Would you like it if your Power Utility had the authority to control the temperature setting as well as On / Off to your AC?

I dont know the term "Straw Man" but based on the way you use the term, I assume you're being derogatory and insulting. I would have hoped considering your extensive knowledge in the subject you would provide some technical analysis

Disappointing considering you represent the Editorial Team of this publication.

If anyone wants to research the subject of Demand Response and how it works, following are some resource materials:

Demand Response Metering Options: An article from: Energy Markets
By Dileep Rudran

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The Power to Choose: Demand Response in Liberalised Electricity Markets (Energy Market Reform)
By Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development

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What is an advanced meter? The technology behind demand-side response.(Energy Customer Management)(analysis): An article from: Public Utilities Fortnightly (1994)
By Sharon Allan

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Smart meters on the March: new federal policies portend a wave of demand-response programs, and perhaps a new era in resource planning.(Technology Corridor): ... from: Public Utilities Fortnightly (1994)
By Michael T. Burr

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Demand response: keep it market--based: ITP vs. LSE, subsidies, cost recovery, regional coordination--all must be addressed to achieve FERC's goals. (Perspective).(Federal ... from: Public Utilities Fortnightly (1994)
By Michael McGrath

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Advanced Metering: Policy-makers have the ball: Demand response could help solve some energy problems, but not without state regulators pushing for it.: ... from: Public Utilities Fortnightly (1994)
By Chris King

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The choice not to buy: energy savings and policy alternatives for demand response.(consumer demand response pricing for power in light of California energy ... from: Public Utilities Fortnightly (1994)
By Steven Braithwait

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Demand response: an overview of enabling technologies: Oak Ridge National Laboratory engineers say residential and commercial customers must bear the true ... from: Public Utilities Fortnightly (1994)
By Robert H. Staunton

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The response of large firms to different schemes of time-of-use pricing when the production function is quadratic. (electric utility time of use pricing): An article from: The Energy Journal
By Asher Tishler

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Microgrids and demand response: how software controls can bridge the gap between wholesale market prices and consumer behavior. (Tech Corridor).: An article from: Public Utilities Fortnightly (1994)
By J.D. Kueck

Excerpt RE: Demand Response legislation:

(b) In consultation with the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission, adopt energy conservation demand-side management and other initiatives in order to reduce demand for electricity and reduce load during peak demand periods.

Those initiatives shall include, but not be limited to, all of the following:
(1) Expansion and acceleration of residential and commercial weatherization programs.
(2) Expansion and acceleration of programs to inspect and improve the operating efficiency of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning equipment in new and existing buildings, to ensure that these systems achieve the maximum feasible cost-effective energy efficiency.
(3) Expansion and acceleration of programs to improve energy efficiency in new buildings, in order to achieve the maximum feasible reductions in uneconomic energy and peak electricity consumption.
(4) Incentives to equip commercial buildings with the capacity to automatically shut down or dim nonessential lighting and incrementally raise thermostats during peak electricity demand period.
(5) Evaluation of installing local infrastructure to link temperature setback thermostats to real-time price signals.
(6) Incentives for load control and distributed generation to be paid for enhancing reliability.
(7) Differential incentives for renewable or super clean distributed generation resources.
(8) Reevaluation of all efficiency cost-effectiveness tests in light of increases in wholesale electricity costs and of natural gas costs to explicitly include the system value of reduced load on reducing market clearing prices and volatility.
(c) In consultation with the Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission, adopt and implement a residential, commercial, and industrial peak reduction program that encourages electric customers to reduce electricity consumption during peak power periods.

LINK to full text: http://www.dsireusa.org/documents/Incentives/CA23F.htm

Current news from the California Public Utilities Commission: http://www.caiso.com/docs/2003/07/14/2003071414253522183.pdf

If you feel insulted by any challenge to what you write, then you are going to have a hard time.

The poll in isolation seems to be a revival of the lie told about Carter when he suggested we start weaning ourselves from oil. Would that we would have listened to him then and gotten a jump on the problems of today.

In light of your other diary, this poll makes somewhat more sense but still seems to be exaggerating exactly what is being called for. Looking over your excerpt from a California bill, I still don't see precisely how you get your poll question directly from what the bill says without making some assumptions.

The impression I get from many of your posts is that you are trying to scare people out of acting on very real environmental and energy problems. Or, perhaps, more exactly scare them into a needlessly limited range of options. In general I don't disagree with points you bring up but more in what seems to be a version of the right wing "environment vs. economy" myth. More often than not those two things go together rather than compete, though competition at least in the short term can indeed happen. I go the other way. I see we have some big problems that we COULD have dealt with easier long ago but didn't because of a cultural denial of the problems. I focus on showing how this denial is dangerous and that any window of opportunity for mitigation of the problems is closing. THen I focus on what solutions make the most sense for both economics and environment.

I saw this poll as a straw man arguement (look it up...commonly used both as a tactic and as a term in blogging) to scare people away from legislated solutions to our energy/environmental problems ala the same tactics in the Reagan era. Partly that may be because I saw it before I saw your article that comes below this poll. But even so, I see you as framing the issue in a way that strikes me as misleading.

You have accused me of being rude, insluting, derogatory and, privately, of being unscrupulous. I try hard not to be the first three but certainly can err...and so I am looking at your accusations seriously, though I am beginning to wonder how you would fare in the far more harsh arena of NYC political blogging where I have been challenged far more harshly than I have challenged you and come through without trauma. I welcome you to this site by all means, but as I said before, that doesn't mean I have to agree with what you say or how you frame the arguement. I think your framing is misleading and I am saying so.

Considering:

1) The simple to understand yes / no poll was published within minutes and as a companion to the lengthy survey outlining in detail the current state of affairs in many regions of our country. What "Poll in isolation" are you referring to that has any relevance to the material on this page?

2) Considering your commment above:

"There are many, many, many better ways to address the issue of climate change than this and I am not aware of anyone seriously suggesting it."

when taken in the context of the extensive reference list I provided demonstarting nationwide implementation of these programs, including source material from Wikipedia and Current California Law, I'm curious how you feel qualified to provide negative commentary?

When they are posted isn't when I see them...so the poll stands alone when you scroll down the page. Looking it over that may partly be a function of the site structure and the best way you could set up the article with a poll. But it still seems a misleading way of presenting it.

As to the California law, which I looked over, I don't necessarily see that is what the law is doing. I see lots of incentives and such, but I am not sure that the consumer cedes control of their thermastat. They may be encouraged by incentives to lower the thermastat, but I don't see anything that is convincingly forcing consumers to set their thermastats at a certain level. Nor, for that matter, do any of my family or friends in California feel this is happening. How do I feel qualified? Because I don't read the law you present quite the way you are. Show me I'm wrong. I'm capable of admitting error when I become convinced. But it sounds like you are being alarmist when it comes to interpreting these laws a la "floridation of our water will lead to collapse of our society" kind of thing. (Okay I am exaggerating the last part...I don't think you are THAT alarmist. But...)

My method is to present the material in as clear and complete a fashion as possible, offer not only my take on it but also as much reference material as possible for further review (within the format), and let folks use it as an opportunity to learn what's going on in their world, and offer opportunity for folks to express their opinion and additional materials for consideration (without fear of personal attack or demand for authorization to speak).

Hopefully folks who actually work within the relevant Industry(s) or sciences, as well as those with actual personal experience, will weigh in with their experience and bring additional materials to the table for us all to consider.

The value here is folks can review the material I offer, take into consideration your commentary as contrasted to mine, and form their own conclusions.

You present it the way you like...and I criticize it the way I like. Fair enough. No one ever suggested you stop doing it!

As to personal attack, I don't think I personally attacked you...at least not by the standards of the political battle grounds I am used to. As to authorization, no one has said you need authorization. But request for qualifications is perfectly legit. I like to know how well someone knows their stuff. I like the background you seem to be coming from and want to hear your view. Doesn't mean I will agree with you. Nor does it mean someone with less qualifications will be prevented from saying anything. But I have encountered too many people commenting either from complete ignorance (which sometimes translates to spitting back Fox News BS) or from a paid bias (like coal industry folks who have attacked me before, mostly off line). I will challenge people...and I get challenged in return.

RE: Whose "Authority" you require to participate in a conversation, and your suggestion in your comment "no one has said you need authorization" you apparently have a short memory:

Regarding not seeing my Poll in relation to the companion Survey of the material, both were posted last night within minutes of each other and set there together until this morning when you saw and commented on both:

Regarding your claim of not attacking or insulting when you refer to "straw man argument" in your comment above:

From Wikipdia:

Quote:

Straw man
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Straw-man)
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the logical fallacy. For other uses, see Straw man (disambiguation).
A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact misleading, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.

Its name is derived from the practice of using straw men in combat training. In such training, a scarecrow is made in the image of the enemy with the single intent of attacking it.[1] It is occasionally called a straw dog fallacy[2] or a scarecrow argument.

End quote.

Regarding your behavior being consistent within the political debate circles you operate, or for that matter the politicians who claim to befriend, let me say I do not try to emulate NYC behavior.

For that matter I have no idea why you need to understand someone's credentials before you can process the material on the table, it seems more of a manipulation method to discredit to me.

Actually, I was raised in a small rural community, as far as I can tell your behavior of continuously misrepresenting and contradicting your own words from one day to the next is typical of the same anti-social negativity that's running rampant in our society today, and you're debate style of trash the other person instead of focus on the material is typical of the lowest common denominator of our culture.

Save your tactics for your politician friends where I'm sure you feel at home.

From my point of view you have been more insulting than I have been. I accused you of setting up a straw man arguement and I asked someone what their qualifications were to make the claim of inevitiablilty of global warming consequences. That person answered me simply and reasonably and we moved on. You have accused me of being rude, lying and a whole host of other things. At no point did I suggest that someone who wasn't "qualified" in some way couldn't post or that I was in any way a final arbitrator of qualifications. Someone made a definitive statement that remains controversial among the top scientists in the field. I wanted to make that point: that the statement made was still controversial. No one else seems to have thought I was THAT much out of line. In this comment you imply that I have questioned YOUR qualifications. In reality I have spent more time indicating that I appreciate the qualifications you bring to this site and that I welcome you to the site.

You make some very authoritative statements. In some cases you have indeed been misleading. Your statement about ice sheets getting thicker first of all ignored that short term thickening is predicted by many models and secondly ignores the more recent data indicating that the ice sheets are now losing ice to the oceans, which is, as you initially pointed out, what would raise sea level. So I question you on those statements I find misleading. As you do regarding my statements. THAT IS REASONABLE in a debate. Please don't take a challenge as an attack.

I do not think I have been inconsistent or misleading. I don't feel I have anything to apologize for. Sorry if you think differently but I think I am within the bounds of reasonable debate. I don't appreciate you calling me dishonest, but if that is what you think I am being, you have the right to say it. I merely register my disagreement with your assessment.

I always reserve the right to question any aspect of what a person writes...not even as an editor, but as a participant. There is no threat in my asking on what authority people say things. I just think it is nice to know where people are coming from. Also, I would be far more open to the complaint had it come from the person I challenged. I admire your being protective of friends. That's a good thing. But so far you are the only one who is saying I was wrong to approach it the way I did. I am doing pretty well with the style I have blogging and don't see a major need to change it. It's working. But I always aim to be acomodating of others' comfort zones. My offer is this: if you think I am out of line, give me a nudge. Tell me you think I was out of line. I promise to take it into account any time you mention it, though I also reserve the right to disagree.

Deal.