{"id":26059,"date":"2017-09-24T11:51:29","date_gmt":"2017-09-24T16:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26059"},"modified":"2017-09-24T11:51:29","modified_gmt":"2017-09-24T16:51:29","slug":"well-always-have-the-sun-solar-energy-and-the-future-of-humankind-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26059","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019ll always have the Sun: solar energy and the future of humankind"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ll always have the Sun: solar energy and the future of humankind<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n
\n
<\/a><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
Above, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) speaks to Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) in the movie \u201cCasablanca\u201d (1942). Here, the sentence has been a little changed. In the film, the phrase refers to \u201cParis\u201d, not \u201cThe Sun\u201d. But in the debate on the future of civilization, there is only one certainty: we\u2019ll always have the sun<\/i><\/span>.<\/i><\/div>\n
\nThis post was originally published on Aug 15, 2017 by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE<\/a>, a crowdfunded investigative journalism project for people and planet. Support us<\/a> to keep digging where others fear to tread.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
As it becomes clear that we must get rid of fossil fuels before they get rid of us, a question is being asked over and over:<\/div>\n

\u201cCan renewables replace fossil\u00a0fuels?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some people have been sufficiently impressed by the rapid decline of the price of renewable energy that their answer is not only, \u201cyes,\u201d but that switching to renewables will be fast and painless. It will come simply as the result of the free market mechanisms, at most aided by a little magic called \u201ccarbon tax\u201d. Then, economic growth will continue unabashed in the best of worlds.<\/div>\n
Others take the opposite position. Noting that renewables require large investments in the energy infrastructure, that they don\u2019t easily produce liquid fuels, that they can\u2019t support energy \u201con demand,\u201d and more, they conclude that renewables are useless; an illusion, if not an outright scam.<\/div>\n
This viewpoint is further split in two views. One seems to welcome the collapse of an energy-starved economic system and the associated return to the Middle Ages, or even to extinction. The other simply sees fossil fuels as a good thing to be kept and subsidised. After all, CO2 is food for plants, isn\u2019t it?<\/div>\n
\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ll always have the Sun: solar energy and the future of humankind \u00a0 Above, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) speaks to Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) in the movie \u201cCasablanca\u201d (1942). Here, the sentence has been a little changed. In the film, the phrase refers to \u201cParis\u201d, not \u201cThe Sun\u201d. But in the debate on the future of civilization, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10777,674,1564,1859,760,2692],"class_list":["post-26059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-cassandras-legacy","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar-energy","tag-solar-power","tag-sun","tag-ugo-bardi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26060,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26059\/revisions\/26060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}