To be honest, I reckon even if Climate Change is completely bogus (and I doubt it, scientists would not risk such a huge gamble of reputation just for some research money), the side benefits it produces for the world are worth it in of themselves. Ever since we became unbound from the Malthusian trap, we humans needed a way for sustainable energy sources. And holy crap that space-energy platform that transmits energy down here just sounds....awesome. Come on China, if you can make yourself the no. 1 producer of solar panels, get one up in space!
No, I'll take credit for that. Despite people moaning about AGW and ocean acidification, the two biggest contributors to recent reef die-off are pollution (fertilizer coming in from rivers) and cold (see last year in Florida). Honestly, true environmentalists should be worried about chicken little syndrome and the direction of funding going away from real environmental projects and towards global warming. To get an idea of what I see in the AGW movement, go to this collection of quotes from the watermelon folks: Climate change quotes Oh, and that space solar power? It sounds wonderful, but the man claiming that it's not science fiction, it's current scientific fact is running a line of complete BS. The technology is 10-20 years away. Nuclear fusion has always been 20 years away. I'll leave you with some xkcd goodness:
Technology grows exponentially. Cost efficiencies are achieved by scale. Hydrocarbon costs never include health and environmental cost because of the way our government defines things. Health and environmental savings never get factored into solar costs, before this year in sunny Germany. Government (s) could choose to Manhatten Project solar now, but of course that is not in th financial interest of some. There are 10's of thousands of acres of salt poisoned former agricultural land in Southern Ca you could start paving with solar cells anytime. American made.
