Faux-green Enviro-fanatics Hide Their Sins…A Diesel Spill, no less!

Week-end Humour! Green Group Dumps Oil on Great Barrier Reef

Posted: 01 Aug 2014 12:38 AM PDT

It may not be Australia’s Exxon Valdez,  but when a ship dumps 500 litres of diesel into the pristine Trinity Inlet at the Great Barrier Reef, there would be headlines around the world, wouldn’t there?

Well, wouldn’t there?

And wouldn’t the Greens led by Christine Moan and the “Sea Patrol” Devotee Sarah Hanson-Bling be screaming to the high heavens?

Well, it happened. And they didn’t raise a murmur.

In fact it happen five months ago.

Do you remember the headlines in all the Main stream Media (MSM)?  Did you see ANY headlines in the MSM?

If the answer is no; obviously you do not read the Cairns Post. (LINK)

diesel spill that dropped up to 500 litres

of diesel into the Trinity Inlet

And why, you pry, didn’t we hear a cry? Shouldn’t they fry? Who was the bad guy? Was it Captain Bligh? No, according to Moan and Hanson-Bling it was a good guy!
It was the New Atlantis under the Captainship of the Green’s Fellow Earthling Bob Brown, Sea Shepherd extraordinaire.

….ship owned by conservation group Sea Shepherd dropped up to 500 litres of diesel into the Trinity Inlet. The environmental organisation, whose Australian arm is chaired by former politician Bob Brown, yesterday pleaded guilty to the marine pollution offence in the Cairns Magistrates Court.

Surely you heard about it, didn’t you?  You would have heard about it

  • From the SMH and the Age
  • Blasted over “our” ABC’s speakers;
  • From 7’s Mark Riley and 9’s Laurie Oakes;
  • The Deafening wail from the Greens;
Did the crew of the Sea Shepherd discover the dreadful leak?    NO.

The court was told a passerby noticed diesel flowing into the sea about 6.30pm and tried to alert crew members before notifying the master of a ship moored alongside who boarded the New Atlantis and told them.

“She noticed a strong smell of diesel fuel and saw liquid running from the New Atlantis into the water,” the court document read.

“The smell was so strong the passerby had to put a jumper over her nose … “

Well, even if the Greens, the MSM and the TV channels didn’t think to mention it, the Magistrate thought that it was significant.

Magistrate Kevin Priestly called the amount “not insignificant” and questioned why a crewman was performing the fuel transfer and not the chief engineer.

Department of Transport and Main Roads prosecutor Anne Roseler called for a penalty of between $15,000 and $30,000. Mr Priestly adjourned the decision to a date to be fixed.

Hhmmmmm…….

Agenda 21 Rears It’s Ugly Head! Do Not Let These People On Your Property!

The Curious Story of the MNR and the University of Waterloo by Shirley Dolan

Published August 1, 2014 

Last month Donna Burns wrote about a scheme cooked up by the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) that involved a company called Thunderhouse Forest Services (TFS) from Hearst Ontario whereby TFS, with the support of MNR, were studying trees and species habitat on private property – without the permission of the property owner. See the full story here. The study seemed to be taking place mostly in Renfrew County. We now have a similar story coming from Landowners in the Niagara Region – and it is very bizarre!

The MNR administers two programs for eligible landowners: Conservation Land Tax Incentive Program (CLTIP) and Managed Forest Tax Incentive Program (MFTIP). These two voluntary programs are available to landowners and offer 100% tax exception in the case of the CLTIP and 25% of the municipal tax rate for the MFTIP if the property owner is eligible and complies with the program’s land use restrictions.

Landowners in Ontario have been receiving letters from the University of Waterloo School of Planning, requesting their participation in a research project investigating landowners’ views on these two programs. According to a letter sent to the sampled landowners, the study has the support of the MNR, and according to information about the study, the participants’ names and addresses were drawn from the MNR’s database of CLTIP and MFTIP eligible landowners. Eligible appears to mean “could qualify for the program but not necessarily in the program”. Did you know the MNR keeps a list of landowners who might be eligible for these two programs?

The information sheet goes on to say that “It is anticipated that the results from the study will in time assist decision-making as well as design and administration of programs in order to promote successful environmental stewardship on private lands in Ontario”. This statement combined with the fact that the survey director is from the University of Waterloo School of Planning should set off warning bells with anyone who has received a request to participate in the study.

The story gets even more twisted. The study is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Ever heard of them? I hadn’t, so I had a look at their website where it says: leading initiatives that reflect a commitment to ensuring a better future for Canada and the world.

Created by an act of Canada’s Parliament in 1977, SSHRC reports to Parliament through the Minister of Industry.”

Curiouser and curiouser! I’m not sure how the University of Waterloo’s study fits with this mandate, but part of the funding provided by SSHRC was distributed in the form of $5 bills included in the letter sent to the 1200 landowners selected to participate in the study. If this wasn’t bizarre enough, the letter goes on to say that “… because of the rules of the Revenue Canada Agency, we have to let you know that the amount received is taxable and that it is your responsibility to report this amount for income tax purposes.”

So let me get this straight: the University of Waterloo School of Planning is conducting a survey, with the support of the MNR, funded by a federal agency SSHRC, and part of the incentive to participate is an unsolicited gift of $5 of our tax money. And the objective is to learn how to better promote control of private property (my interpretation). Further, the landowner has to remember to claim that $5 bill on his income tax.

Stay tuned! This story warrants more research.

Climate Alarmists are Terrified that Their Faux-Green Subsidies Will Dry Up!

Climate alarmists never quit

 

fear dice

In the same way Americans are discovering that the Cold War that was waged from the end of World War Two until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 is not over, Americans continue to be subjected to the endless, massive, global campaign to foist the hoax of global warming–now called climate change—on everyone.

The campaign’s purpose to convince everyone that it is humans, not the sun, oceans, and other natural phenomenon, and that requires abandoning fossil fuels in favor of “renewable” wind and solar energy.

It is not surprising that climate alarmists, who desire above all else blind allegiance to their cause, would demand all school teachers toe the ‘official party line’ and quash any dissent on the subject of man-made global warming in their classroom,” says Craig Rucker, the Executive Director of co-founder of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). “What is absurd is that any teacher or free-thinking person for that matter would listen to them.”

These days when I am challenged regarding my views about global warming, climate change or energy I send the individual to www.climatedepot.com  and www.energydepot.com, two constantly updated websites filled with links to information on these topics. Both are maintained by CFACT.

It’s not just our classrooms where Green indoctrination goes on. It is also our news media that continue to distort every weather event to advance the hoax. Guiding and feeding them is a massive complex of organizations led by the United Nations—the International Panel on Climate Change—that maintains the hoax to frighten people worldwide in order to achieve “one world order.”

On September 23, heads of state, including President Obama, will gather in New York City for what the Sierra Club calls “a historic summit on climate change. With our future on the line, we will take a weekend and use it to bend the course of history” to save the world from “the ravages of climate change.” Does the Left truly believe it can tax, redistribute and regulate the world to an ideal temperature?  This is absurd.

One of the leading Leftist organizations, the Center for American Progress, focused on the July 14 Major Economics Forum in Paris, offered four items for its agenda. Claiming that “the Arctic is warming two times faster than any other region on earth”, they wanted policy changes based on this falsehood. They blamed climate change for “global poverty” and wanted further reductions in so-called greenhouse gas emissions from energy use. The enemy, as far as they were concerned was energy use.

Mary Hutzler, a senior research fellow of the Institute for Energy Research, testified before a July 22nd meeting of the Senate Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, that due to Europe’s green energy (wind and solar) policies, industrial electricity prices are two-to-five times higher than in the U.S. and that, by 2020, 1.4 million European households will be added to those experiencing energy poverty.

There are lessons to be learned, for example, from Spain’s investment in wind energy that caused the loss of four jobs for the electricity it produced and 13 jobs for every megawatt of solar energy. In Germany, the cost of electricity is three times higher than average U.S. residential prices. Little wonder that European nations are now slashing wind and solar programs.

Billions Wasted to Combat Global Warming

In the U.S., the Obama administration used its “stimulus” to fund Solyndra—$500 million dollars—and fifty other Green energy projects that have failed or are on their way to failure. Undeterred with this appalling record, on July 3 the Energy Department announced $4 billion for “projects that fight global warming.”

But there is no global warming. The Earth has been in a cooling cycle for seventeen years and it shows no indication of ending anytime soon. This is the same administration that has waged a war on coal, forcing the closure of many plants that produced electricity efficiently and affordably, and had throughout the last century.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2014 weather highlights showed that, from January to June, the temperature in the U.S. has risen by a miniscule 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit compared with the average temperature for the 20th century. NOAA also noted that recorded temperatures for the first half of 2014 are the coldest since 1993 when the cooling cycle began. The exception to this has been California.

Brainwashed for decades about global warming, 20% of likely voters, according to a July Rasmussen poll, still believe that global warming is not over, colder weather or not, 17% were not sure, but fully 63% disagreed!

The results of a Pew Research Center poll in June revealed that 35% of Americans say there is not enough solid evidence to suggest mankind is warming the Earth while another 18% says the world has warmed due to “natural patterns”, not human activity. Pew found that liberals remain convinced that humans are to blame, but the bottom line is that 53% disputed the President’s claims.

That means that a growing numbers of Americans are now skeptics.

In the months to come we will see marches and meetings intended to further the global warming hype.  The good news is that fewer Americans are being influenced by such efforts.

– See more at: http://www.cfact.org/2014/07/31/climate-alarmists-never-quit/?utm_source=CFACT+Updates&utm_campaign=b826f6dbb4-Facts_vs_fear8_1_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a28eaedb56-b826f6dbb4-270050433#sthash.o1jqDV6b.dpuf

You can’t Play Nice, With Liars and Crooks!

Understanding The Divergence Problem

An amazing story of scientific fraud. Probably the biggest scientific fraud in history.

As of 1975, both the instrumental and the tree ring data showed sharp cooling from 1940 to 1970

ScreenHunter_166 Mar. 02 23.33

1975 National Academy of Sciences

screenhunter_165-mar-02-23-27

Briffa’s Trees

The next graph overlays Briffa’s trees on the 1975 National Academy of Sciences graph. Almost a perfect match.

ScreenHunter_168 Mar. 02 23.38

NOAA radiosonde data from the 1070’s also showed the sharp cooling

ScreenHunter_1484 Jul. 31 23.41

There was a unanimous consensus of scientists for global cooling

ScreenHunter_92 Feb. 03 07.49

SCIENTISTS AGREE WORLD IS COLDER – But Climate Experts Meeting Here Fail to Agree on Reasons for Change – View Article – NYTimes.com

None of this fit the global warming agenda, so they simply changed the temperature record to “remove the 1940’s blip” and eliminate the post-1940 cooling.

ScreenHunter_1485 Jul. 31 23.46

After massively altering the temperature record, they were then able to delete Briffa’s trees – by claiming that they didn’t match the massively altered surface record. Deleting Briffa’s trees opened the door for Mikey to make his Hokey Stick, and an even larger bonus was that it gave the team an excuse to turn the US cooling trend into a warming trend – because it didn’t match their massively altered global temperature trend.

Some skeptics believe they are being good citizens, by playing nicely with the crooks behind this fraud.

The Faux-green Pyramid Scheme… Digging Up the Evidence!

HOW TO GET INFORMATION OUT OF THE EPA

By on 7.30.14 

In January 2012, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Environmental Protection Agency asking for copies of correspondence between the EPA and various green groups active in the Marcellus Shale region. The request was filed on behalf of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, the parent company of Watchdog.org. The FOIA asked the agency to provide us with “any discussion and correspondence with outside groups that concerns potential regulatory action that would impact the fracking process.”

This was not an open-ended request. By design, it was limited since the Marcellus Shale cuts across Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. The request was also limited to the green groups most active in the region. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Union of Concerned Scientists, EarthJustice, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, and Earthworks are among the groups named in the request. We also asked for communication between the EPA and the Park Foundation, based in Ithaca, New York, which is largely responsible for funding green activism in the region.

After going through the usual fee-waiver request, denial, and appeal process, the EPA finally said it would comply a few months later. Finally, in December 2013, Frederick No, a FOIA officer in the EPA, was kind enough to offer some material. It was very heavy on EPA research into the process of hydraulic fracturing used to extract natural gas, but very light on the actual correspondence that was requested. Still, it was at least a response, and I thank Mr. No for making the effort. Studies continue to show that the fracking process is safe and effective, but this has not dissuaded groups like the NRDC working to keep a moratorium in effect in New York, which could use the jobs that would be created with natural gas production. Meanwhile, the EPA has found a way to keep a lid on the input green groups have had in pursuing anti-energy regulations.

But there is some good news. At a time when the EPA is suffocating the American economy with regulations built on top of unsubstantiated scientific claims, a savvy team of attorneys has seized upon an “obscure, but potentially” powerful federal law that could force the agency to disclose its concealed data.

The non-profit Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD), based in Princeton, New Jersey, has filed a new 145-page Freedom of Information Act request with the EPA that asks the agency to release reports and records the agency has that were used to justify its 2009 greenhouse gas (GHG) endangerment finding under the Clean Air Act (CAA). Specifically, the FOIA asks the agency to detail, step-by-step, how it complied with “highest and most rigorous standards applicable to what are called highly influential scientific assessments, or HISAs, imposed by the Information Quality Act (IQA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).”

“ITSSD research findings clearly show that EPA had systematically failed to comply with the Information Quality Act’s most rigorous and least discretionary peer review standards which governed how it should have validated and not merely reviewed the many highly influential science assessments that supported its controversial 2009 Clean Air Act GHG endangerment findings,” Lawrence Kogan, president and CEO of the ITSSD, said in an interview.

While Kogan’s efforts involve highly technical, legalistic maneuverings, he is making a valuable contribution to the restoration of constitutional limited government. There has been no appreciable global warming since the turn of the century, and in fact a growing body of research shows the planet may be cooling. So, it is certainly worth probing into what kind of scientific data the EPA is using to advance regulations that raise energy prices and burden consumers. Up until now, the IQA has been a largely unexploited feature of federal law. We’ll see what Kogan and his team can dig out.

Watermelons….Faux-green on the outside, Communist-red, on the Inside!

Cloak of Green The Links between Key Environmental Groups, Government and Big Business

This book was published in 1995 and after you read it you will never look at the Green Movement or your govt. the same way again. A massive con of the public by the Greens, govt. and the media. One world govt. is the end game for these groups. Follow the link at the bottom of the page to read the book online, get it at your library or order a copy, but read the book. Follow your tax dollars.

Now that Elizabeth May is in politics, and presumably hoping to attract progressive-minded people, she will have to live down her reputation, so caustically described by Elaine Dewar in her book, Cloak of Green, about the environmental movement, of being on all sides at the same time.

Dewar first ran into May when she (May) was a member of the Canadian government delegation to the preparatory meeting in Nairobi for the upcoming Rio summit on the environment. Since May was national director of the Sierra Club, as well as executive director of Cultural Survival Canada, Dewar found this rather puzzling. After a little further questioning Dewar came to the conclusion that May had become an NGO interface with government.Rogelio A. Maduro 21st Century Science and Technology : “Cloak of Green… is a devastating expose of the shady finances of the international environmental movement… if you’ve been snookered into supporting the groups that raise money to prevent environmental doomsdays, this book just might help save your money for real causes.”

Publishers Weekly : “Cloak of Green probed the dark underbrush of environmental politics…”

Joe Woodard BC Report : “This is a must-read for anyone interested in environmentalism and the “global environment” movement…this account of [the author’s] determined four-year journey through environmentalism is a triumph of truth over ideology.

Cloak of Green is truly honest reporting of a threatening future.”

Book Description
Most concerned citizens trust environmental groups to fight on behalf of the public for sensible solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. But Elaine Dewar discovered that this trust is often misplaced.

In this book the award-winning journalist explores links between key environmental groups, government and big business. Written like a mystery, Cloak of Green follows the author from a Toronto fundraiser for the Kayapo Indians of Brazil to the Amazon rainforest and the global backrooms of Brasilia, Washington and Geneva. Along the way she meets some fascinating people–Anita Roddick of the Body Shop, businessman-politican Maurice Strong, and activists who run key Canadian and American environmental groups. She discovers some disturbing revelations about these groups and their relations to “green” corporations and government.

Cloak of Green is a penetrating investigative study that challenges many established pieties of the environmental movement.

About the Author
ELAINE DEWAR is a prominent journalist and author with many National Magazine Awards to her credit.Cloak of Green can be read on line here

Bio-Blitz At Ostrander Point. Come out & volunteer. You may learn something!

Participate in PECFN’s BioBlitz at Ostrander Point, August 9-10, 2014

BioBlitz poster FINAL low colour-page-001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Public invited to help inventory the biologically significant Ostrander Point.

Prince Edward County (July 30, 2014) – The Prince Edward County Field Naturalists are hosting the county’s first ever BioBlitz at Ostrander Point. The event runs over a 24 hour period from noon on Saturday August 9 to noon on Sunday August 10, 2014 and includes guided tours for the public focussing on how to identify a variety of species from plants to birds, insects and amphibians and reptiles.

Ostrander Point is located within the South Shore Important Bird Area, a site recognized globally for its importance to birds and biodiversity.

“Much of the biodiversity of the South Shore Important Bird Area has not been identified” notes Myrna Wood of the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists Club. Wood continues “Ostrander Point was the subject of an Environmental Review Tribunal hearing during which it became clear that we still have a lot to discover about the flora and fauna of the site. We hope this BioBlitz will help us uncover mysteries of who is living here as well as introduce the public to this unique site. Ostrander Point really is a gem that we have in the County, and it needs to be better understood.”

Wood and other naturalist experts [see list below] are aiming to identify as many species as possible at this unique site in a 24 hour period. The Ostrander Point BioBlitz is being held with the support of the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory and Nature Canada.

For more information including a full schedule of events and directions to the site, members of the public are encouraged to visit http://www.saveostranderpoint.org .

– 30 –

Media Contacts
Myrna Wood, Prince Edward County Field Naturalists myrna@kos.net 613-476-1506
Cheryl Anderson, cherylanderson23@sympatico.ca 613-471-1096
Sheila Kuja, sanda.kuja@bell.net 613-399-3018

Confirmed experts / leaders:
Paul Catling (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, ERT expert witness) –alvar plants.
Ted Cheskey (Nature Canada, ERT expert witness) — insectivore birds.
Don Davis (ERT expert witness),  Myrna Wood (PECFN) – monarch butterflies.
Henri Goulet (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) – insects and habitat.
Kurt Hennige (Kingston Field Naturalists ) – insects.
Megan McIntosh (Nature Canada) – purple martin roosting site search.
Tanya Pulfer (Ontario Nature Amphibian and Reptile Atlas ) – amphibians and reptiles.
Terry Sprague (Nature Stuff) – local birds..

Wind Action Meeting in Harriston, Aug. 16th. Hope to see you all there!

Saturday, August 16th, 2014, Meeting for Wind Warriors at the Royal Canadian Legion in Harriston:

 If you haven’t let me know that you are coming already, please let me know before meeting day so we can accommodate everyone comfortably.

 

Royal Canadian Legion in Harriston, 53 Elora St.  Phone is 519-338-2843.  Legion is almost next to the Ford dealership on the main Street of Harriston. There is parking behind the Legion and usually the front door is open but you can always get in through the back doors.

 

People are generally able to stay to talk to those newer to the issue who want more info, after the meeting.  In fact we often seem to have an informal meeting afterwards at the local restaurant while we have lunch and would love to see you join in!

 Please send any other agenda item you want to see up for discussion.

Agenda to date:

 

The only rule we have and hold to is that we DO NOT rehash frustrations with wind company or govt.  We do not rehash common knowledge re wind company and govt as per what might be discussed at a public info session. Meetings are held to discuss next steps and concrete plans for action. 

 

–  Ontario Regional Wind Turbine Working Group becoming Ontario Wind Action: 

There is keen interest in changing this meeting group currently known as Ontario Regional Wind Turbine Working Group into Ontario Wind Action, with development of a website to go along with the change in name and specific contact names for media use.  Regional group has always been about concrete action and next steps in the battle against industrial wind turbines.  This development has the potential to help build strength, inclusiveness and focus to the fight.  Bring your ideas for this one.  (FYI, below please see minutes of very first Regional/Actiongroup meeting from Dec. of 2010.  So many people have been hard at work ever since!)

 

– Paul Kuster will speak to the initiative he is using to sell seeding trees to plant as an alternative to ‘planting’ giant turbines in communities. A handout on turbines goes with the seedlings.  It’s a wonderful opportunity for your group to both educate and fundraise! 

 

–  Municipal elections are coming up quickly.  It’s important to discuss some strategies now, before election time is upon us. 

 

–  SWEAR will update on Julian Falconer legal work and upcoming Divisional court dates

 

–  Sherri Lange will present the possibility of launching succession demands and working to qualify for special powers under the Charter of Rights.  Possibilities include giving urban centers a wake-up call on why there is the major divide between urban and rural Ontario.

 

– Jaki of West Grey’s  http://howgreenisthis.org.  will give a brief lesson on using social media, ie ‘twitter’, facebook, etc. to further spread the message of STOP the Wind Turbines.

 

Please send any other agenda items you want to see up for discussion asap.  We will  leave some time for discussion on ‘Orange Zone’, MPAC and any items we would prefer not out in print in an email.  Merci!

____________________________________________________________________ 

For your interest, below please see minutes of the very first Regional meeting held in Maxwell in December of 2010. These were the days of wind industry open houses every week, townhall info sessions almost every week, a barrage of letters to the editor, protests, struggling to find a legal stand; anything and everything….

 

While moving the meeting place to Damascus and then to Harriston, Regional meetings continued to occur approximately 4 times a year, every year since then and continue to date. 

 

Renewable energy scam! Far Too Much Pain…..Far Too Little Gain!

Renewable energy is not working

Too much cost, not enough output or too little emissions reduction

My Times Column explores why renewable energy has been so disappointing.

On Saturday my train was diverted by engineering works near Doncaster. We trundled past some shiny new freight wagons decorated with a slogan: “Drax — powering tomorrow: carrying sustainable biomass for cost-effective renewable power”. Serendipitously, I was at that moment reading a reportby the chief scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change on the burning of wood in Yorkshire power stations such as Drax. And I was feeling vindicated.

A year ago I wrote in these pages that it made no sense for the consumer to subsidise the burning of American wood in place of coal, since wood produces more carbon dioxide for each kilowatt-hour of electricity. The forests being harvested would take four to ten decades to regrow, and this is the precise period over which we are supposed to expect dangerous global warming to emerge. It makes no sense to steal beetles’ lunch, transport it halfway round the world, burning diesel as you do so, and charge hard-pressed consumers double the price for the power it generates.

There was a howl of protest on the letters page from the chief executive of Drax power station, which burns a million tonnes of imported North American wood a year and plans to increase that to 7 million tonnes by 2016. But last week, Dr David MacKay’s report vindicated me. If the wood comes from whole trees, as much of it does, then the effect could be to increase carbon dioxide emissions, he finds, even compared with coal. And that’s allowing for the regrowth of forests.

Despite the best efforts of the Conservatives to rein in their Lib Dem colleagues, the renewable-energy bandwagon careers onward, costing ever more money and doing real environmental harm, while producing trivial quantities of energy and risking blackouts next winter. People keep telling me it’s no good being rude about all renewables: some must be better than others. Well, I’m still looking:

Tidal power remains a (literal) non-starter; if you ask ministers why nothing has been built, they say it’s not for want of proffering ludicrously generous subsidies on our behalf. Yet still no takers.

Wave power: again, the sky’s the limit for what the government will pay if you can figure out how to make dynamos and generators survive the buffeting of waves, corrosion of salt and encrustation of barnacles. Nothing doing.

Geothermal: perhaps great potential in the future for heating homes through district heating schemes, though expensive here compared with Iceland, but not much use for electricity. Air-source and ground-source heat pumps, all the rage a few years ago, have generally proved more costly and less effective than advertised, but they are getting better. Trivial contribution so far.

Solar power: one day soon it will make a big impact in sunny countries, and the price is falling fast, but generating for the grid in cloudy Britain where most power is needed on dark winter evenings will probably never make economic sense. Covering fields in Devon with solar panels today is just ecological and economic vandalism. Solar provides about a third of one per cent of world energy.

Offshore wind: Britain is the world leader, meaning we are the only ones foolish enough to pay the huge subsidies (treble the going rate for electricity) to lure foreign companies into tackling the challenge of erecting and maintaining 700ft metal towers in stormy seas. The good news is that the budget for subsidising offshore wind has almost run out. The bad news is that it is already costing us billions a year and ruining coastal views.

Onshore wind: one of the cheapest renewables but still twice as costly as gas or coal, it kills eagles and bats, harms tourism, divides communities and takes up lots of space. The money goes from the poor to the rich, and the carbon dioxide saving is tiny, because of the low density of wind and the need to back it up with diesel generators. These too now need subsidy because they cannot run at full capacity.

Hydro: cheap, reliable and predictable, providing 6 per cent of world energy, but with no possibility for significant expansion in Britain. The current vogue for in-stream generation in lowland streams in England will produce ridiculously little power while messing up the migration of fish.

Anaerobic digestion: a lucrative way of subsidising farmers (yet again) to grow perfectly good food for burning instead of eating. Contrary to myth, nearly all the energy comes from crops such as maize (once fermented into gas), not from food waste. Expensive.

Waste incineration: a great idea. Yet we are currently paying other countries to take it off our hands and burn it overseas. If instead we burned it at home, we would make cheap, reliable electricity. But Nimbys won’t let us.

Over the past ten years the world has invested more than $600 billion in wind power and $700 billion in solar power. Yet the total contribution those two technologies are now making to the world primary energy supply is still less than 2 per cent. Ouch.

If we had spent that sum on research, and steadily replaced coal with gas as a source of electricity, we would have done far more to cut carbon emissions and kept prices low. A new report by Charles Frank of the Brookings Institution has come to the startling conclusion that if you encourage gas to replace coal, you get fewer emissions per dollar spent than if you use wind or solar.

In Mr Frank’s words: “Solar and wind facilities suffer from a very high capacity cost per megawatt, very low capacity factors and low reliability, which result in low avoided emissions and low avoided energy cost per dollar invested.” In short, we are picking losers.

I would not suggest Drax goes back to burning only coal, partly because I have a vested interest in the coal industry and partly because more than 40 per cent of the coal we burn in this country comes from Russia, so we are more exposed to Vladimir Putin for our coal than for our gas. The answer is staring us in the face. Gas is the cheapest clean way of making electricity, and we are sitting on one of the world’s richest shale-gas fields. Yet investment in gas-fired power is deterred by the government’s preference for renewables.

Lefties Trying To Pretend That “Agenda 21” is a “Good Thing”! Maybe for them…..

Panic in “Sustainable City”

July 30th, 2014 by Tom DeWeese

The attacks came fast and furious, from March through June. A coordinated attack to vilify, ostracize and neutralize efforts by local citizen activists who are standing in opposition to Agenda 21 and its policy called Sustainable Development. The terms “conspiracy theory,” “extremists,” “fear mongers,” and “far right,” are all over these obvious attempts to smear any opposition to the agenda of the Sustainablist planners that now swarm over nearly every community in America.

It started with the American Planning Association (APA) delivering yet another report in a continuing effort to understand the fierce opposition to its “innocent,” “locally- driven” programs. Apparently it is a mystery to the APA why there would be  opposition to its plans to reorganize entire communities which sometimes result in turning people’s lives upside down.  The APA has done a series of studies over the past few years in an attempt to find a way to silence or counter our opposition to planning. The latest report, issued in March, 2014, entitled “The Actions of Discontent,” was perhaps the most honest of the reports the APA has issued, when it said the opposition to planning is “marked by deep philosophical differences between activists and planning proponents…”. That’s certainly better than saying we’re just nuts, unlike most of the usual attacks against us.

Case in point, the next attack came in April from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), yet again. This makes at least four SPLC reports I’m aware of, to specifically focus on me as the ring leader of the opposition. This report, entitled “Agenda 21, The UN, Sustainability and Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory,” says “it’s time to call out the conspiracy theorists.” It demands that “politicians who spread falsehoods about Agenda 21 and its effects need to be shamed by other politicians, by editorial boards and other commentators and by the citizenry at large.” Those are pretty strong words. Apparently they are getting desperate to stop us.

That report was followed by another from the Natural Resources Defense Council entitled “Agenda 21 Conspiracy Theorists Threaten Cities’ Sustainability Efforts.” Next came another rant from “Treehugger.com,” calling me the “Conspiracy King.” Then came articles in two national news magazines, each relying on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s attack. Newsweek started it with a cover article entitled “The Plots to Destroy America.” Then came Fortune magazine and its smear of activist Rosa Koire, head of Democrats Against Agenda 21. Rosa told me that it started out as an interview, then, just to “even the playing field,” reporter David Morris decided to bring in ICLEI and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Yep. Two against one. That’s a little fairer odds than we usually get.

What we are witnessing is the panic of a collapsing tyranny which they thought was well in hand.  And for a couple of decades it was all going the Sustainablist’s way, until some of us started to expose their hidden truths. Watch and learn America. This is how tyrants react to anyone who dares to challenge them.  As is always the case, their tactic is a scorched earth policy to lash out in every direction with vicious force in hopes that something will stick.

In its complete exasperation, the SPLC demands that the business community, the Chamber of Commerce, local governments and the news media “needs to stop reporting on Agenda 21 as if it were a bona fide controversy and plainly state the facts about the plan.” Further, the SPLC demands that communities “need to be encouraged to return to or start to develop such plans in tandem with responsible groups like the American Planning Association.” In other words, just as in the climate change debate, the SPLC demands that there be no debate, no discussion – just shut up and do it!

Meanwhile the tyranny of sustainable policy builds in town and after town, neighborhood after neighborhood.

In the Western states, the EPA is on a tear to control water, making it impossible to run the ranches. The Interior Department is forcing reintroductions of wolves and Grizzlies at the peril of livestock, family pets, children and natural herds of elk and deer.

In Orem, Utah, Betty Perry was arrested, handcuffed, and put in a holding tank because the grass in her front yard was dying. Violation, said the zoning enforcement officer. More recently, as the drought rages in California, a couple has been threatened with fines of $500 because their grass in their yard was dead. The reason it was dead is because they were obeying a California state government mandate that told them to preserve water or face a $500 fine. Tyrants always want it both ways.

Julie Bass, in Oak Park, Michigan, wanted to plant an organic garden in her yard. She even asked the mayor and city council if it was OK to plant and they both answered yes. But as she went to work on it, she too was arrested by the local zoning enforcement officer and faced 90 days in jail.

In Naperville, IL, two women were arrested for trying to prevent the local power company from installing smart meters that they clearly stated they did not want. The police came to the aid of the installers, cut a lock off their fences and trespassed on their property as the women tried to prevent it.

In Montgomery County, Ohio, Jennie Granato’s home was rendered basically  worthless as the regional government enforced the installation of a bike highway across her front yard, bringing the lane within seven feet of her front door. To date she has not been compensated a red cent for the land they took as the regional government plays games with the legal system to deny Jennie her day in court.

Across the nation, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is swarming over producers of unprocessed milk, confiscating products and shutting down plants, arresting producers and buyers alike, even though there have been no reports of sickness or deaths. Not even a complaint. And the assault on small farms continued in Michigan where entire herds of a certain breed of pigs were destroyed, accused of being feral, even though farmers had raised them for decades.

In Fauquier County, VA, the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) has colluded with local county government to harass organic farmer Martha Boneta for hosting a children’s birthday party in her little farm store. The store was forced to close as she was threatened with fines of $5000 per day.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced last summer a decree to make American neighborhoods more “diverse.” It’s called “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing,” calling for the federal government to gather and track data on “segregation” and “discrimination across America before deploying a wide range of social-engineering schemes to ensure more “diversity” in U.S. neighborhoods. It’s right out of the UN’s social justice plank.  Bottom line, if your neighborhood lacks the government mandated diversity breakdown, you won’t be able to sell your home to anyone but the racial quota they demand.

And on the international level, smug, arrogant, well-funded, white Sustainablists have determined that it’s a proper use of government power to ensure black residence of Africa continue to live in mud huts without electricity, clean water or an infrastructure to provide jobs. As Paul Driessen (author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power – Black Death) reports, some 2.5 billion people still do not have electricity or get it only sporadically, and so must burn wood and dung for heating and cooking, which leads to wide-spread lung disease. No electricity means no refrigeration, safe water or decent hospitals. All of this is just fine with the perpetrators of Agenda 21 because such a life style, in their opinion, is sustainable! In reality it’s environmental racism.  And that is the real outcome of “social justice.”

All of these are examples of massive government overreach using the excuse of protecting the environment or controlling development or containing sprawl, or, in short, Sustainable Development. These, and many more outrageous government attacks on our once-free society, are the reasons why Americans are starting to show up at public meetings to demand that their elected officials protect them and their property from such out of control government sprawl. There is no justice, no reason, no compassion under sustainable policy dictates — just the rush to raw power for power’s sake.  Americans are feeling that reality first hand.

As a result, people are starting to listen to my warnings because they can clearly see the results. When they do feel that impact, and when they do ask questions, they are treated to stonewalling, lies and contempt by arrogant officials. So a growing number of Americans have stopped accepting their scare tactics and dire warnings of Environmental Armageddon. I’ve said for years that Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is built on a house of cards – on lies. And when such a foundation is finally challenged – it blows down rapidly. That is what is starting to happen across America. And that’s why the powerful Sustainablists are in such a panic over my efforts to expose these outrages.

Over the past three years pro-freedom activists have managed to convince more than 150 cities to end their memberships with ICLEI, one of the leading NGOs whose declared mission is to entrench sustainable policy into every community in the world.  A close associate of mine reported that the head of ICLEI USA told him they are scared because ICLEI can’t get new American cities to join them – because we made the very name “ICLEI” political poison. ICLEI is panicked.

More and more state legislatures are seriously considering anti-Agenda 21/pro-property rights legislation. Of course, Alabama has already passed such legislation, while  Oklahoma and Tennessee have passed similar attempts in at least one house of their legislatures. The Virginia legislature, after a two year battle waged by property rights activists, passed the Boneta bill to stop local harassment and over reach by local governments over small farmers. The legislation was a direct response by property owners to the enforcement of sustainable policy overreach. And it was a major defeat to the NGO’s pushing it. And it has them panicked!

Almost every day, now, I receive calls and emails from newly elected city councilmen and county commissioners from around the nation asking me what they can do to stop Agenda 21 policy in their community. I am starting to teach them new tactics to block new programs and ways to eliminate existing ones. We are especially focusing on strong language to define and defend private property rights. The fact is, Agenda 21 cannot be enforced without damaging property rights. Stand strong on that one issue and it can be stopped.

Regional governments and planning commissions are a major piece to the sustainable plans to change our government and impilment sustainable policies. With enough of these non-elected councils, sustainable policy can be enforced almost unopposed. The UN Commission on Global Governance defined the reason for the drive toward regionalism; “Regionalism must proceed globalism. We foresee a seamless system of governance from local communities, individual states, regional unions and up through to the United Nations itself.”

Forewarned is forearmed. So property rights activists are focusing on stopping the imposition of non-elected regional government councils that are now springing up across the nation. In just the state of Ohio, several local county and city governments have refused to join regional planning groups. Geauga County commissioners passed a resolution rejecting the Agenda 21 planning objectives put forth by the Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC). A month later the community of Lordstown, Ohio passed a similar resolution. The commissioners in Ohio’s Pickaway County refused to join the Central Ohio Regional Planning Commission. And of course, the outrageous destruction of Jennie Granato’s property for the sake of a bike lane exposed the near untouchable control yielded by the Miami Regional Planning Commission in Montgomery County, Ohio. The local property rights activists now understand the power they face.

Another reason for the Sustainablists to panic was the just-completed Climate Change conference sponsored by the Heartland Institute. This was a gathering of the so-called “skeptics,” the scientists and engineers who actually practice sound science in the pursuit of truth. They all have one thing in common from their research. They can’t find proof of the dire predictions of man-made Global Warming. These men and women of science have suffered greatly for their insistence on truth, no matter the cost. As a result, for years they have been black balled from science journals, denied funding for projects, and ridiculed for their opposition to the Climate Change hysteria. But they have persevered and they are beginning to turn the debate and the conference was full of a positive feeling of accomplishment. And right behind that conference, Australia became the first developed nation to repeal its Cap and Trade program, dumping the center piece of global sustainable policy.  And the Sustainablists are panicked!

And finally, there is this bit of news to turn any “Green” to a gray depression. Carroll County Commissioner Richard Rothschild (the man who led his governing body to be the first in the nation to send ICLEI packing) won his primary reelection bid with 58% of the vote.  Commissioner Rothschild was targeted in the Republican primary by a Democrat-turned-Republican just for the occasion. The labor unions threw all of their massive resources of manpower and money into the effort to make him an example of what will happen to officials who dare oppose them. Richard defied them, speaking clearly and precisely on the dangers of sustainable development and all the policies that go with it. He didn’t try to hide his conservative views. In fact, he put the word “conservative” along with the word “leadership,” on his yard signs. He told the truth. And he won. The battle isn’t over. He still has to win the November election. But he has proven that standing up and openly fighting sustainable development is a winning issue. And the Sustainablists are panicked!!!

To all the individuals and local activist groups who feel overwhelmed and hopeless in your fights – take heart. The Sustainablists are armed with billions of your tax dollars. They are powerful in the back rooms of your government. They have an open mike to any news outlet and they have had nearly a thirty year head start. But it is THEY who are now in a panic as their well-laid plans are starting to crumble under the weight of their own lies and arrogance and rotten policy. Obviously, for those smug, once-powerful NGO forces who thought they could crush their opposition with ridicule, there’s panic in Sustainable City!

The forces of freedom should gain energy from the NGO’s panic and increase our efforts to stamp out these self appointed tyrants once and for all. We certainly have a long way to go to restore our precious Republic. But it’s D-Day on Omaha Beach and, though we continue to face fierce fighting, we have established a beachhead and are moving inland.  And the Sustainablists are panicked.

As you face them in battle after battle, just remember these immortal words from Rocky Balboa; “It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit…how much you can take and keep moving. That’s how winning is done!”   

– See more at: http://americanpolicy.org/2014/07/30/panic-in-sustainable-city/#sthash.58o1TTKq.dpuf