ALTRAV,
Like Tristan Prasser, you're railing against imaginary disadvantages of renewables. I suppose I should be glad that you haven't copied his rhetoric (like calling SA and Vic the Diesel States because of a few generators that are hardly ever used). But it's a pity you're still so clueless as to what solar and wind can do. Only you and Tony Abbott regard the windmills as "disgustingly obscene visual pollution", and I don't think even he'd go as far as to apply that label to solar.

What you seem to have failed to understand is that while solar and wind have a much higher capital cost, they have a much lower running cost than fossil fuelled power. And that cost is falling.

Unfortunately the politicians are a bit too keen on cross subsidisation and not keen enough on creating conditions to enable renewables to exploit their natural advantages.

Ok, for all the climate alarmists:

Since the advent of the industrial revolution rough global average temperatures have risen from approximately 288 degrees Kelvin to 288.8 deg K. Now given a little thought one would conclude that this is clearly statistically insignificant. No need to panic?

Secondly, over the last 300 years global average sea level rise has been estimated at approximately 20cm per century, again, given global natural climate change, this is absurdly small (remember we are talking averages here). Again, no need to panic.

Given the above, forget climate change, or at least the ridiculous idea man is in any way impacting weather let alone climate.

Now we have the more important energy issue. First let's get something clear, we need to reduce pollution especially plastics into the environment and particulate into the atmosphere if we wish to reduce human fatalities from these types of pollution. (I assume we would all agree to this, perhaps not?).

Back to energy, if it's cheap and we have the resources to produce energy in abundance, well reality says - use it, but use it in a fashion which reduces the detrimental issues mentioned in the paragraph above.

Given time, technology will evolve whereby new, cheap and abundant energy will come on-line and life will continue to go on. Politics and the mangled, hysterical green skewed ideology is the current and foreseeable failure re energy.

Facts are facts, let's not get confused with assumptions and fake religious like holds on that which blinds so many, particularly those in positions of power and policy decision making.
Galen

Galen,
Technically Kelvin are not degrees since they are an absolute measure. And the change in temperature is very statistically significant - using an absolute scale doesn't make it otherwise. The only thing that's clear is that you don't yet have a good understanding of either statistics or physics.

Panicking won't solve anything, but we do need to take action. We know there is a bigger rise in temperatures that can be explained by natural variability, and scientists have seen a breakdown of the link between temperature and solar activity. Furthermore, we know for certain that human activity has made changes to the composition of the atmosphere, increasing the atmosphere's ability to absorb and reradiate infrared. Given the above, it's time for you to abandon the ridiculous idea that man isn't in any way impacting climate.

There are known impacts on weather as well, but they're not so important.

Hi Aiden, then there is this, not mine, but scientifically correct:

"In science and engineering, degrees Celsius and kelvins are often used simultaneously in the same article, where absolute temperatures are given in degrees Celsius, but temperature intervals are given in kelvins. E.g. "its measured value was 0.01028 °C with an uncertainty of 60 µK."

"This practice is permissible because the degree Celsius is a special name for the kelvin for use in expressing relative temperatures, and the magnitude of the degree Celsius is exactly equal to that of the kelvin.[10] Notwithstanding that the official endorsement provided by Resolution 3 of the 13th CGPM states "a temperature interval may also be expressed in degrees Celsius",[4] the practice of simultaneously using both "°C" and "K" is widespread throughout the scientific world. The use of SI prefixed forms of the degree Celsius (such as "µ°C" or "microdegrees Celsius") to express a temperature interval has not been widely adopted."

Galen

Aidan, it is you who speak of imaginary things. I speak facts and truths. The truth is that renewables have to be too large a scale compared tothe amount of power they generate. I'm talking in excess of 200 to 300 acres, to power one small suburb. Solar is no different. Both these concepts are proving unreliable. Hydro has proven itself because it virtually has one massive moving part and it's not prone to the whims of nature and the failures of technology. Even you can surely see the absurdity of the economy of scale and the unsuitability of these current types of renewables. To better explain my point. Imagine an airliner and the size of it's engines compared to the overall size of the aircraft. They seem well paired. Now imagine if you will, what renewables would look like if applied to this aircraft. The size of the engines would be in excess of 200 to 300 times their current size to achieve the same power output. Don't believe me? You do the math. Oh and in both cases you would have a repair team on board to keep the engines running because there are so many moving parts or the technology is so close to the edge they are working at or over their design specs. I have not failed to consider anything. My background is engineering. As for my position on renewables. Can you, or anyone else for that matter, be so blind or just plain contradictory that you would think I would not want cheaper and more reliable energy? So, right now whilst the govt is dishing out money to themselves and their mates to make plebs like you think your actually going to get cheap renewable power any time soon, I choose to follow the technology not the propaganda. If renewables have a chance they have to be removed from govt control. The current technologies being offered are simply smoke and mirrors. Hopefully one day we will get what we know is out there. Cheap reliable power. But not today.

Aidan,

You stated "it's time for you to abandon the ridiculous idea that man isn't in any way impacting climate."

Well I did say that, what I meant was man is not altering climate in any way that is significant enough to be construed as being harmful, if anything any minute increase in temperature is great for coral formation (as but one example).

By the way, if we are going to get into semantics, can you please tell me, as an apparent scientific ignoramus, what exactly is the correct global mean average temperature supposed to be? Please don't tell me a guesstimate, I would like your scientifically proven exact answer, evidence would go a long way too, thanks in advance.

Galen