[pwinnski]

Your objection is that natural gas shouldn't be considered non-renewable?

Or that the comparison happens at too high a level?

If you'd like to write about the shift from coal to natural gas, that's probably worth drilling down to one level below this comparison, but that doesn't make this comparison invalid or misleading.

[jtbayly]

When you define "new" in such a way that you can only count renewables then it's really not "new" is it?

Unless you can come up with some stats that prove that all of the non-renewable production that was added was directly replacing old non-renewable production, and all of the renewable production was added just to meet new needs, then you have no case.

[pwinnski]

Last year I ate 100 pounds of food. This year I ate 120 pounds of food. Last year I ate 50 pounds of vegetables and 50 pounds of meat. This yea, I ate 50 pounds of vegetables and 70 pounds of meat.

Is it fair to say that my meat consumption has increased by 20 pounds? Or is it unfair on the grounds that I've not mentioned a big shift from potatoes to carrots within the 50 pounds of vegetables? I mean, my potato consumption is way down, but my carrot consumption is way, way, way up. My carrot consumption has gone up by a bigger percentage than my pork consumption, for sure. Except... it doesn't matter.

My meat consumption went up, and my vegetable consumption remained flat. That's new meat consumption. Shifts from potatoes to carrots and pork to beef are irrelevant to the subject at hand.