[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by aerohead

*If the switch to renewables is a matter of US policy,it has completely escaped the press.

Federal initiatives aimed at developing and deploying renewable technologies are integrated in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. A recent addition to the Clean Air Act under Section 111(d), known as the Clean Power Plan, provides a policy framework for states to increase their power production from renewable sources...

The tax credits for solar and wind producers have been consistently renewed prior to their expiration dates. In December 2015, an extension of these federal tax credits was re-approved by Congress for solar and wind technology. Production tax credits for wind plants starting construction were extended until 2019, with credit value declining over a ten year time period. Investment tax credits are at 30% for solar plants starting construction, and are eligible until 2019.

Sure, these are "silent" ways that renewables are being expanded through Federal policy, but they appear to have an effect. Perhaps not as much of an effect as some would like, but quadrupling renewable energy in a decade seems pretty effective to me.

*History may record that the free market was one of the most stupid ideas man could have come up with,at least after 1776.Adam Smith never lived to see a time when man's technology and the 'invisible hand' could quite literally destroy the very resource base on which it derives it's sustenance.
*Our climate challenge is largely due in part to ignorance on the part of consumers.Which rewarded ignorant industries.Which is in part due to lack of education.Which is due in part to the investment portfolio of the educator's pension fund,which is financed by profits from pistons and internal combustion,etc.. There may come a time when we can no longer afford some of the 'natural' consumer freedoms we've enjoyed in the past up until now.Policy will have a lot to do with that.So far,hedonic adaptation is King.
* 99% of a hangman's rope won't do you any harm.

I'll point out that the end of every story is that everyone dies.

Perhaps we could all live as cavepeople with very limited numbers and enjoy 500 million years of adequate resources. Or, we could get smashed by an asteroid within that time-frame.

Bacteria don't multiply as sparingly as possible and slowly consume a food supply, saving it so that their colony can persist as far into the future as possible. Nature has chosen resource consumption as the best strategy for survival, and the bacteria's best bet is to eat while the food is there.

Consumption is not an invention of capitalism, it's encoded into DNA, and is neither virtuous or evil.

I'm all for wise and efficient use of resources, and I'll admit that in many ways we fail to wisely utilize these resources. That said, innovation and technological progress involves consuming more than subsistence levels of resources, and inevitably involves waste.

I do believe there are non-catastrophic solutions to seemingly runaway resource consumption, as the declining rate of population growth suggests. There are limits to resources, but there is no limit to resourcefulness.