeding this to you? Why? Who profits from your fear?

We have centuries of coal (but it is polluting). Thorium can power our civilization for thousands of years. We have an effectively infinite supply of solar energy. People are working on zero-emissions manufacturing. We can grind up rock to make fertilizer. And so on.

References off the top of my head:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php
http://nanosolar.com/nanosolar-technology-overview
http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/993314-thorium-reactor-talk-at-ted/
http://www.nist.gov/el/msid/dpg/slim.cfm
http://www.remineralize.org/

We may even have cold fusion thanks to one of the many people you perhaps wish was never born as he took up to many resources?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer

Who has infested your mind to what end with so much negativism so that you are less likely to have kids? Who is making money off of that? Are there much uglier imperatives at work in the people who tell you this? Example:
"The Greening of Hate"
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2005/09/106-greening-of-hate.html

Did the world end when we went through "Peak Whale Oil" a century or so ago? You're still here, right?

Now, we may still blow ourselves up fighting over mis-perceived scarcity. But that is a different problem.

Resources do not exist before the human imagination looks at the universe and turns things into resources. Otherwise, say, we would not have aluminum, produced because some imaginative people figured out how. We would not have solar panels without people figuring out how to make them. And so on.

Here is a quick comparison of the beliefs of say, William R. Catton (who wrote "Overshoot") and Julian L. Simon (who wrote "The Ultimate Resource").

Catton:
* People are the problem
* People consume resources
* People take up space leading to overcrowding
* There is a fixed amount of material resources on the Earth

Thus he predicts (with some glee?) a big die-off.

Simon:
* People are the solution
* People produce resources
* People create spaces worth being in
* The human imagination creates new resources

Now, there is truth to what both of these authors say. But ultimately, you can decide for yourself which path leaning more to one or the other is more likely to produce a future more worth living in, given the truth about solar power, thorium power, grinding up rock, and so on.

Our electricity and natural gas consumption might even go down if we switched to electric cars, by the way:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"To extract one gallon of gasoline (or equivalent distillate): 9.66 kWh (maybe not all in the form of electricity*)
To refine that gallon: 2.73 kWh additional energy (maybe not all in the form of electricity*)
Total: 12.39 kWh per gallon.
*Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!).
So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 30

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/imf-bombshell-age-of-america-about-to-end-2011-04-25?pagenumber=2
    "Commentary: China's economy will surpass the U.S. in 2016 [based on PPP] ...
    This is the result of decades during which China has successfully pursued economic policies aimed at national expansion and power, while the U.S. has embraced either free trade or, for want of a better term, economic appeasement.
    "There are two systems in collision," said Ralph Gomory, research professor at NYU's Stern business school. "They have a state-guided form of capitalism, and we have a much freer former of capitalism." What we have seen, he said, is "a massive shift in capability from the U.S. to China. What we have done is traded jobs for profit. The jobs have moved to China. The capability erodes in the U.S. and grows in China. That's very destructive. That is a big reason why the U.S. is becoming more and more polarized between a small, very rich class and an eroding middle class. The people who get the profits are very different from the people who lost the wages."
    The next chapter of the story is just beginning. ..."

See also:
    http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
    http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html
    http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation

What tinkerers related to science and technology can do though?
    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php
    http://pesn.com/2011/01/17/9501746_Focardi-Rossi_10_kW_cold_fusion_prepping_for_market/

No they would not come from 'green' sources. Take a look into the waste that is generated by the manufacturing of solar panels, look at all the waste involved in the manufacture of the batteries used in solar and wind setups, to say nothing of their disposal. Doesn't look so 'green' now does it?

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/greater-oversight-needed-solar-panel-manufacturing-disposal.php

The Earth gets something like 10000X times more energy every day than we use that day in our civlization.
    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php

So what is the problem you are so worried about? There is room for quadrillions of people living in space habitats in the solar system, too. Why be such a doomster? Renewable energy is now close to the price of fossil fuels, but without the environmental costs (where fossil fuel companies privatize short-term profits and socialize long-term costs). We mainly have social problems, not technical ones. See also:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Resource

Have you really studied the technical possiblities for making the world work for everyone, and further, making the solar system work for quadrillions of people? We do have some big problems, but we have billions of people to help solve them. It's problematical to on the one hand say humans are a geological force and then on the other to deny that such a powerful force could be used to some benefit if we had the social will to do so. Thin film solar, wind generators, moving away from meat consumption, grinding up rocks for fertilizer, and maybe even cold fusion, are all parts of the solutions.
http://remineralize.org/
http://www.nanosolar.com/company/blog#177
http://pesn.com/2011/01/17/9501746_Focardi-Rossi_10_kW_cold_fusion_prepping_for_market/

It is people who have used their creativity to come up with those sorts of ideas...

Non of which matter for a solar array, but is very important when considering windmills.

Or Not.

The Windmill kills Birds data is largely due to outdated technology no longer being deployed.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/04/common_misconce.php

Just watching western US wind farms you notice that the modern blades are turning so slow that even an impact with a bird would probably not kill it.