"One can't support the continued use of coal and oil and be in favor of sustainable development at the same time". Well Bob, if you recon the use of food crops (corn, palm oil etc) for biofuels is 'sustainable development), then count me right out (I, as oppose to the sustainalista have a conscience). This use of the 'sustainability meme is quite unconscionable.

I am quite content to continue the use of oil and fuel energy sources for the next 100 or so years. In the meantime an alternative high density energy fuel source will be developed that will defeat any coal/oil/gas product on cost.

With new coal fired power stations producing almost no particulate carbon and sulphure emissions they are quite environmentally friendly. Carbon dioxide is good for the environment Bob.

When the global mean temperature exceeds the temperatures experienced in the Roman and Medieval warm periods I might be prepared to worry, just a little, about what sun spot, planetary configuration or other natural phenomena may be driving it. In the meantime, I think I will direct my concerns towards the cleation of wealth in developing countries and the reduction in poverty in developed countries. Far healthier for us all Bob. Cheers.

Oh dear oh dear;
Agenda 21, the greens, etc are all worrying about the wrong problem.
Now that the world economy appears to have reached the point where it
just cannot finance nuclear energy then we are also too late probably
to invent, & develop and then manufacture whatever is the next energy regime.
The one possible exception appears to be geothermal energy.
The development costs are probably still manageable and there is an
unending amount of energy down there.
Ironically it is nuclear energy because it is generated by the decay
of radio activity in granite. Half life I believe is more than 100,000 years !

The global warming worry is misdirected because the IPCC & others are
using incorrect amounts of fossil fuels for their computer models.
This was pointed out some time ago, but everyone is just pretending
not to hear.
Another paper I very recently read about is the NOAA satellite data
on long wave emissions by the earth.
The paper suggested that either the satellite data is faulty or global
warming is not happening.
It all has to do with thermodynamics and was above my head.
All the data was there to be perused and the challenge has been made.
What is the bet it will be poo pooed without even checking the data ?

It does not matter two hoots what Agenda 21 says, it is irrelevant as
we have to get busy on renewable energy systems if we do not all end
up running subsidence farms.

"I doubt if there is any way known that solar and wind can supply the worlds current needs."

There's an extensive body of research that shows that we have enough solar and wind potential to power the world many times over. Here's the first paper that laid it out.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030

This paper was written in 2009 and both solar and wind technology have improved since then making the job easier.

The small green rectangles on this map indicate how much of the Earth's surface we would have to cover with solar panels to get 100% of our electricity from PV panels.

http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/surface-area-power-world-with-solar-power.jpg

This map shows how much of the world's coastline we'd have to use to power ourselves 100% with offshore wind.

http://www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/AreaRequiredWindOnly.jpg

Note: no one is suggesting 100% solar or 100% wind.

The Sun shines strongly about 25% of the time. I'd guess we would get 30% to 40% from solar, 40% to 50% from wind since it blows more hours. And the other 20% to 30% from hydro, geothermal, tidal biomass/gas and maybe some wave energy. And we'd need storage to make it all work.

China, India and much of the rest of the world is installing renewable technology simply because it works. It's the cheapest new capacity and it helps with climate change. The facts are out there, all you have to do is open your mind and take a look.

The article is correct. Nuclear is failing largely because of its price. Most of the world's reactors are aging and we simply aren't building at anything close to a replacement rate, let alone increasing the share.

If people wish to continue their belief that the climate isn't warming or that it's warming but humans aren't causing the warming or it's warming but that's a good thing - I'm not going to spend my time trying to argue otherwise with you.

There are tens of thousands of climate scientists, very intelligent people, who have spent years studying the issue and almost 100% of them find that the data shows buildups of CO2 in our atmosphere are increasing planetary temperature and that CO2 comes largely from humans burning fossil fuel. And that if we do not cut our greenhouse gas emissions soon we are going to wreck our climate.

If you believe that somehow these scientists are forced to produce data supporting climate change you have no idea how science is funded or carried out. If someone could prove the climate was not warming or that it was due to something other than greenhouse gases they would become immediately extremely famous, never again want for research money, and become personally rich.

If you're on the fence and wondering let me suggest you spend some time on the site I'm linking and read some of the denier myths and what science has to say about them. Click on the brief description and dig in. The "Basic" pages are easy to follow. And then, if you wish, you can push on to the Intermediate and Advanced explanations.

skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Get the facts and let your common sense tell you what is happening.

I wonder if Bob Wallace goes back to sleep with the fairies down the bottom of the garden, or if he has escaped permanently?

If the latter, I hope the men in white coats catch up with him soon.

It's bad enough he believes in pixy dust to power our lives, but he must be stopped from spreading dangerous lies about Obama care. He'll have some of our loony left believing it soon, & trying to get it introduced here. God help us.

When will they realise that it doesn't matter whether global warming is
real or not. It has been becoming irrelevant for some time.
If you do not know that, then you are simply clueless to what is going on.

Those that think we can build the new energy regime from where we stand
now need to know that we are at the point of fail or succeed.
The scale of the problem is so huge that I do not think we can take the
poor of the developing countries with us.

I believe we have a choice gradually being revealed before us.
Use the coal, oil, gas and iron ore that we have now to produce the
new energy regime, wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and critically,
energy storage to enable close to a zero growth business as usual
economy for the developed world
or
use all our resources to lift the poor economies while lowering our
economies to meet theirs sustainably in the middle.

If that cannot be done then billions must starve.