Clean energy is expensive, takes a long time to build, and introduces more problems, but we have no other choice! We can either suffer the consequences of global warming or try to avoid the worst of it. Sticking with fossil fuels is not a choice unless we can somehow make them out of C02 we remove from the atmosphere for that purpose. All the choices we could make to deal with the global energy crisis are terrible, we have to pick the one that hurts the least. We can hurt the economy and stop burning fossil fuels, or we can take almost certainly catastrophic risks with the only planet we have to live on.
People love to blame China, but they are polluting to make goods we then import in many cases and are not responsible for squandering the giant fossil fuel inheritance of the modern age. Of course they may wish to get their share of what remains as long as everyone else is burning it anyway.
The problem with your position is that, on current calculations, and assuming the IPCC calculations are correct, all of the current policies with building solar + wind + other alternatives will change the trajectory by a year or two.
The big lie is that building endless solar panels and windmills is the solution to the problem, when it patently is not. A large game-changer would be needed, and niche technologies patently are not.
Any solar panels or windmills must be backed up by another form of energy, or their intermittent power will be unpredictable and extremely bad for quality of life. So if you have to build a regular power plant to make up for the intermittent nature, then why not just have the one power plant?
If you strongly believe that 'we are taking almost certain catastrophic risks' (paraphrasing) then trying to solve the problem with solar + windmills is like throwing buckets of water onto a housefire. It is simply ineffectual except for making people believe they are doing something.
I never said I thought the current policies that exist are sufficient. Quite the contrary. I completely agree that intermittent power is very hard to work with and I don't know what I said that made it seem otherwise. However, maybe we will have to live with it? Just because it sucks doesn't mean it isn't our best option since we can do a lot to match power demand to irregular power production and make it suck slightly less. I would call modern fission power "clean" energy also in that it doesn't emit loads of carbon. I would support any plan that stops releasing greenhouse gasses and can actually be implemented if enough people support it. Such a plan can include fission, solar, wind, whatever, as long as it meets most of our energy needs, it is possible to build it, and doesn't depend on inventing something new that doesn't exist. Maybe this plan would require us to drastically change how we use electrical power and only let us use "luxury" power when solar power production is high. Who knows. Anything that adds up!
or their intermittent power will be unpredictable and extremely bad for quality of life. So if you have to build a regular power plant to make up for the intermittent nature
You don't have to build a power plant, you have to build power storage, preferably with long distance interconnects.
A back of the envelope calculation shows that solar and wind power can both be useful components of an overall energy solution (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/12/wind-fights-sola... also see David MacKay's excellent book free online http://www.withouthotair.com/). Ultimately, solar is more abundant than wind and is sufficiently abundant that it can be useful in dealing with the energy crisis. But, I don't care, I want any plan that adds up. Solar and wind could be a piece of such a plan so I don't rule them out. Fission is very attractive as well, especially for baseload power. None of these things solve the liquid fuels crisis and there is no sign that we are building ANY of them on a sufficient scale anyway, so we are probably doomed to play dangerous games with the earth's climate.
I don't understand how can you tell that solar is 'too small to matter'. Sunshine is abundant, technology issues have been cracked, panels are already dirt cheap (latest quote i got was 43 cents a watt - but that's for modules, not assembled panels). Nothing technically limits deployment on whatever scale.
Current production capacity is about 60GW/y of cells worldwide but that can grow easily, it was only 6GW/y just 6 years ago, it will be just a decade or so when it arrives to terawatt range, which is enough to cover the (electric) energy needs of the Earth.
There is another choice: geoengineering.[1] Instead of reducing emissions to slow down global warming we actively remove these pollutants from the enviroment around us. I'm not going to comment on it's efficacy though.
As for reality, the problem is that nobody can be precipitous. Those who go with more expensive fuels will immediately put a burden on the local economy and throw themselves out of the competition.
The only thing slightly more horrifying than geoengineering is letting global warming just happen, so I guess you are right. To make what I said more precise, I am looking for a choice that doesn't do dangerous experiments with the earth's climate. Geoengineering does such experiments, but it may be the default choice of inaction we are taking right now.
People love to blame China, but they are polluting to make goods we then import in many cases and are not responsible for squandering the giant fossil fuel inheritance of the modern age. Of course they may wish to get their share of what remains as long as everyone else is burning it anyway.