Playing Dumb on Climate Change - Scientists are doing us no favor by being so cautious

Jackie22 said:
Kochs and Walmart Clan Wage Dirty War to Stop You From Putting Solar Panels on Your Home

A new rooftop solar system is installed every three minutes in the U.S., up from one every 80 minutes just eight short years ago. If this pace continues to accelerate or even just holds steady, it will not be long before solar panels become visible, if not ubiquitous, in many neighborhoods nationwide.

That prospect is enough to upset the Koch brothers, the heirs of the Walmart fortune and the utility industry, all which are trying to stamp out the rooftop solar movement or at least make a tidy profit penalizing the people who use it. With the help of powerful lobbyists and PACs like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Americans for Prosperity, they are set to do battle in statehouses across the nation in 2015.

ALEC, which has long been an opponent of renewable energy and the Obama administration’s effort to reduce carbon emissions, is working with conservative activists and corporate interests to fight homeowners who are installing solar panels on their roofs. Calling people who install rooftop solar panel “freeriders,” another word for freeloaders, the pro-corporate group is actively promoting legislation in states to charge fees, even exorbitant ones, for rooftop solar installations.

Behind the lobbyists are the megarich Walton family. The majority owners of the Walmart retail chain also own several energy interests, including a 30% stake in First Solar, which makes the parts for huge commerical installations of solar panels that operate like power plants. A recent report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance shows that the Waltons are giving lobbyist organizations millions to attack renewable energy laws at the state level. Their prime targets are the homeowners and businesses that opt for solar panels to provide their own electricity.


http://www.alternet.org/environment/koch-and-wal-marts-attempt-kill-solar-panels


........speaking of Solar Panels.
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This really caught my eye because the building I am moving into in the near future is a new one (I think about a year old) and as you can see, it has solar panels. This is housing for seniors with low-income. I don't want people to know that about me because of the way some folks react about getting certain help like insurance, and lower rent. But felt like I wanted to say something because California is evidently working hard to use these kinds of energy (Windmills, solar panels) and you can bet I'm for it because I'm for "save the planet".

solar panels.JPG
 

Oh thanks Josiah,

That was the first thing I asked about was those panels, I got way excited to get to live where they are being used!!
 

One of our Son-in-Laws is the Marketing Director for a rapidly growing solar energy company in the city. Talking to him over the holidays, he says his company is booked solid for the next 18 months putting in large commercial installations. He also says that with advancements coming in solar arrays, it may be financially practical for large numbers of home owners to get off the grid, by the end of this decade...and THAT has a lot of power companies worried. In areas where there is abundant ongoing sunshine, the savings/costs are already almost there. Here, where we often get several days of cloudy weather, the biggest problem is having enough battery storage to offset the overcast. If battery technology catches up to solar capacity, the days of huge polluting power plants may be numbered.
 
Oh yeah Don, I bet those companies are freaking. It should be interesting to see what goes down. When I was traveling the US I saw lots of places with the windmills as well. They aren't very attractive, not cool like the old style in Holland etc., but hey, who cares if it's better for saving the planet, and it's people.
 
There's a "belt" stretching from Central Nebraska, down to Northern Texas, where a mild breeze is a 20 MPH constant wind. This provides a great opportunity for Wind Farms...especially in central Kansas. There are already large numbers of wind farms in some of those areas....a massive one just west of Salina, KS. Right now, these wind turbines are quite expensive, but as technology improves, both wind And solar might compete favorably with our current fossil fuel plants....and not much more than a decade or two down the road.

If these fossil fuel plants, and their owners were thinking about the future, they would be investing heavily in these renewables....instead of spending billions on Fracking to open up new sources of natural gas.

There is a massive solar farm, just a few miles outside of Las Vegas that, with future expansions scheduled, may rival the output of the Hoover Dam. Such a power source may well be needed before many more years pass, as the lake level in Lake Mead continues to drop.
 
nwlady said:
I don't know if it's just I remember my childhood wrong, but I feel strongly about the difference in our weather patterns just compared to 50 or 55 years ago. I know I would actually have to do some reading to see if we had some of the weather back then, that we have now. And there's that "catch 22", who can you get unbiased info from, hey, maybe Farmers Almanac!!
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There's been people playing with the weather through weather modification for many years now, and it continues today. Now it's coming back to bite us. http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/...-that-deny-this-have-simple-not-investigated/ I have nothing against wind or solar power.
 
Yup, "weather modification" has been going on for at least the past 150 years. It started seriously with the Industrial revolution, the advent of the coal fired steam engine, and the internal combustion engine. Prior to that, most of the crap that floated into the atmosphere came from volcanic eruptions and forest fires. We still have volcanoes and forest fires, but now we have untold thousands of power plants and probably a hundred million cars and trucks scattered across the planet. Nature used to be able to take care of most of the CO2 pollution with the massive forests....before most of those were cleared for human habitat and farming. Now, who knows how many different pollutants have soiled our atmosphere, and Nature no longer can keep things in balance.
 
SeaBreeze said:
There's been people playing with the weather through weather modification for many years now, and it continues today. Now it's coming back to bite us. http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/...-that-deny-this-have-simple-not-investigated/ I have nothing against wind or solar power.
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Just setting off Atomic Bombs in the desert was enough to effect things people never thought they would. And I don't even want to think about where all the hazardous waste is coming into play:(
 

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