Whether we consider coal-mine deaths, or deaths above ground (30,000 - 60,000 in the U.S. annually, depending on which study you read), non-renewable energy takes a stunning toll on humanity. To be sure, going without power would be an even greater killer, since electricity runs most of the life-sustaining and enhancing equipment we take for granted. This boon of energy comes at a huge cost, however, and it does not have to be an either/or choice. Renewable energy has been technically feasible for decades, but a national energy policy which rewards and supports fossil energy producers keeps it from being realized.

The worst travesty is that for all the coal we mine, most of the energy produced is wasted. Over 65% thermal conversion loss occurs (Source: EIA Annual Energy Review 2006) in thermal power plants. There's got to be a better way.

There are so many alternative choices, it's staggering. Wind, which is coming on strong, tidal power, solar (100 by 100 miles of solar collectors could supply enough energy for the entire country, according to Sandia National Labs), and the biggest source of all: the hot rock underneath our feet. The USGS has a downloadable document about geothermal energy which states the following:

Even if only 1 percent of the thermal energy contained within the uppermost 10 kilometers of our planet could be tapped, this amount would be 500 times that contained in all oil and gas resources of the world.

I mentioned respiratory deaths earlier, but we haven't even considered the deaths and massive expenditures required to keep U.S. oil imports flowing. North American natural gas has peaked, and soon we will be importing that too, if the business-as-usual crowd has their way. Now that we have C02 to consider in the equation, it is nothing short of criminal to keep consuming coal and other fossil fuels. There is only one reason it's happening, and it's the same motivation which underlies the equally deadly global arms trade--money.

But there are fortunes to be made in renewable energy as well. Big fortunes. All it takes is a government with the political will to slap down the entrenched kleptocrats in the fossil industries. Let's call a halt to the murderous and wasteful U.S. energy policy. Our planet and our lives literally depend on it.

The dark side of religious cultural relativism and the demeaning of knowledge, that is. That this article was written without a trace of irony is most telling. Especially sentences like "there still isn't consensus on just how the apocalypse will come down or who goes to heaven and when."

Slack used a weak notion of argumentum ad populum, by suggesting that it's relevant that an approximately equal number of Americans believe in 'creationism' as accept evolution. All that statistic proves is how bad our science education has really gotten.

Why not try actually reporting on the know-nothings if you're going to talk about them? Like: ask them some non-softball questions and take down their ridiculous charade of false certitudes and credulity.

"Darwin has nothing on the Book of Genesis." Reason obviously has nothing on Mr. Slack's fantasy life. What a sick joke.

Your vague "feelings" about man being "too weak to affect nature" are absolutely meaningless in the face of consensus science. You think you have the intellectual stature to claim global warming is bunk by pure authority?? Thousands of mainstream and reputable scientists say you are dead wrong.

No doubt you will grasp at the straws of the few fringe scientists who have sensed an opportunity for advancement in taking a contrarian position. But they are asking us to play Russian Roulette with human civilization--and you are helping them!

Camille, you have just revealed yourself to be a full-fledged science-denier--by definition a subverter of the only kind of human knowledge that matters, and an unwitting (I have to hope) shill for the fossil-fuel industry (including the middle-east oil exporters).

Yes, you have released the proverbial hornet's nest. But the only thing the hornets will sting (fatally) is your own credibility.

Even Newt Gingrich, who apparently actually now takes the science seriously, realizes how grave the situation is, and has switched sides in the debate.

So what's a liberal icon such as yourself doing choosing to promote opinion over facts??

Wrong has truly become right.

Shame on you.

Please, Salon. Do something. Anthropogenic global warming is far past the point of debate. 1,400 pages of the IPCC report back this up. You can't hide behind the fact that you published Paglia as an opinion piece. Your name is on it. It's an utter betrayal of your intellectual honesty and journalistic integrity. You now have a duty to balance these reckless distortions with a factual article.

McKibben gets too carried away on what seems like a moral crusade against consumers and technology. We have only one problem: The price of goods and services do not reflect their true cost, neither in the natural capital used to make them, nor in the costs of their disposal.

If we price in externalities such as pollution, carbon, oil-depletion, and other impacts, we won't have to change anything else about the system. Globalization isn't the problem, it's the cure.

Talk about a "one-time-gift?" How about getting the governments of the world to mandate true pricing for all goods and services!