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/edit/ thanks for updating the headline. The title seems misleading. I suggest changing it to: "Solar, wind, plus other renewables predicted to beat coal for

/edit/ thanks for updating the headline. The title seems misleading. I suggest changing it to: "Solar, wind, plus other renewables predicted to beat coal for the first time in US later this year." It's clear from the chart that the trend of coal generated power decreases later in the year before increasing again. The reverse is true of renewables. It's during this time where renewables generation is at it's annual high while coal is at it's annual low that this predicted event is expected. The title is misleading even though it is welcome news.

khawkins 7y ago
The author links to a study guide for elementary school students in the first paragraph. This should be a hint as to how little the author thinks of the intellectual capacity of his readers.
- yellowapple 7y ago
  Yes, because God forbid an author cares enough to make sure as many readers as possible have at least some basic education on a subject. Most individuals will each have (at best) an elementary-school-level understanding of most topics. That's the nature of humans having finite time to learn about things. Shaming people for actually trying to help with that is exactly why so many people lack the educational background to know that man-made climate change is actually a real thing.
  - khawkins 7y ago
    Unless you're literally writing for elementary school kids, speaking to an adult or even teenager as if they are that young is an insult. The lack of belief in climate change isn't a a problem of a lack of education, its a problem of a lack of trust in the institutions which say it is a problem. You can understand the greenhouse effect, radiative forcing, the relative effects of methane and CO2, ice core samples, tree ring proxies, solar cycles, IPCC reports, cloud albedo, heat island effects, ocean heat sink effects, etc., and know how these scientific theories factor into climate science, but still be skeptical about whether anthropogenic climate change is a drastically harmful phenomenon. Understanding scientists think about climate science doesn't mean their predictions and theories will hold out. The fact that IPCC predictions from 20 years ago didn't anticipate the flat line in global temperature over recent years suggest a science that isn't fully matured. The fact that there is so much paranoia coming from politicians and global governing bodies, inconsistent with what IPCC reports claim, suggests something fishy. Even observers who are largely ignorant about the specifics of the issue can sense that there is an amount of zealotry involved in confirming climate change's apocalyptic predictions. It's easy to believe significant bias is affecting climate science results.
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      "Flat line" [citation needed]. Indeed there is something fishy: climate denialism is as fishy as holocaust denialism, sixth-extinction denialism, moon-landing denialism, vaccine-benefit denialism, evolution-denialism, and spherical-earth denialism.
      - khawkins 7y ago
        The holocaust was an event witnessed by countless individuals, complete with historical documents and physical evidence of concentration camps. The moon landing was witnessed by a few dozen people, but supported by the efforts of many engineers. The spherical earth has been witnessed directly by hundreds and satellites themselves can be witnessed with telescopes. Anthropogenic climate change is an increase in aggregate global temperature, imperceptible to any one individual, which only shows a slight trend over a 100 year period when yearly cycles are removed. It posits that a modest rise in sea levels over 100 years, along with a small increase in global temperatures aren't natural, despite plenty of evidence that even more dramatic changes happen throughout natural history without humans. It claims that hurricane activity will increase dramatically, despite no evidence that that has occurred over the past century. It claims that a slight increase in sea levels will lead to the deaths of many thousands, despite the fact that poor building standards in poor countries already contribute to thousands dead every year, and reducing carbon emissions does nothing to improve that. No, not believing anthropogenic climate change is leading us to apocalyptic catastrophe is not the same as denying events that have firm evidence.
    - yellowapple 7y ago
      > Unless you're literally writing for elementary school kids, speaking to an adult or even teenager as if they are that young is an insult. Only if you're irrationally defensive about your level of intellect. > You can understand the greenhouse effect, radiative forcing, the relative effects of methane and CO2, ice core samples, tree ring proxies, solar cycles, IPCC reports, cloud albedo, heat island effects, ocean heat sink effects, etc., and know how these scientific theories factor into climate science, but still be skeptical about whether anthropogenic climate change is a drastically harmful phenomenon. If you actually do understand these things (and have been receiving accurate and complete information about these things) and know how they factor into climate science, then it's highly unlikely that your conclusion will be "well I ain't really sure that anthropogenic climate change is a problem". The people who do know a heck of a lot more about these things than I do almost universally seem to agree that anthropogenic climate change is a problem. I'm sure it's possible to have some other conclusion, in the sense that it's possible that there's someone whose favorite flavor of ice cream is peanut butter and pickled herring, but of the people who appear to be qualified to determine whether or not humankind is causing destructive climate change, an astonishingly low number of them seem to actually be skeptical of that. My only skepticism over the years has stemmed from not understanding with sufficient clarity how Earth's meteorological systems actually work. That's where the factions opposing climate change historically failed; it's always been about Americans (and non-Americans, but Americans are the context of this particular article, and the context with which I'm at least marginally more familiar, being an American myself) not having sufficient education on the subject, probably because those scientists are too busy with their number-crunching to be assed to distill their findings into something more readily understood by a layperson. And sure, it's possible to distill something to layperson-comprehensibility without distilling it down to laychild-comprehensibility, but even the latter is leaps and bounds better than nothing at all, and I'll welcome it with open arms.
dang 7y ago
Ok! changed.

khawkins 7y ago

The author links to a study guide for elementary school students in the first paragraph. This should be a hint as to how little the author thinks of the intellectual capacity of his readers.

yellowapple 7y ago
Yes, because God forbid an author cares enough to make sure as many readers as possible have at least some basic education on a subject. Most individuals will each have (at best) an elementary-school-level understanding of most topics. That's the nature of humans having finite time to learn about things. Shaming people for actually trying to help with that is exactly why so many people lack the educational background to know that man-made climate change is actually a real thing.
- khawkins 7y ago
  Unless you're literally writing for elementary school kids, speaking to an adult or even teenager as if they are that young is an insult. The lack of belief in climate change isn't a a problem of a lack of education, its a problem of a lack of trust in the institutions which say it is a problem. You can understand the greenhouse effect, radiative forcing, the relative effects of methane and CO2, ice core samples, tree ring proxies, solar cycles, IPCC reports, cloud albedo, heat island effects, ocean heat sink effects, etc., and know how these scientific theories factor into climate science, but still be skeptical about whether anthropogenic climate change is a drastically harmful phenomenon. Understanding scientists think about climate science doesn't mean their predictions and theories will hold out. The fact that IPCC predictions from 20 years ago didn't anticipate the flat line in global temperature over recent years suggest a science that isn't fully matured. The fact that there is so much paranoia coming from politicians and global governing bodies, inconsistent with what IPCC reports claim, suggests something fishy. Even observers who are largely ignorant about the specifics of the issue can sense that there is an amount of zealotry involved in confirming climate change's apocalyptic predictions. It's easy to believe significant bias is affecting climate science results.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    "Flat line" [citation needed]. Indeed there is something fishy: climate denialism is as fishy as holocaust denialism, sixth-extinction denialism, moon-landing denialism, vaccine-benefit denialism, evolution-denialism, and spherical-earth denialism.
    - khawkins 7y ago
      The holocaust was an event witnessed by countless individuals, complete with historical documents and physical evidence of concentration camps. The moon landing was witnessed by a few dozen people, but supported by the efforts of many engineers. The spherical earth has been witnessed directly by hundreds and satellites themselves can be witnessed with telescopes. Anthropogenic climate change is an increase in aggregate global temperature, imperceptible to any one individual, which only shows a slight trend over a 100 year period when yearly cycles are removed. It posits that a modest rise in sea levels over 100 years, along with a small increase in global temperatures aren't natural, despite plenty of evidence that even more dramatic changes happen throughout natural history without humans. It claims that hurricane activity will increase dramatically, despite no evidence that that has occurred over the past century. It claims that a slight increase in sea levels will lead to the deaths of many thousands, despite the fact that poor building standards in poor countries already contribute to thousands dead every year, and reducing carbon emissions does nothing to improve that. No, not believing anthropogenic climate change is leading us to apocalyptic catastrophe is not the same as denying events that have firm evidence.
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    > Unless you're literally writing for elementary school kids, speaking to an adult or even teenager as if they are that young is an insult. Only if you're irrationally defensive about your level of intellect. > You can understand the greenhouse effect, radiative forcing, the relative effects of methane and CO2, ice core samples, tree ring proxies, solar cycles, IPCC reports, cloud albedo, heat island effects, ocean heat sink effects, etc., and know how these scientific theories factor into climate science, but still be skeptical about whether anthropogenic climate change is a drastically harmful phenomenon. If you actually do understand these things (and have been receiving accurate and complete information about these things) and know how they factor into climate science, then it's highly unlikely that your conclusion will be "well I ain't really sure that anthropogenic climate change is a problem". The people who do know a heck of a lot more about these things than I do almost universally seem to agree that anthropogenic climate change is a problem. I'm sure it's possible to have some other conclusion, in the sense that it's possible that there's someone whose favorite flavor of ice cream is peanut butter and pickled herring, but of the people who appear to be qualified to determine whether or not humankind is causing destructive climate change, an astonishingly low number of them seem to actually be skeptical of that. My only skepticism over the years has stemmed from not understanding with sufficient clarity how Earth's meteorological systems actually work. That's where the factions opposing climate change historically failed; it's always been about Americans (and non-Americans, but Americans are the context of this particular article, and the context with which I'm at least marginally more familiar, being an American myself) not having sufficient education on the subject, probably because those scientists are too busy with their number-crunching to be assed to distill their findings into something more readily understood by a layperson. And sure, it's possible to distill something to layperson-comprehensibility without distilling it down to laychild-comprehensibility, but even the latter is leaps and bounds better than nothing at all, and I'll welcome it with open arms.

dang 7y ago

Ok! changed.