What with the constant stream of advertising about electric vehicles, you'd think that they are gaining ground against conventional cars with internal combustion engines. Not so.

For every Chevrolet Volt GM sold last year, it sold 54 Silverado pickups, according to sales figures released on Wednesday. Chevrolet increased its sales of gas powered cars by 200,000 units from last year, compared to the mere 7,671 Volts sold. These figures don't include increasing sales of vehicles overseas. The number of gas-powered cars on the road is going up far faster than the number of electric vehicles.

A similar story holds true for renewable energy and fossil fuels. So far, the efforts that have gone into building solar panels and wind turbines haven't decreased worldwide fossil fuel use. That continues to grow. At best, they've slowed the rate of growth.