Regarding Item 8, I tried to find the March 14, 2008 report from NOAA stating "that almost all the ice allegedly lost in the Artic is back" but I could not find it. Please post a link.

I did find a 2010 "Arctic Report Card" through NOAA's website that stated Arctic ice is decling, including the statement "Return to previous Arctic conditions is unlikely" on the front page: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/ArcticReportCard_full_report.pdf

Looks to me that your rebuttal of so-called "Global Warming Alarmists" is likely on rather thin ice.

This 10 year old document could use some serious updating. Some companies are beginning to release "plug & play" type solar assemblies with integrated A/C for rooftops, at a more reasonable cost (and less labor) , much of what the article addresses appears to be outdated technologically. The latest huge oil spills and nuclear disasters highlight the fact that the logic from 10 years ago will not survive. Utilities are beginning to be more mistrusted for the politics they use to keep in place the status quo. They keep trying to use their "expertise" to stifle clean renewable energy development for the rooftop sized consumer.

Back off of the regulations! Instead, make it easier and more cost effective for consumers to own safe sources of power production. With the growing needs of the data world, ) on line multimedia education using streaming 3D with virtual-digital, books.) there will be plenty of opportunity to expand existing utility power resources.

All of the preceding comments make excellent points. I would add that the government (lawmakers) gets involved in engineering and other utility issues because the utility won’t.

Utilities are like any other big business: maximum profit at minimum cost. PCB’s are an example of an issue that they would have loved to ignored. The trend in big business in the past few decades has been for maximizing profits, thus eliminating education, eliminating incentives for employees with longevity, eliminating workers who know how things work (who needs those high priced union employees?).

Much of this type of reasoning goes back to the elimination of taxes on capital gains, which in turned eliminated the re-investment in the business itself. All of the money made is paid out to shareholders, leaving very little to keep the utility prepared for the future.

We reap what we sew.

My 'meta' understanding of both lists is that these negative trends are common to all engineering disciplines, and have been an active influence in American technology for perhaps 20 years. As for the the extremes of politicol left and politcol right in the U.S., the reactionaries will always get their 15 minutes. Rational, competent engineers do not make good press and do not make good sound-bites for congressional hearings.

As for nuclear power - we would not need it if there were not too many people, and if the economic system did not require technological heroism to sustain an insane growth rate. But the extreme left and right will never allow an educational system that emphasizes zero growth for population or for the reduction of capitol wasted in western equity systems that does not contribute to GDP. Human population and economic systems have failed - so we must accept the associated risk of nuclear power.

As for the scientists, I do not doubt the concept of global warming, but I doubt their skill set. I have encountered a PhD biologist (USCD), and a PhD etymologist (UCB) that had no higher math, and neither could understand my undergrad-level 2d order PDEs. So I have reason to doubt the efficacy of the timeline, and/or the rate of change, and/or the predicted affects of increased temperatures.

As a Master Electrician, trained in the US Navy and the state of Connecticut, and having studied the environment in a UNiversity setting for 6 1/2 years, I find one of your ten comments completely stupid and under the influence of Joe the plumber and his republican counterparts. If you can't realize the damage done to our planet by burning fossil fuels, there's no hope for you. Stay ignorant, or get informed, and not by fox news.

Thanks.

As someone who has worked in the past on a new nuke with second thoughts about the economonic and safety issues my mind is made up. As a species we cannot stop meltdowns because its like almost everything else, it is all about the money. False economy nearly caused a reactor containment failure and god knows what else Davis Bessey brought to you by the same penny pinching private power company that started the last big blackout on the east coast. Speaking of blackouts, they are very dangerous to nuck powerhouses since we require only 4 hours of backup power and when all the power is gone things start getting hot, boiling hot, Tokyo Electric Power lost 4 reactors and they had the required 8 hours of backup power until it drowned in the same tsnumi that destroyed the grid connection caused by the earthquake that almost certainly damaged to these plants cooling systems to begin with. And it is not over for the Japanese with this nuclear nightmare.What to do with the waste produced at nukes is an unsolved issue and this is not a small issue. Building out our renewables,drastically better fuel economy for cars and trucks, dracastic new standards for efficiency in everything that consumes power has never been looked at seriously and needs to be. The interests of the well lobbied few cannot continue to destroy innovation that is vital to solving our energy needs. If you can't picture smaller cars, windmills, solar produced power and hot water, factories that use 80% less energy you haven't been to Germany. I can picture those things here and if all of the equipment is manufactured here I can also picture jobs by the millions.