"The State of Karnataka is reasonably well electrified. One has to travel deep into the rain forests to find an area without wiring.  Almost all of our systems in this state are in homes with electricity from the grid.  However, because of the uncertainty of when power is actually available and the cost, the villagers are interested in alternative power sources."

The power consumption of India increasingly affects the world, right?

It feels like we still have a challenge of avoiding the point of no return with global warming, right?

India and China are the big incremental users of energy for the next 30 years. Kids still study in India by Kerosene lamp. China is close to the point of political disruption if they don't do something to improve the environment. Beijing and Hong Kong are Los Angeles 50 years ago. It can be done but there has to be an economic or a political reason to do it. 

The challenge of Global Warming has hit the point of no return unless we come up with carbon capture technologies. There is no way alternative energy will offset the burning of hydrocarbons given the technologies that allow us to extract even more of the carbon than we could before. Carbon capture won't even work unless the technology advances significantly and there is no incentive to do that without an explicit price on Carbon. Unfortunately we have the Inhofes of the world who still think this is all a hoax. Actually, it's hard to believe he really thinks that, but he has an idiocracy that votes for him and believes what he says even if he doesn't really believe it.

BTW, have you seen the movie, "Idiocracy?" A terribly made movie but a fascinating parable. Hard to find except on Amazon.  I think about it every time I open up the NY Post or watch Fox News.  

I've seen the movie an it supposes that humans will be around many years from now.

I'm not actually sure that will be so -- given that we have already hit the Global Warming point of no return.

Sort of coincides with hitting the IQ point of no return

It makes me wonder why there isn't more panic about Global Warming.

Has the world gotten desensitized to what's happening?

There is panic and reaction in Europe but not elsewhere. Europe, particularly Germany, is ahead of the curve to some extent on the belief that the rest of the world will ultimately have to react and Germany will have the technology to sell to them. By 2014 they will have in place a hydrogen fueling infrastructure (as will Japan). Doesn't do much good unless the rest of the world acts. It will take a series of climate disasters to get ROTW attention. Everyone seems to believe that someone else will solve the problem, and in the meantime life goes on--until it doesn't. 

In the meantime, the overpopulation explosion seems to be accelerating.

We flew by 7 billion people. How long before we're at 10 billion?

How long before India has a larger population than China?