I agree with the juicy and savory babybackribs. It's something I often bring up. Even if global warming 100% isn't happening because of humans, is it bad to work towards cleaner and better technologies? We do know a lot of coal fire plants increase asthma, fluorosis, and various other lung problems.
I think what we do need to do is not incite panic. I know the "market decides" such as a lot of corn being switched over to ethanol, but that's lead to massive food shortages in countries that depend on the US, and the fuel created is 1:1.5, for every liter of oil used to create ethanol, you get 1.5 liters of ethanol. That's total shit and a waste of time and money. Not only are you basically getting no improvement, but you're wasting oil too.
I often suggest hydrogen, because diesel motors can also run it, but also because it's really easy to make, literally anyone can do it. An idea would be use solar energy to turn ocean water into hydrogen. People over complicate hydrogen power by wanting to make it into a complex fuel cell system, but there's no reason to do that (except for better fuel mileage, but we're talking about simpler solutions here).
Mike Ruppert claims that without oil fuel is impossible, even hydrogen, but that's total bullshit. Hydrogen isn't better than ethanol, it takes as much energy to create it as makes, which isn't great, but it's not coming from something that could feed people nor is the energy used to create it coming from another valued source (oil), and there's not a lot of overhead, so there's areas that improvements could be made, and like I said, with solar energy. As for plastics, those too can be made from other sources, such as ethanol. Ethanol would work for that quite well, but for now the plastics from it are those crappy ones you get from like taco bell. There's still about another decade of research until it can make harder plastics.
I've also suggested that building all new homes with solar shingles, and in addition to having a water heater and air conditioner, as every house has today, there's a battery pack. Excess energy can be pumped into the grid. Imagine if every house did this, we'd basically not have to worry about power shortages again.
Fill in the holes with nuclear power and we've got a pretty solid solution. The capital investment would be massive though, especially solar panels, you're talking $20K per house. The money part is not what I'm good at, just the ideas.
It can be done, and should be done, but won't be unless the market decides it, and it won't. Large investments without short term income almost never come from the free market. I know that glenn beck credits the free market with creating the Internet, but it was actually the government which built the large research and development infrastructure to design it, then implement it, and I can't imagine the free market ever deciding this shit. For the longest time the average person didn't even want computers.
