Yes, you are correct there. I didn't vote for them, and many people who did are regretting it now.

Here in Australia a hot summer day is more like 110 F. (About 43C) You can still walk around in it, but it's advisable to stay well hydrated.

MightyYar said

I can hardly blame the milk manufacturers for not abandoning their equipment just to make the 1 gallon milk jug round off nicely to 3 or 4 liters.

They have probably replaced their equipment ten times since the rest of the world adopted the international system of units. It's not an issue.

Errrm... no. We didn't survive any of them. Humanity did not exist at the time.

Anonymous Coward told the following lie:

solar panels cost more in materials (fabbing the silicon, energy for the aluminum, more energy to melt and shape it, etc.) than a panel ever gets back in energy coming in

Yawn. You coal shills need to come up with some new lies. Everyone in the world knows that your statement above is a lie. Solar panels return their embodied energy in 1 to 3 years. They continue to return more energy after that for at least another 50 years. At that point, everything in them is fully recyclable into new panels.

If you must lie for your feudal coal barons, please try to think of some more original and entertaining lies.

And [one in a hundred thousand, owns own house free and clear, grossing $70+k/yr] solar home owner says, but it works for me

A million homes in Australia have solar panels on their roofs as of right now. That's about one home in ten. Workers, pensioners, the unemployed, everyone - rich or poor, all benefiting from free energy. The installation pays for itself in five years, and comes with a twenty five year warranty. You Americans need to crawl out from under the dead hand of capitalism and join the free world.

whooooooosh!

also referred to the techies in "silicone (sic) valley".

Silicone Valley: Breast implant capital of the world. Must be all the porn studios nearby.

Congratulations. Break just 149 more and you will have equivalent mercury exposure to eating one fish fillet. Reverse placebo effect anyone?

"What's the point of cutting down your own use? You won't make a difference. And your actions don't influence anyone else. "

Au contraire. Since I installed my solar power system, seven other households have seen my success and followed my example. (And, in before someone gets all whiny whiny with bullshit about "robbing the poor", two of those households were pensioners on tiny social security incomes.)

Leading by example really does work. I have cut my power usage to about one third of the national average, and most of what I do use comes from solar. I'm not living in a cave. I have four air conditioners, electric oven, microwave, computers, hifi and a big plasma TV. People can see this. It readily gives the lie to loony right propaganda about freezing in the dark.

Every time I ride my bike to work I save twenty bucks on fuel and parking. It's like I'm getting paid to go for a ride in the park instead of sitting in traffic jams. I drive less than 4000 miles a year. People can see this example too. They see that an old, fat man can still get to work on a bike.

Oh, I forgot to mention, YES! I do accept the science of global warming.

Only two kinds of waste heat matter - waste heat from nuclear power and waste heat from fossil fuel burning.

Waste heat from renewable energy is part of the planets natural heat budget. The heat from wind, waves or sunlight will heat the planet no matter what. It makes no difference if we use it to run an air conditioner, a factory or a truck first. If you're not sure about this, check out the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of energy.

Nuclear power is so ridiculously expensive that we will never build enough of it for the waste heat to matter.

That just leaves - oooh look! Fossil fuels! Well how about that. Actually I suspect you will find that even that is tiny compared to the greenhouse effect.

Coward wrote "mining for all those precious minerals required by those windmills (massive rare-earth magnets)"

The device connected to the wind TURBINE (there is no mill) is called a GENERATOR. This is where the magnets are. Generators are connected to the turbines in Coal plants, gas plants and nuke plants too. They all use magnets.

We obviously have no idea about how much mercury he was exposed to. I know that eating several fish is probably equivalent to the same amount of mercury, but there is a difference between inhaled dust and food digested by your stomach.

Relax. You'd have to break about 150 bulbs to get the same mercury dose that you get from eating one fish. The numbers are not hard to find if you look.

Personally I wouldn't bother replacing the carpet.

blindseer wrote: Solar and wind are cute but if they reach a certain point of power generation, something like 20% of our power or perhaps as low as 5%, they will destabilize the grid. By "destabilize" I mean blackouts. You don't have to take my word for it, look it up.

I don't have to look it up because I already have proof that you are wrong. My state gets, on average, 27% of its power from wind turbines and 7% from solar, making a total of 34% from clean energy sources. It doesn't cause blackouts. Our grid is very reliable. It has not been destabilized.

On windy days, the state (South Australia) has drawn as much of 57% of its power load from wind turbines. The grid was not "destabilized". We did not have blackouts. We did not have to build a million zillion backup fossil plants. In fact we didn't need to build any at all.

But you don't have to take my word for it, look it up.