Several months ago I posted an article titled, Relative Negative Effects of Energy Sources. In that article I postulated that the negative effects of various energy sources are about the same on the whole and in the long-term. I said this about the generation of electricity using solar panels:

The impact on the environment appears to be about zero, until you account for the manufacture and transportation of the panels. Think about the magnitude of an operation to keep all the homes and businesses in the world supplied with enough solar panels to supply their total power needs. And what about the batteries and their disposal issues?

I've reconsidered the first sentence above. There could be significant negative effects aside from the manufacture and transportation of the panels.

The glowarmists (yes, I believe it is an "ism") insist that the amount of "greenhouse" gases in the atmosphere must be significantly reduced if we are to avert a disaster in the next few decades. They base their claim on the fact that gases in the atmosphere trap heat from the sun's rays that are reflected from the earth's surface, much like greenhouses trap heat from the sun's rays.

(Most people agree that the greenhouse effect exists, but many disagree that human activity is a significant contributor or that it deserves the level of attention that the glowarmists want.)

My question is: If any increase in trapped heat from the sun is undesirable, and for some a pending crisis, why do we want to trap more of the sun's heat in solar panels? Eliminating the coal-fired and oil-fired power plants might indeed reduce the greenhouse effect, but replacing those plants with enough solar panels to generate the same amount of energy will likely trap the same amount of heat. The point of solar panels is to not reflect the sun's rays, but to absorb them and convert the sunlight into electricity. Unfortunately, the process of converting light into electricity wastes most of the energy as heat and that heat can raise the global average temperature.

How much? Who knows? I'm just saying that we should gather more data and gain more knowledge before we depress the world economy and slow the progress of developing nations as the glowarmists apparently want. Their agenda is rife with the potential for unintended consequences. Or are they unintended?