As an engineer who has spent the last 35 years designing and building and living each day on the renewable energies these guys speak of I am asking them to come down from their exclusive ivory towers and stop making such idiotic statements as "we don't need fossil fuels"

For those well informed and educated on the potential and limitations of renewable energy they essentially are 'crying wolf'

The evidence does not support our getting off of fossil fuels for many many decades if ever

If they want to make their case they need to qualify it by stating the truth

We will continue to need fossil fuel and more and more of it so long as we feel 'we can have our cake and eat it too'

Without drastic and fundamental changes in our lifestyles,our food choices,our homes and how we get around to name just a few the total transition to renewable energy is just a dream

Avoiding the real issues of transition can only lead to that dream becoming a nightmare

Thom Hartmann is one who cries wolf far too often

He is not a lone voice though

Many other 'wolves' howl just as loud and in many cases are paid (fed) in amounts equal to their db level

Just a quick post to thank you for all the time and effort it obviously required to respond in such an articulate and well thought out manner to such challenging subject matter.

I don't think anyone said that we can drop fossil fuels today and be ok. I heard a "few decades", which is not that precise, but to me a few means 5, five decades to transition. That would be 2064 right?

I question your sincerity.

As for crying wolf, that would imply that there is no wolf, and that is pathetically and intentionally wrong-headed.

One more note, accusing Hartman of acting on the basis of being paid is the most absurd thing that you wrote, and that is saying something.

"I don't think anyone said that we can drop fossil fuels today and be ok"

Well at least you got that correct
I did not even imply this

Hartman acting on the basis of being paid??
Reread what I wrote and then take some time to think about the one issue I did bring up

The man said (and as someone who is deeply involved in all aspects of renewable energy and have even had a face to face with one of the guys on the video who is from Stanford), I hear this far too often, "we don't need fossil fuels".

This is a verbatim quote

Had he stated that "we don't need fossil fuels if we can accept a radical change in our lifestyles" then the whole argument is moot.

Yet as I clearly spelled out in my post there is virtually no questioning at any level of the all too often accepted , absurd notion , that without major efforts toward lifestyle changes on a grand scale worldwide, along with any acknowledgment that there is not now nor will there ever (on this planet at least) be a replacement of fossil fuels having equal or even marginally equivalent energy densities and properties to what is currently available from fossil fuels renewables 'will not fill the bill'

Our entire current reality depends almost exclusively on these properties.
That includes our entire financial system since there really is no such thing as money without energy in some form

OH!
BTW have you ever had a sit down face to face with Mr Hartman?

I have and I like the guy but even he will acknowledge that we all see things through far too tinted rose colored glasses

That's when he is speaking one on one and not for general consumption.

So 'there is where I'm at'

How about you?

Answer my question. Did you watch the farkin video or not? Defend your bullshit.

As for the pessimistic naysayer upthread, all have to say is, someday we will get off fossil fuels. Don't shoot down the ambition.