@TheRealMafoo. Are you sure that nuclear and hydro power costs more than three times as much as fossil fueled power stations or did you just make that number up?

Also any source for the number of people in the US that die from not being able to afford electricity?

Nuclear is actually really competitive.  The only issue is that nobody wants to use it because everyone thinks it's a lot more dangerous then it is.

Hydro is... really situational, and not something i'd call enviromentally friendly.

As for number of people in the US that die from not being able to afford electricity... I can't say...

But i can say that record numbers of people are losing electicity and that companys that give heating oil to the poor are stretched.

I know my electricity bill last month was like.... over 100 dollars.  Which is ridiculious.

Most environmentalist will not accept nuclear power as a clean alternative. Hydro power yes, but it can't power all of the US.

As for statistics. I have no clue. I would guess however, it's virtually imposable to be less then 12 in a country of 300,000,000. So, I am safe saying dozens (even if in the end, it's 1 dozen).

And if today we stopped using fossil fuels, and started using wind and solar, our bill would go up closer to 50 times, not 3, so I just picked a low number, because in reality, if we ever did this, it would be slow.

While I can't come up with statistics for the above, you do have to agree, that if we just removed on average $200 a month from every household, the effects it would have on a large part of the population could be severe (The average electric bill in the US, is $99.70).

Why do it, if the problem solved is minor? Wouldn't you want to know why your doing something, if the negative impacts of doing it is major?

http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickelectric.html

Mafoo, where I'm confused is who are you asking to make changes? Surely you don't want the government to interfere with these companies that are making "green advances" that would be counter-intuitive to your worldview. I may be confused, but don't you prefer a "wild west" capitalism where businesses are allowed to do whatver they want? I am merely asking.

And I take issue with your statement of "dispelling ignorance" since the issue is clearly in debate (as seen in the thread) you are making a sideways insult to those that disagree by calling them ignorant. I feel that is a bit below your usual well thought out, polite but impassioned discourse.

I honestly can't believe people don't support cleaner energy, regardless of if they accept climate change or not, I feel sad for planet Earth...

This thread is getting me too wound up, I'm leaving before I start falling out with people.

So you didn't understand my point at all?

I wasn't quoting him as an authority on climate change at all.  I was quoting him as someone who has dealt with the IPCC as an expert in his field...to rebutt your ill-concieved notion that the IPCC is truly scientific.

As for my being ignorant...I find this comical. I have done a tremendous amount of research on this issue and  I'm aware of the people who do and do not support the idea and you are the one who is woefully missinformed if you think 1) There is a consensus among top scientists of any sort (in regards to AGW) and 2) that a consensus has any bearing on science.  Facts and facts alone are what science is about. 

edit: wanted to be careful about overstating knowledge...particularly with my schedule preventing me from doing as much reading as I'd like in the last few weeks.

One of those facts I posted earlier and nobody has addressed, now is that because my argument was ignorant or those debating me are?  I try not to assume what level of knowledge people have but this discussion has occurred so many times now and every single time I get someone who tries to CONSENSUS CONSENSUS me to death and every time I say "great if the consensus is there then lets have the debate and you should trounce me"...none of them ever do.

In fact look up global warming debates (expert debates, not forum debates) and you will find that AGW proponents have a penchant for losing....and not just a little more than half...but pretty much every single one of them. 

Well I don't see how you can use Reiter - a single man - as proof that the entire IPCC is not scientific. There will always be criticisms from individuals of any large body. In any case I don't see how you can say that very few real scientists believe in anthropogenic global warming when the national academies of the following countries have signed joint statements that it is the case.

Australia
Belgium
Brazil
Caribbean
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Indonesia
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Malaysia
Mexico
New Zealand
Russia
South Africa
Switzerland
United Kingdom
United States


Now I'm not saying that the consensus means that its definitely true, I'm just rebutting HappySquirrel's point that; "Very few "real" scientists will make the claim that increases in man made CO2 are leading to long term cataclysmic changes to the climate based on a short term warming trend and unproven climate models."

I actually hadn't realised that it was HS who posted that not you. So I should actually have said I think HS is ignorant of the current opinion on climate change.

I am not for a “wild west” approach to business. I am for regulation that protects people. So laws need to be in place to make sure working conditions are at an acceptable level.

The products they sell need to pass acceptable levels as well.

If in the end, it was proven that burning coal was going to kill the world, it’s the government’s responsibility to outlaw burning of coal to protect its citizens.

And I have not called anyone ignorant. You must have read someone else’s post. My position is our effects on climate are still in debate, but if you ask Obama, he is 100% without question, confident that humans are the reason the worlds condition is worsening. He has said in speeches that if we don’t change the way we live, we will kill the planet.

We don’t know that, and basing vast reaching policy on that assumption, is a horrible idea.

As for who is asking me to make Changes, congress and the president are. If the cap and trade works like they want it to, I will be paying far more for energy then I pay now. The average mpg a car company can sell cars for, has gone up. This effects my transportation options.

Obama is spending 80 billion on clean energy. That’s $270 per American, so my wife and I are now obligated to subsidizing $540 to energy companies.

These are just some of the things I am asked to do.

First of all I never said my claim rested on one person or was based on one person.  I gave one person's interactions with the IPCC as an example and as a basis for presenting factual information about the IPCC.  The information it included were things beyond mere anecdote however and go to IPCC policies. Things such as how the IPCC reverses the normal peer review process so that the peer reviewers have the burden of scrutiny rather than the lierature they are reviewing.  Don't you think that says something?  I know you probably aren't overly familiar with peer-review process but this is the equivalent of declaring that for a specific election you're going to make everyone cast their ballot publicly and have it recorded for everyone to look up who voted which way.  Were you even aware of this extreme policy before you placed your faith in the IPCC's proclaimation?  It perverts the process by not only violating the entire point behind the way the peer-review process is set up but completely reversing it and giving anonymity to those who make claims (this is truly absurd).  What the IPCC uses as a peer review policy is a fact, and I believe it is extremely indicative of their approach to the issue.

Second, did you read the bits I bold quoted at all?  In them it explains how Reiter contacted the IPCC and they told him they were a governmental body made up of government officials.  So if anything I'm saying the IPCC is an authority on what the IPCC is.  Or would you disagree with that?  In that exchange he was told to check their "principles and procedures" and what he found was that to be a "top scientist" there was "no mention of research experience, bibliography, citation statistics or any other criteria that would define the quality of 'the world's top scientists.'" at least one of which would be required to make any assertions about "top scientists". 

At best the IPCC is overstating the credentials of the experts it has assembled, at worst they are deliberately misleading people into thinking they have a air-tight case when nothing could be further from the truth.  You're a prime example quite honestly.  I can present you with a myriad of evidence that anthropogenic global warming is not happening, and in fact I already have presented one such fact in this thread.  How have you responded to that? Do you even have an interest in a detailed debate at all or is your pressence just to assert what you "know" to be true?  Are you assuming that even if you don't quite follow what someone is saying that they're wrong for no other reason than someone else told you what you believe?  That despite another's ability to logically and reasonably explain why their position is correct you would choose to ignore it in favor of believing a position for which you are ignorant of the actual detailed justifications? 

That is a serious question: In what capacity are you participating in this thread?  As someone who wants to just chant their position like a mantra or someone who wants to contribute to a factual discussion?  You'll have to forgive the bluntness but after a couple dozen of these threads where someone predictably trots out "CONSENSUS CONSENSUS CONSENSUS" for the 50th time it grows old and I like to spend as little time on that childish rubbish as possible.

Third, a list of nations that have signed onto the IPCC report is further evidence of how it is a government body and not a scientific body. Not to mention that your initial responce to me was actually a wikipedia page on consensus in the climate debate. I don't normally accept what wikipedia has to say about any subject as gospel...much less climate change which has attracted a hardcore group of zealots who patrol those pages.  In any case I actually have read the "consensus" page at wiki before because I find it worthwhile to know what those who disagree with me have to say, which is why I get involved in all of these debates (I'll either teach someone something or be tought something, either way its a good use of time).  In fact the last thread on AGW I got a link to [Bamber et al 2007] which lead me on quite a literature road trip and I ended up with a much better understanding of ice sheets and the knowledge of why Bamber et al was wrong (you can see [Ollier-Paine 2009] for why, the short version is Bamber et al worked from a bad understanding of ice sheet melt mechanics and made a few erroneous assumptions).