Finally…the Scam is Being Exposed! They Know They Are NOT Helping Our Environment!

August 21, 2014August 21, 2014 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

It’s about something

Posted on August 21, 2014 by Bob Greene

Ms. McCarthy is now saying that the Clean Power Plan is not about climate. Ms. McCarthy’s July 23 testimony on the Clean Power Plan was that it is not about climate or pollution control. This contradicts the June testimony, the web site and the federal register notice. So it’s about something.

From the Bonner Cohen, Heartland.org:

EPA’s recently announced restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions have nothing to do with reducing pollution, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy admitted in Senate hearings. Instead, said McCarthy, EPA imposed the restrictions based on a belief imposing expensive renewable energy on the electricity marketplace will stimulate the economy.

‘Not About Pollution Control’
“The great thing about this proposal is that it really is an investment opportunity. This is not about pollution control,” McCarthy told the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee July 23. “It’s about increased efficiency at our plants. It’s about investment in renewables and clean energy. It’s about investments in people’s ability to lower their electricity bills by getting good, clean, efficient appliances, homes, rental units.”

McCarthy’s comments came as a shock to utilities facing steep costs attempting to comply with the proposed restrictions. The comments also came at a time when the Obama administration’s prior EPA restrictions have pushed U.S. electricity prices to an all-time record high.

Contradicts Prior Testimony
McCarthy’s Senate testimony represents a significant departure from the way EPA defended its proposal before lawmakers just a month earlier. At a June hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Acting Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation Janet McCabe offered a different explanation. Citing Section 111 (b) of the Clean Air Act, which authorizes EPA to regulate certain pollutants, McCabe made that argument in her testimony:

“Chairman Upton, this is not an energy plan. This is a rule done within the four corners of 111 (b) that looks to the best system of emission reduction to reduce emission.… This is a pollution control rule as EPA has traditionally done under section 111 (d).”

McCarthy’s comment didn’t escape the attention of climatologist Roy Spencer.

“This gaffe could come back to bite the EPA,” Spencer wrote on his website. “The Endangerment Finding was all about the negative effect of ‘carbon pollution’ on the environment. Now we find out ‘this is not about pollution control’?”

In her testimony, McCarthy repeatedly emphasized EPA views its rule as an investment opportunity for the business community, while downplaying the cost it would impose on consumers.

“This is an investment strategy that will not just reduce carbon pollution but will position the United States to continue to grow economically in every state, based on their own design,” she said.

So CO2 restrictions are not about climate and all the supposed health benefits are not about pollution control, they are energy efficiency, jobs and economic programs. Sounds like EPA is getting caught with a reg that obviously doesn’t do what they said it was designed to do and are scrambling.

A Wonderful Initiative, that Deserves Our Support! Excellent Educational Tool!

August 21, 2014August 21, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

TREES, NOT TURBINES!

Thank you Very Much Paul Kuster

& Laura Griffin, for coming up with,

and promoting, this wonderful idea!

TREES NOT TURBINES INITIATIVE

AUGUST 18, 2014

There’s no question that over the past 2 decades, there’s been a

heightened awareness for the environment. One of the more important

areas is how we obtain electricity. One of the proposals has been in the

form of Industrial wind turbines. We feel there’s a better way to answer

the question of how to retain a reasonable quality of life with a view to

enhancing the environment that we could all mutually benefit. We feel trees

are the answer and wherever you may reside, you can participate.

Here are some of the reasons trees are a superior way to enhance the

environment over industrial wind turbines;

Trees absorb CO2 and release O2. An acre ( .405 hectares) of trees
will absorb enough CO2 to offset a city driven car for a year, while
producing enough O2 for 18 people per day. IWT’s can do neither.
IWT’s have a large initial carbon footprint before becoming operable.
Trees start their work right away with no initial carbon footprint.
IWT’s have within their components, many detrimental compounds
detrimental to the environment. Turbine blades contain bisphenol A,
a known carcinogen and the hubs contain gear oil that has high levels
of mercury. Trees, of course, are without these issues.
Trees are superior to IWT’s when it comes to preventing erosion,
providing shade, providing habitat for birds and attracting many other
forms of wildlife. IWT’s in fact enhance erosion, kill bats and birds and
provide no attraction to wildlife.
IWT’s are infinitely more costly than trees, trees require no electricity
to operate and are for the most part, maintenance free. Trees have
proven to enhance property values and provide years of enjoyment no
matter if you live in a rural or urban environment.
IWT’s require to work in tandem with other power generators. While
we’ve essentially eliminated coal as a source of generation, gas plants
have come on line to replace coal and to act to back-up wind generation.
In order to do this, gas plants run in the most inefficient way possible and
in the final tally don’t substantially reduce emissions at all. Trees of course
require no gas plant backup and can help reduce heating and cooling costs.

We listed here just a few of the benefits of trees. We can replace IWT’s with trees

and accomplish our goals for a better environment.

This is the REAL green movement.

Sherri Lange, from NAPAW, calls for an Audit of the Green Energy, and Green Economies Act!

August 20, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Letter to Auditor General for Ontario from North American Platform Against Windpower

by Sherri Lange
August 19, 2014

To: Ms. Bonnie Lysyk (Auditor General for Ontario) (Letter of August 11, 2014)

Dear Ms Lysyk,

Please consider this letter as an urgent formal request for a complete and impartial audit for all matters pertaining to the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009, and its false assertions and negative results for Ontario: these misrepresentations include vigorous job creation, suggested cleaner air space, the ability to create energy facilities, wind and solar, in particular, in a cost savings manner, or competitive manner.

The Green Energy and Green Economy Act has suggested with not a little hyperbole, that it will “spark” growth in “renewables sources in Ontario, while creating savings, and producing 50,000 jobs, direct and indirect,” and “make a positive contribution towards climate change objectives,” whereas in fact the GEA threatens to eviscerate the economy of Ontario and Canada as a whole. The factual results of the GEA are of economic chaos, massive job losses, environmental degradation of the highest order, a decay of our treasured environmental protections in law, and yet uncounted human health and productivity costs.

Under the guise of positive net growth, and climate change objectives, this Act has been used to gouge and tyrannize the province, materially and economically.

We believe that the mandate of the Auditor General to provide access to “value for money” data, within an audit, will provide even more information with respect to the waste and perhaps fraud at the highest levels; consumers are indeed not being provided with fair business practices, but are continually subjected to even more egregious attacks in their daily “energy expensive” lives due to a battered and debt ridden economy. Jobs continue to leave Ontario. Some are relocating to Buffalo, to save, in one instance, $4 million per year in energy savings, or to Saskatchewan, for example. The bleed of jobs cannot continue, and we believe that an assertive and clear look at the funding and economic threat of the Green Energy Act will bear striking similarities to the international failure of wind power and Green Energy policies. Even information provided years ago by your office and the Fraser Institute did nothing to change the course.

We contend that none of the GEA assertions and projections have proven valid, and have in fact been a major contributor, likely THE major contributor, to the near demise of manufacturing in Ontario, to energy poverty for many Ontarians whose hydro bills have risen 30-40% with promises of more hikes, to the loss of jobs to the USA and western Canada, to the ill health of hundreds of Ontarians, some of whom have been forced to abandon homes, or been bought out by developers, or who reside in parking lots at Walmart, or at cottages, or with relatives. The energy chaos of Ontario now handily competes with that of Spain, Germany, or the UK.

All of this should be and should have been preventable, since the facts are well known. Indeed, the facts of the Green Energy failures of Europe should have been a lesson learned before this Ontario failure of a massive scale. (Ontario now has the unenviable position of having the highest cost of power in North America. The significance of this is not lost on Moody’s Credit Ratings system, with the threat of downgrades to Ontario.) The lessons of Europe have been put before the Legislature, all parties, on many occasions, without benefit or improvement.

The Fraser report of 2013 has already indicated that the assertions of the GEA are egregiously false.

“Already, the GEA has caused major price increases for large energy consumers, and we’re anticipating additional hikes of 40 to 50 per cent over the next few years,” said Ross McKitrick, Fraser Institute senior fellow and author of Environmental and Economic Consequences of Ontario’s Green Energy Act.”

“The Ontario government defends the GEA by referring to a confidential 2005 cost-benefit analysis on reducing air pollution from power plants. That report did not recommend pursuing wind or solar power; instead it looked at conventional pollution control methods which would have yielded the same environmental benefits as the GEA, but at a tenth of the current cost. If the province sticks to its targets for expanding renewables, the GEA will end up being 70 times costlier than the alternative, with no greater benefits.” (News release, April 2013)

The study goes on to indicate that returns to investment in manufacturing are “likely to decline by 29 per cent, mining by 13 per cent, and forestry by less than one per cent.”

Professor McKitrick explains in his report that wind is especially wasteful, as surplus generation occurs generally when demand is low, and the resulting “dumping” also results in net losses to Ontario.

“The Auditor General of Ontario estimates that the province has already lost close to $2 billion on surplus wind exports, and figures from the electricity grid operator show the ongoing losses are $200 million annually”, says the report.

Terrance Corcoran in the Financial Post quotes from the Auditor’s report that the cost of power is estimated to rise again another 46% in the next four years. In his analysis of the Auditor General’s 2011 report on electricity, Mr. Corcoran writes of “wilful negligence” and a “high level of fiscal negligence and abuse of process and disdain for taxpayers and electricity consumers.”

A prime example of the negative impact on the Ontario jobs situation is reflected in Magna’s (the largest automotive parts manufacturer in Canada) announcement that due to the high cost of electricity in Ontario, it will not make any further investments. (Specifically, for Magna between 2013 and 2014, normal business activities resulted in an increased cost of electricity of 30 million dollars.)

The expressed primary purpose of the 2011 audit was to ensure that the OEB had sufficient and adequate systems in place to protect consumers, ratepayers. As noted also in the report, consumers are protected under the Energy Consumer Protection Act, 2010, and that under this legislation consumers shall be provided with the information they require about contracts, prices, and that they will be protected by fair business practices. This fairness has not been brought to fruition.

And the serial negligence continuing until this day, despite hearty and clear directives from the Fraser Institute and your office, has resulted merely in the advance of even more industrial wind in Ontario under Premier Wynne. Consumers are indeed not being increasingly protected, and continue to be recklessly thrown under the fiscal bus.

What we find most egregious is that the people of Ontario have warned the Premier(s) McGuinty and Wynne, and made reports to the Finance Committee, as well as reporting to these offices the results of energy chaos in Germany, Spain, the UK as well as other European states previously under the spell of “renewables.” (Please note the letter to the Editor, Financial Post, March 3, 2011: “No such thing as renewable energy.”) These abject economic failures in Europe should have provided clear warning of the folly of subsidizing inefficient non base load sources of power, particularly wind turbines.

The government and lobbying association CanWEA’s (Canadian Wind Energy Association) assertion that the wind turbine industry operates safely and without damage to human health is false and must also be examined, since the reports of ill health given to the MOE (Environment) now number in the thousands. The MOE (Ministry of the Environment) has recognized the problem, and admitted in an email obtained from an FOI that they “did not know what to do.” The costs of wind power to our medical system and human productivity have not yet been accounted for.

We remind you that with about 240,000 wind turbines worldwide, we yet only receive one half of one percent, NET ZERO, of our power needs from this source. This industry is a failure, plain and simple; does the build out then have something to do with massive subsidies deep in the pockets of developers? Who is receiving these massive double or quadruple profits? We would like to see a chart of the major beneficiaries of the FIT program in Ontario. In Spain, the profits have been so tidy, that the Government recently asked for some retroactive repayments,understandably chilling the wind developers’ aspirations. (The lineup of crimes against consumers continues in Ontario: with 86% of Ontario’s wind power being produced on days when we are already in a surplus export mode. Another net loss for consumers is obvious.)

Please also include an environmental impacts costs study in your findings. The extreme damage to water tables, prime farm land, general ecological tragedies and killing of wildlife, has an external cost factor as well, to be borne, sadly, by our future generations.

Mr. Geoffrey Cox, a UK Conservative MP, expressed his disgust for the “gigantic machines” which are terrorizing his country:

“The reality is there is a Klondike-type gold-rush going on in rural areas where developers are anxious to get their applications through to pick up the vast profits that can be made.

“This is having a disruptive, devastating and distressing effect on dozens of small rural communities that are being torn apart by these huge industrial machines that are just yards away from their home.

“The number of applications seems to be going up rather than receding. What is going on is a stealthy, silent revolution of the most beautiful landscapes in Great Britain.

“If we carry on we will have ruined this most extraordinary inheritance.”We look forward to your prompt reply and a rapid advancement into an impartial audit of these matters in their complete impacts on Ontario, on the economy, and on fairness, or in this case, unfairness, to each consumer and job seeker. It will be extremely useful to untangle some of the Byzantine financial and undemocratic policy arrangements that have led to this “made in Ontario” crisis. We must immediately stop this re-creation of the catastrophic results of Green Energy failures in Europe.

Please conduct an impartial and in depth assessment of all financial matters pertaining to the GEA and relay these findings to the people of Ontario at your earliest convenience. We anticipate that your report might reflect also on the medical costs to Ontario families, the loss of economic vibrancy and stability of rural Ontario which continues to bear the assault fully on its shoulders, the loss of tourism, and the loss of property values, which also contribute to economic stagnancy. Please also conduct a study on a trace of the profits to developers, kWh by kWh, if possible. We have a right to know where our hydro dollars are going.

The high octane waste of the “Green Energy and Green Economy Act”, which has been repeatedly explained to legislators, must cease immediately. It must also be retroactively remediated. Your office has the ability to further outline to the Government not only how it may alter course, but how it must immediately repair.

(We will be writing under separate cover to Commissioner Hawkes, as we fully believe the waste and apparent fraud of the GEA far overpowers the ORNGE, E-Health, and Gas Plant scandals.)

Thanking you in advance,

Sherri Lange

CEO NA-PAW (North American Platform Against Wind Power); Founding Director Toronto Wind Action; Executive Director Canada, Great Lakes Wind Truth; VP Canada, Save the Eagles International (www.na-paw.org)

Appendix

What we know

· Industrial wind turbines are inefficient and pitiably useless

· Industrial wind installations, factories, create energy sprawl and high levels of environmental pollution and toxic waste

· Industrial wind does not work when we need it to and over performs at times to the extent that developers are sometimes paid to NOT produce

· Huge subsidies support the industry, without which, the industry does not survive

· The GEA suppresses all democratic opposition to wind and solar power, and the cards are stacked in favor of preferred accelerated promotion of wind turbines at the expense of Municipal and community cohesion and preferences

· Massive amounts of base load back up power are always required; there is zero reduction in GHG’s

· The industry (lobby)gets to sit at the table with policy makers and lay the table for the feast

· There has been no reasonable or realistic or honest explanation for the massive outlay of wind turbines in Ontario

· Energy poverty is abundant now in Ontario, along with massive job losses and gutting of the public purse

· Lessons from Europe are not being acknowledged

IS THIS CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE?

– See more at: http://www.masterresource.org/2014/08/letter-to-auditor-general-for-ontario-from-north-american-platform-against-windpower/#more-31441

Many Parts of the World, Are Returning to Sanity! No More Climate Alarmism!

August 18, 2014August 18, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Germany’s Green Energy Policy

Beginning To Strangle Economy

End Of The Wirtschaftswunder?

Germany’s Sudden Slowdown

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s abrupt exit from nuclear energy after the Fukushima disaster in Japan and aggressive push into renewables has unnerved German industry. A recent overhaul of the country’s complex renewable energy law has done little to alleviate uncertainty over future policy or assuage fears about German energy competitiveness. “Energy intensive industries in particular have lost confidence in the future of Germany as a business location,” said Thomas Mayer, a former chief economist at Deutsche Bank. —Reuters, 16 August 2014

The Green Party has criticised Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, for cancelling her attendance at the UN Climate Summit on 23 September in New York and accused her of giving preference to lobby interests. “Instead of fighting for global climate protection on the international stage, she rather goes to speak to the lobby group of German industry which is not known to be a haven of climate change activism,” said the party’s parliamentary deputy Oliver Krischer.–Die Welt, 15 August 2014

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas-emitting nation, won’t join his U.S. and Chinese counterparts at a United Nations climate summit next month in New York. Modi will skip the Sept. 23 event, according to the Economic Times, thwarting a potential meeting between the heads of states for the three largest greenhouse gas emitters — arguably the nations that will drive international negotiations next year in Paris. Modi’s absence is a bit of a blow to the summit, as India hasn’t made the type of ambitious gestures that China and the U.S. have floated. –Zack Colman, Washington Examiner, 15 August 2014

According to a group of Norwegian researchers, the prospects for achieving an effective international climate treaty are poor. The measures that are politically feasible are ineffective and the measures that would be effective are politically infeasible. The world is actually further away from achieving an effective international climate agreement today than it was 15 years ago, when the Kyoto Protocol was adopted. Little basis for optimism exists. —The Research Council of Norway, 14 August 2014

The movement to push through a binding international climate change treaty has lost most of its momentum in recent years, having failed at conference after conference, summit after summit, to reach any sort of consensus about how the world ought to respond to the pervasive threats brought on by our warming world. The reason all this chatter is proving futile is that the developing and the developed world are engaged in a showdown. Attempting to reach a global agreement is the same as banging one’s head against the wall. The Global Climate Treaty movement wastes time and jet fuel, but sadly there’s no end to the charade in sight. –Walter Russell Mead,The American Interest, 13 August 2014

The chapter analysing the history of the industry in Spain is laugh-a-minute stuff, a tale of incompetent politicians and civil servants bumbling from one disaster to another and fraudulent investors cheating their way to a slice of public funds. We hear about the diesel generators generating “solar power” at night and that at one point the authorities estimated that half of new solar PV connections to the grid were fraudulent. You can see why the revolution led to disaster. I leave you with this apposite quote from the text: “Modern renewable energies, supposedly born to support a sustainable world, became one jewel of the most unsustainable of human activities, financial greed.” –Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, 17 August 2014

In the run up to the general election, the mood music among political leaders seems to have become somewhat more cautious on shale development. At this stage in the political cycle, local opposition is bound to be at the forefront of politicians’ minds. But the public understands that shale development is a matter of national interest – recent polling suggests that 57 per cent are in support, while just 16 per cent oppose it. Shale could be a boon to our energy-intensive industries, creating jobs in the north of England, and increasing domestic gas production to keep wholesale prices down. Policymakers should keep these huge potential benefits in mind in the run-up to the general election. –Benny Peiser & Daniel Mahoney, City A.M. 15 August 2014

Aussie Politicians, We Can ALL Be Proud Of!!!

August 18, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey & Mathias Cormann: Natural Born RET Killers

August 18, 2014 by stopthesethings

Tony Abbott has made no secret of his eagerness to do away with the most colossal corporate welfare scheme in the history of the Commonwealth (see our posts here and here and here).

And his Treasurer, Joe Hockey has pinned his colours to the mast as someone who can’t stand wind farms – and whose political mission is to bring the “age of entitlement” to an end, which includes the stream of subsidies directed at wind power outfits (see our posts here and here).

The Finance Minister, Mathias Cormann made his disdain for the great wind power fraud known by joining Hockey to prevent the Clean Energy Finance Corporation signing up anymore unsecured loans to wind power outfits (see our post here).

So it comes as no surprise that Abbott, Hockey and Cormann would team up as Natural Born RET Killers. Here’s the Australian Financial Review heralding the beginning of the end for the mandatory RET and, with it, the end of the great Australian wind power fraud.

Abbott’s plan to axe RET
Australian Financial Review
Phillip Coorey
18 August 2014

The federal government is moving towards abolishing the Renewable Energy Target rather than scaling it back in a move that will cost almost $11 billion in proposed investment and which is at odds with the views of its own Environment Minister.

The Australian Financial Review understands Prime Minister Tony Abbott has asked businessman Dick Warburton, whom he handpicked after the election to review the RET, to do more work on the option of terminating the target altogether. This was after Mr Warburton’s review leant towards scaling back the RET.

Sources said Environment Minister Greg Hunt, who advocated scaling back the RET as a compromise, has been sidelined from the process and is understood to be unhappy. They said Mr Abbott, Treasurer Joe Hockey and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann are pushing the issue now.

A government source said when the government announced its decision, possibly before the end of this month, it was now “more likely” the RET will be abolished under a so-called “closed to new entrants scenario” in which existing contracts only would be honoured.

Given Clive Palmer has vowed to block any change to the RET until after the 2016 election, it remains unclear when the government could declare the RET terminated.

Independent modelling commissioned by the Climate Institute and other environmental groups, and which will be released Monday, found that under the termination scenario, coal-fired power generators would reap an extra $25 billion in profits between 2015 and 2030.

There would be no reduction to household power prices and carbon emissions would climb by 15 million tonnes a year on the back of a 9 percent increase in coal-fired power.

Diminished investments

Abolishing the RET would diminish investment in renewable energy by $10.6 billion, said the modelling, conducted by consulting firm Jacobs.

Conceived under the Howard government, the RET mandated that 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2020. The Abbott government has been lobbied heavily by the business and energy sectors to abolish or water it down as renewable energy gained a larger than expected share of the electricity market.

When the RET was first conceived, it was envisaged 20 per cent of total power production by 2020 would equate to 41,000 gigawatt/hours of renewable energy produced each year.

Under the scaleback favoured by Mr Hunt, annual production of renewable energy in 2020 would be reduced to 27,000GWh. But this would still amount to 20 per cent of total energy production because forecast total energy production for 2020 had been downgraded due to the decline in manufacturing, especially the collapse of the car industry and the closure of two aluminium smelters. This is known as the “real 20 per cent” option.

The abolition proposal would reduce renewable energy production in 2020 to 16,000GWh.

It is understood Mr Abbott’s office was briefed on the recommendations of the Warburton review in late July. The review found the RET did not add significantly to household and commercial power bills, as its critics, including Mr Abbott, had argued, and that it should be scaled back to the real 20 per cent model as advocated by Mr Hunt.

With the government favouring termination, Mr Warburton was asked to give the option more consideration and his report is expected this week.

Energy oversupply

The government source said the market was oversupplied with energy and there was no longer any cause for a mandated use of any specific type of power. The source said while there would be investment losses if the RET was abolished, or even scaled back, investors “would have to have been blind to know this wasn’t coming”.

Miles George, managing director of renewable company Infigen Energy, said either scaling back or terminating the RET “would be devastating”.

He said the creation of sovereign risk would be significant and the very issue had been raised by prospective foreign investors, including Canadian pension funds which Mr Abbott sought to woo when abroad in June.

“Infigen’s shareholder base of over 20,000 investors has invested in renewable energy in Australia on the basis of a fixed target of 41,000 GWh by 2020,” Mr George said. “This is no different to investors in private public partnerships acquiring a toll road concession, or a port lease.

“If the Government pulls the rug from under institutional investors in renewable energy we shouldn’t expect those investors to come back to buy other infrastructure assets here, including the electricity networks and generation assets that the governments of NSW and Queensland are proposing to sell or lease.”
Australian Financial Review

The AFR touts the wind industry line about “diminished investments”, as if wind power outfits are lining up to make an outright, “no-strings-attached” gift of $10.6 billion to Australian power consumers.

On that spin, Australia’s power punters are meant to fear the “loss” and shed a tear for cowboys like Infigen (aka Babcock & Brown) who are, apparently, just itching to give their investors’ money away.

Of course, like every investment, those stumping up the capital will only do so where a juicy return is on offer; and, under the current 41,000 GWh target set by the mandatory RET, the returns promised to be very “juicy”, indeed. Until now.

So let’s have a look at just who ends up paying for the promised (or, rather, threatened) $billions in wind power investment: we’ll call it $10 billion for ease of reference.

Before we kick off, there are a few things to note.

First, is that around 50% of the value of the threatened “investment” will go to foreign turbine manufacturers in China, India and Denmark. So that sends at least $5 billion offshore; adding to Australia’s current account deficit.

Next, is the fact that the great bulk of any wind power “investment” is underwritten by all Australian power consumers via the mandatory RET – as detailed below.

And it needs to borne in mind that any “investment” in wind power generation capacity has to be matched with an equal investment in fossil fuel generation capacity (principally fast-start-up Open Cycle Gas Turbines) to provide power to balance the grid (the need for which increases – along with the need for additional spinning reserve held by base-load thermal generators – due to the wild fluctuations in wind power output – see our post here) and to accommodate routine, but unpredictable, collapses in wind power output (our posts here and hereand here and here and here and here and here and here).

The greater the amount of installed wind power capacity, the greater the need for highly inefficient OCGTs – the installation of which needs to be financed, allowing for returns to those providing the capital: a cost that is never included in calculations accounting for the costs attached to wind power generation (see our post here).

As noted by the AFR, the Australian energy market is oversupplied, which means any further investment in an unpredictable and unreliable source like wind power will simply cause further and substantial increases in retail power prices, additional grid instability and energy market chaos – precisely the circumstances the Germans now find themselves in, after years of runaway renewable energy policy (see our post here).

An “investment” NOT a “gift”

Any investor naturally looks for a return on a capital investment. Ideally, that return exceeds bank interest and – if there is any risk involved – accounts for that risk by way of higher returns. Investors in wind farm projects aim for a gross return on the capital invested in the order of 20% per annum.

That means that the investors stumping up $10 billion to build new wind power capacity will be looking to recover $2 billion from power consumers each and every year to achieve that level of return: returns on wind power investments can only be recouped via income received from power sales – there is NO other source of revenue.

So, rather than being the objects of $10 billion in wind industry largesse, power consumers are being lined up for an enormous, additional and – because there is already ample generating capacity to meet (declining) demand well into the future – completely unnecessary $2 billion hit in the hip pocket each and every year.

A fair slice of the $2 billion annual return on investment required by investors would be recouped via power bills in the form of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs): a Federal Tax on all Australian electricity consumers. RECs are issued to wind power generators and transferred to retailers under the Power Purchase Agreements signed between them (see our post here).

Which brings us to another furphy trotted out in the AFR piece – based on “modelling” by wind industry cheer squad, the Climate Institute – that the mandatory RET hasn’t had any significant effect on retail power prices; and that scrapping it would not result in any decrease in power bills.

As we’ve just pointed out, the $10 billion in threatened wind power investment would, alone, add $2 billion to Australian power bills each and every year: no return, no “investment” – simple as that.

The true cost of the mandatory RET

As is the style of the wind industry and its parasites, whenever they’re pitching about the “wonders” of wind it’s all done with “modelling” and never with real numbers. Smoke and mirrors stuff, using assumptions that never hold water – and always ignoring the terms of the legislation upon which the whole rort depends.

So – let’s forget about “models” – based on nonsensical and unjustified assumptions – and simply apply a little old fashioned arithmetic to the provisions that make up the mandatory RET.

Putting aside the hidden costs of providing fossil fuel back up to cover the occasions when wind power output plummets every day – and for days on end (see our post here); putting aside the need for a duplicated network to carry wind power from the back blocks to urban markets (seeour post here); putting aside the cost of running highly inefficient Open Cycle Gas Turbines to cover wind power “outages” (see our post here), for the purpose of this argument let’s just focus on the cost of Renewable Energy Certificates and their bedmate – the mandated shortfall charge.

Under the mandatory RET – retailers are fined $65 per MWh for every MW they fall below the mandated annual target: what’s called the “shortfall charge” – follow the links here and here. The shortfall charge is directed straight to the Commonwealth, ending up as general revenue.

The alternative is to buy RECs (which is done via the retailer’s PPA with the wind power generator) and surrender them as proof that the retailer has purchased a MWh of renewable energy.

Wind power generators are issued 1 REC for every MWh of power dispatched to the grid – and this deal continues until 2031: the operator of a turbine erected in 2005 will receive RECs (1 per MWh dispatched) each and every year for 26 years.

Since the RET began in April 2001, over 195 million RECs have been created – worth more than $8 billion – the cost of which has all been added to our power bills.

The cost of the REC is ultimately borne by retail customers and, therefore, constitutes a Federal Tax on all Australian electricity consumers (see our post here).

Time for a little arithmetic.

If no RECs were purchased, retailers would simply be hit with the $65 per MWh shortfall charge on the entire figure set by the mandatory RET legislation (see the link here).

That cost alone would add $2.665 billion to power bills annually from 2020 to 2031.

Alternatively, if sufficient RECs to satisfy the target were purchased at $100, say, the cost rises to $4.1 billion a year from 2020 through to 2031.

Year	RET in MWh (millions)	Shortfall Charge (or RECs) @ $65	RECs @ $100
2014	16.1	$1,046,500,000	$1,610,000,000
2015	18	$1,117,000,000	$1,800,000,000
2016	22.6	$1,469,000,000	$2,260,000,000
2017	27.2	$1,768,000,000	$2,720,000,000
2018	31.8	$2,067,000,000	$3,180,000,000
2019	36.4	$2,366,000,000	$3,640,000,000
2020	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2021	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2022	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2023	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2024	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2025	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2026	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2027	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2028	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2029	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2030	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
	Total	$36,483,500,000	$56,210,000,000

RECs are currently trading around $30, but, as the target starts to bite from 2017, the price is expected to reach $90 and is tipped to reach $100 beyond that.

The shortfall charge (as a fine) is a cost that the retailer can’t claim as a legitimate tax deduction, whereas the REC is – this places an added value on the REC to the extent that its face value can reduce the retailer’s taxable income. At a minimum then, RECs can be expected to trade at a figure at least equal to the shortfall charge. But with the tax benefit attached, RECs would be worth at least $94 – based on a shortfall charge of $65.

At the bottom end, this means the value of RECs surrendered (and/or the shortfall charge applied) will add over $36 billion to power bills over the next 17 years. At the top end, the figure (assuming RECs hit $100 by 2017) will exceed $50 billion.

These figures represent the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the Commonwealth: a transfer that comes at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable in society; struggling manufacturing businesses, real jobs and families. To call the mandatory RET obscene is pure understatement. No single policy has ever threatened to cost so much for nothing in return.

It’s these hard and fast facts that have united the PM, his Treasurer and Finance Minister with the intention of killing the mandatory RET outright; and the vast majority of the Coalition are right behind them. The sooner the Coalition axe it, the better. The mandatory RET must go now.

Ineffective, Unreliable, Unaffordable, Wind Turbines!

August 11, 2014 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

LETTER: Wind turbines are a waste of time and money

The coalition has sanctioned the construction of Rampion, despite the overwhelming evidence that wind turbines are unreliable, grossly inefficient, inflict huge damage on the environment and wildlife, do not reduce greenhouse emissions one iota, and are, by a large margin, the most expensive means of generating electricity.

Thus, one could be forgiven for thinking the two headlines are linked.

Consider, as revealed by the company awarded the contract for the construction of the off-shore wind farm that, although the designed output is 700 megawatts (MW) because of the unreliability of wind turbines, the actual output will be no more than 240MW. Compare this with the output of a gas-fired generator, costing less than half the over £2bn for Rampion, which produces ten times as much electricity 100 per cent of the time.

Some years ago, Centricia, and other electricity-producing companies, made it absolutely clear to the government that, because of the unreliability of the wind, full back-up of conventional power stations is essential.

Therefore, greenhouse gas-emitting generating plants will have to remain permanently in service – thus, there is no point in building wind turbines.

Denmark, which has the greatest number of wind turbines per capita, has the most expensive power in Europe. I have yet to meet

a qualified electrical engineer who thinks the construction of wind turbines to power the national grid is a good idea.

Rampion will cover 60 square miles from Beachy Head to the Isle of Wight. The unreliability, comparatively short life, and huge cost of maintaining the turbines, means that it is only a question of time before Rampion is seen as one of the biggest scrap metal sites in the world.

France, where 80 per cent of electricity is produced by nuclear power, has the cheapest electricity in Europe. To satisfy the Green lobby, nuclear power stations in the UK should employ thorium as the fuel which is much safer than uranium. Nuclear bombs cannot be produced using thorium.

I do hope everyone reading this will write to their MP, county and district councillors, demanding the construction of all wind turbines, both on and off-shore, be halted immediately.

Ideally, those wind turbines already constructed should be dismantled.

Derek Hunnikin

St Leodegar’s Way

Hunston

Faux-green Environmentalists (EPA), Push Their Political Agenda!

August 11, 2014August 11, 2014 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

EPA goes from Environmental Protection Agency to Extremist Political Agenda

A report from the EPA’s public hearings on the proposed Clean Power Plan

During the week of July 28, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held hearings in four cities: Atlanta, Denver, Pittsburgh, and Washington, DC. The two-day sessions were to allow the public to have their voice heard about the proposed rules it released on June 2 that will supposedly cut CO₂ emissions by 30%.

Many, including myself, believe that these rules are really an attempt to shut down coal-fueled electricity generation and implement a cap-and-trade program that the Administration couldn’t get through Congress in 2009, when cap-and-trade’s obvious allies held both houses of Congress.

If the EPA’s plans were clear, direct, and honest, the public would likely revolt outright. Instead, the intent is hidden in pages of cumbersome language and the messaging becomes all about clean air and water—and about the health of children.

Because I was in the area—speaking a few hours from Atlanta on Sunday—I took advantage of the proximity and signed up to speak at the hearing. When I first attempted to sign up, day one was already full. The EPA had so many people who wanted time to share their opinions, a second day was added, and I was put on the schedule.

The first day, Tuesday, July 29, included competing rallies held in near-record-low temperatures for Atlanta in July. Supporters of the EPA’s plan—many of whom were bussed in from surrounding states—gathered in Centennial Olympic Park. I spoke at the rally, made up of plan opponents, that was organized by Americans for Prosperity’s Georgia chapter held at the Sam Nunn Federal Center—where the hearing was originally scheduled (before a power outage forced a move to the Omni Hotel).

I spent the rest of the day at the hearing. It had a circus-like atmosphere. With tables of literature, people carrying signs, and many of the plan’s supporters identified by their matching pale-green tee shirts emblazoned with:

Protect our communities

CLIMATE ACTION NOW.

Once I had a taste of what to expect the next day, when I was to present my comments in the five minutes allotted, I prepared what I wanted to say. The following is my original text—though I had to edit it down to get it within the allowed time frame. For presentation here, I’ve also enhanced my comments with some additional insights from others. The verbiage that is not a part of my original testimony is included in italics.

* * * *

I was here yesterday and earlier today. I’ve listened to the well-intentioned pleas from many who have begged you, the EPA, to take even stronger action than this plan proposes. One even dramatically claimed: “You are the Environmental Protection Agency. You are our only hope. If you don’t protect us no one will?”

I heard a teary-eyed, young woman tell a tale about a man she knows who is dying of cancer, supposedly because he grew up near a coal-fired power plant—he couldn’t be here, so she told his story. She also said: “I am fortunate enough to have not been around in the 1960s when there was real smog.” Her father has told her about it.

One woman claimed her neighbor had gotten asthma from global warming.

Another addressed how she gets headaches from emissions. She told how lung tissue could be burned. And, how particulates are why people can no longer see the mountain in her region.

An attorney’s testimony told about seeing “carbon pollution” every day from his 36^th floor office “a few blocks from here” from where he looks “out over a smog-covered city.”

The passion of these commenters supersedes their knowledge, as none of the issues I’ve mentioned here, and there are many more, are something caused by carbon dioxide—a clear, colorless gas that each of us breathe out and plants breathe in.

Dave Bufalo is a retired civil engineer who attended and testified at the EPA’s Denver location. He told me he had a similar experience: “I was only able to stay for about an hour but I did hear about 10 testimonials. They were all in support of the EPA’s proposed regulation. I don’t believe that anyone had really read the proposal prior to testifying. Their testimonies seemed to lack an understanding of the chemical nature of CO₂. One elderly woman could only state that she thanked the EPA for insuring that she had clean air and water. One gentleman was clearly pushing for the sale of his company’s solar panels.”

James Rust, Ph.D., is a retired professor of nuclear engineering from Georgia Tech. In his testimony in Atlanta, he referenced thousands of peer-reviewed papers showing carbon dioxide emissions had a negligible effect on climate change. He pointed to the stack of documents from the Heartland Institute called Climate Change Reconsidered I and II that contained these peer-reviewed articles. It was at that point, that a man in the front row shouted out “Liar!” Rust told me: “This is the typical type of response from the mob that promotes this climate change scare. They use ad hominem attacks and don’t debate the real issues because they have no experimental data that backs up what they are proposing.”

Carbon dioxide is a natural, and essential, part of the environment— massive, unknown, quantities of carbon dioxide are emitted each year from natural sources, such as volcanoes. Were we able to eliminate carbon dioxide from every industrial source in the United States, it would have virtually no impact on global carbon dioxide emissions.

I understand the concerns over true smog and pollution. I grew up in Southern California—graduating from high school in 1976. At that time, we had made a mess of our environment. We had polluted the air and water. Cleaning up our collective act was an important public policy issue. San Bernardino, where my family lived, is in a valley, surrounded by mountains. It was not uncommon for a family to move into the area in the summer, when the smog was the worst, and not even know the beautiful mountains existed. In the fall, when the winds came in and blew the smog out to sea, newcomers where amazed to discover the mountains.

But that pollution, that smog, has largely been cleaned up. Utilities have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on scrubbers, and on other highly technical equipment such as SCR’s, electrostatic precipitators, and bag houses, to successfully remove the vast majority of the particulates.

People often see a billowing white cloud coming from the stacks at a coal-fueled power plant and confuse it with pollution when it is really H₂O—water in the form of steam. Depending on the time of year, or the time of day, it may be more, or less, visible. The weather conditions may make it settle like fog until the sun burns it off. And this, I believe, is mistaken for pollution.

If you haven’t seen Randy Scott Slavin’s Bird’s-Eye-View of New York City, I encourage you to check it out. The book shows an amazingly clean city—despite the more than 8 million people living in those compact 469 square miles. New York City is one of the most populated places on the planet, yet its air is sparkling.

This rule is not about pollution. It is about shutting down coal-fueled power plants, and thus killing jobs and raising electricity rates—both of which punish people who can least afford it. But plenty of others have addressed the economic impact, so I won’t take more of my time on that topic.

Dozens of members from a variety of different unions were present in Atlanta to speak out against the plan. Skip Howard, Business Manager for Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 421 in North and South Carolina, explained: “Although Nuclear Power is a clean, renewable source of energy and not affected by fluctuating oil-and-gas prices, energy from Coal-fired Plants is cheaper and helps keep the cost of electricity affordable to consumers. Coal-fired Plants are reliable and cheaper to build than a Nuclear Plant. Coal-fired plants are now designed to be a safe and efficient source of energy that supports grid systems, helping to avoid blackouts. New clean coal technologies create many thousands of new high-wage jobs across our country, helping our economy grow.”

Several of the union members who testified in Atlanta assailed the EPA representatives because the hearing locations were far from where those most impacted—the coal miners—live.

I spent some time on Tuesday talking with many of the union representatives. David Cagle, Marketing Representative for the Plumbers, Pipefitters, and HVAC/R Service Technicians Local Union 72 based in Atlanta, told me: “I appreciate your interest in helping our country to be able to continue to provide economical electric energy and well-paying jobs to America’s families and businesses.” He then offered me this brief history of what the coal-fired electric energy industry means to his family:

After World War II my father worked in one of the first large coal-fired powerhouses built in the state of Georgia. That well-paying job allowed him to help his parents pay off the mortgage on their house and also to start saving for a down payment for a home of his own one day. My father worked on several coal-fired powerhouses throughout his career in the piping industry. These well-paying jobs provided a decent standard of living for his family.

The powerhouses that my father helped build are still providing well-paying jobs for the people who run them and the workers who do the maintenance on them. Hundreds of thousands of construction workers have benefited from the well-paying jobs in the construction and maintenance of these facilities. They are also still providing low-cost electrical power to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of customers.

””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””

Beside my family benefiting from the coal-powered electric generation industry, I can tell you firsthand what coal does for our country across the continent.

I lived in Campbell County, Wyoming, for two years in the mid-90s. Campbell County is the Energy Capital of the United States. Thousands of families would lose a very good way of living, if the coal mines in Wyoming were shut down. The coal mined there is very low in sulfur and produces some of the cleanest electricity on earth. I also know many people from West Virginia who depend on coal to be able to make a decent living.

I fully understand the devastating effects the Obama Administration’s new EPA rules on coal-fired powerhouses would have on people on a fixed income. My parents are in their late 80s and early 90s. They are on a fixed income and in poor health. The last thing they need are large power bills that would destroy their budget and force them to rely on their children to help pay their power bills.

My whole family are outdoorsmen. We have all been raised to hunt and fish and respect and protect our environment. My family would be the first to embrace a low-cost, environmentally sound alternative to coal-fired powerhouses. The problem is, there is no alternative economically viable source available at this time.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) covered a union protest that took place at the Pittsburgh hearing. It states: “Unions opposing the proposed rule argue that U.S. workers will pay the price for lowering emissions domestically while other countries—most notably China, where coal usage has grown rapidly—will continue to burn coal and emit carbon dioxide.” The WSJreported: “Unions focused their efforts on Pittsburgh, sending busloads of unionized miners, utility workers, railroad workers, and others from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama, and other states.”

I also want to address the constitutionality of the proposed plan, as it does exactly what the Supreme Court admonished the EPA about on June 23. Justice Antonin Scalia, for the majority, wrote this about the Tailoring Rule decision: “Were we to recognize the authority claimed by EPA in the Tailoring Rule, we would deal a severe blow to the Constitution’s separation of powers… The power of executing laws…does not include a power to revise clear statutory terms that turn out not to work in practice.” Yet, this is exactly what this proposed plan will do.

Later in the decision, Scalia says: “When an agency claims to discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power to regulate ‘a significant portion of the American economy’ . . . we typically greet its announcement with a measure of skepticism. We expect Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign an agency decisions of vast ‘economic and political significance.’”

I believe on these grounds, this plan must not go forward. It is one more example of executive overreach.

I fear that if it does, America will pay a dear price. This hearing was scheduled to take place down the street at the Sam Nunn Federal Center. However, it was moved due to a power outage. Note: business cannot be done without power. You were able to move this hearing. In a reduced-power environment businesses will move to places where they have access to energy that is effective, efficient, and economical. They will move, as many have already done, to places with far-looser environmental policies and the perceived gain will be lost.

Thinking that what we do in the United States will have a serious impact on global carbon dioxide emissions is like thinking that declaring a “no pee” section in the swimming pool will keep the water urine free.

I’ll end with a quote from the smog-viewing attorney who closed with: “I am hopeful that my new grandchildren, who will live into the 22^nd century, will enjoy a world that my grandparents, born in the 19^th century, would recognize.” If this plan is passed, he may get his wish. His grandparents’ world contained none of the energy-based modern conveniences or medical miracles we consider standard and essential today—let alone those yet to be developed or discovered by the 22^nd century. In his grandparents’ day, life expectancy in the U.S. was estimated at 45 years. By 2000, this had increased to 78 years—mostly due to our expansion of cost-effective electricity throughout the nation.

Remember, the countries with the best human health and the most material wealth are those with the highest energy consumption. America needs energy that is abundant, available, and affordable.

* * * *

The Agenda Behind Climate Alarmism, is Far Worse than Climate Change!

August 10, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Climate Change And The Human Condition: Is It Time To Reconsider Climatic Determinism?

Posted on August 9, 2014 by Anthony Watts

Guest Opinion by Dr. Tim Ball

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana (Original quote from his book The Life of Reason, much paraphrased.)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its supporters urge action because the planet and humans are threatened by global warming. We must modify our behavior, mitigate the warming, or die by the millions. In the centuries prior to the First World War (WWI) these reactions were classified as climatic determinism, the idea that human behavior is dictated by climate. As one research group explains.

Climatic determinism has a very long and checkered history. It gave a framework for thinking about the relationship between the human and natural environments by making the climate a demiurge of social universe.

Later, they explain why they are discussing the concept.

While most of such thinking has been discredited, in recent years, the omnipresence of anthropogenic climate change has caused a resurgence of similar ideas, causing scholars and commentators to ask if these represent a revival of climatic determinism and, if so, with what consequences?

The truth is, it should not have been discredited or abandoned. Shakespeare said, “The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.” This doesn’t mean we discredit or abandon them. A complete analysis is required about why the concept was abandoned and how it was used and misused for a political agenda.

The history of the hypothesis of climatic determinism illustrates the fundamental difference between Science and Social Science. A scientific hypothesis is validated by predictive success. Social Science hypotheses invalidate themselves, because humans react to the predictions and alter the outcome. The latter failure is due to something that cannot be quantified – free will.

Failed predictions caused the IPCC to adopt the term projection as early as the second Report (1995). Their projections continue to fail because they blend invalid and inadequate science with the inherent failures of social science. The entire theme behind the Club of Rome, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Agenda 21 and the IPCC is neo-Malthusian. Populations, especially when industrialized, will outgrow all resources. They chose global warming and latterly climate change as the dangers imposed, in a modern form of climatic determinism that ignores their belief in evolution.

Climate Influence On Evolution and Human History

We commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I. Hopefully, we learned from that history, but, ironically, history indicates we don’t. World leaders forgot the lessons of World War I very quickly, as the Treaty of Versailles demonstrated. Treaty failures, skillfully exploited by Hitler, resulted in World War II becoming a continuation of the problems. In fact it was one war with a brief interlude.

Appropriately, we commemorate the sacrifices and losses of people. We acknowledge the positive changes that occurred because of the wars, such as the role of women in both Wars and the emancipation of colonial regions. What we rarely remember are other casualties of war, usually ideas or intellectual pursuits.

As a graduate student in the 1960s I escorted Professor Fisher, from the University of Durham, on a tour of Winnipeg, Manitoba. We passed an English style lawn bowling facility. He asked about it, given the climate of the region. I somewhat flippantly suggested it contradicted the philosophy of climatic determinism. He angrily replied, “Don’t mention that vile topic again.”

I became interested in the topic for a few reasons, but mostly because scientific studies of natural changes omitted humans as an agent. For example, variables listed as part of soil formation included, parent material (rock), weathering, organic agents and chemical activity. The “organic agents” did not include humans. It was part of the ongoing, but essentially ignored, debate about humans as animals.

At about the same time, I became aware of the work of a conference and subsequently an important book by William Thomas titled Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth.The concepts came from George Perkins Marsh, an earlier author I also knew from research for my Honors Thesis, “Some Philosophical Considerations of Humans as a Source of Change”. You can study history and geography separately, but you only have clear understanding when you put them together. I hold that history is the play and geography the stage and only by combining them understand and find appropriate solutions.

Products of the Earth: Climatic Determinism Misused.

Climatic determinism is a subset of environmental determinism, which was effectively resurrected as part of social Darwinism. Resurrected, because it was an idea rooted in many early philosophical works from Ancient Greece through to the present.

For example, Montesquieu, the French lawyer and philosopher wrote about it extensively.As one history commentator wrote,

In his famous book, The spirit of laws, French philosopher Montesquieu proposes the controversial theory that geography and climate can influence the nature of men and societies.

The rider, “controversial theory” is wrong. It wasn’t controversial when written, relatively new, but not controversial.

At the end of the 19^th-century Darwin influenced Friedrich Ratzel’s influential bookAnthropogeographie (French version). It was a book grossly misused by Adolf Hitler, but gave academic justification for what he did. Karl Haushofer, a German General in WWI, was a keen student of Ratzel’s His views were transmitted to Hitler by Haushofer’s assistant, Rudolf Hess. Anthropogeographie included the term lebensraum to describe how a more powerful state will occupy weaker states as it expanded – a natural process he called the organic state theory.

Seeking or misusing academic justification for political action is common since the emergence of universities. Global warming is just a recent example as Gore and others misused the ideas of Roger Revelle.

Ratzel’s work applied Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” to the merging nation-states. Herbert Spencer coined the phrase. Darwin liked it and as a strong supporter of Spencer’s work, put it in the sixth edition of Origin of Species. This is all part of today’s intellectual and philosophical contradiction that people, who totally agree with Darwin, are also usually advocates of socialism, the desire to make all things equal by actively offsetting natural inequalities.

The other misapplication of Ratzel’s work by Hitler did greater damage to climate determinism. This was the claim that people from cool and temperate climates were aggressive, industrious and superior, while people from hot climates were lazy, indolent and inferior. It became the most damaging part of what happened to climatic determinism because of the clear racial superiority implication.

Many issues, crucial to understanding human history and human evolutionary history, are not properly or fully examined. The current condemnation of humans, as the cause of environmental degradation, global warming and the goal to reduce human populations, especially developed and industrialized nations are not discussed in a complete context. A fundamental assumption is human activity is not natural, which infers humans are not natural. Also, it assumes we are not continuing to evolve, which is subtly built in to such assumptions as “business as usual”.

Ellsworth Huntington and Ellen Semple Churchill were two American supporters of Ratzel’s work at the turn of the 19^th-century. Huntington contributed to the rejection of climatic determinism because he also promoted eugenics. Churchill was different. She learned German and attended lectures by Ratzel. She disconnected herself from his ideas disagreeing, particularly, with his organic state theory. She incorporated the wider idea of the relationship between history and geography in the 1903 publication of “American history and Its Geographic Conditions. The point about Churchill is she didn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, as happened to climatic determinism.

Drought Patterns and Human History

Huntington, like Alexander von Humboldt, also travelled extensively visiting all continents except Antarctica and wrote from observation and experience. Despite ethnocentricity and his support for eugenics, Huntington produced some fascinating observations about climate, specifically climate change, and determinism. His important work, The Pulse of Asia published in 1907 argued that the history of Eurasia was determined by the periods of drought and desiccation of grasslands. There are vast grasslands in central Asia, particularly the Tarim Basin. (Map)

Drought patterns cause a periodic growth and decline of the grasses that support grazing herds. Most important for the Mongolian people are the horses essential as a food source, but transport for a migrating aggressive people. Huntington argues that the pulse is created as the population waxes with wetter conditions and expand out to surrounding regions and wanes as the dry conditions set in. Location and orientation of the Great Wall of China appears to support the theory, as does the fear of Mongol hordes throughout eastern and even parts of Western Europe. That fear extends to the present. The British, using their standard technique of divide and conquer, split the Kurdish people into four new countries, Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria.

Modern Adaptation Of Humans To Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) drew all the attention to temperature, to CO2 and specifically warming; even most skeptics became narrowly focused. There’s no question that temperature reaches limits that force responses and adjustments. The problem is climatic determinism is mostly about changing precipitation, particularly with regard to plants and animals, including humans. Governments prepare for warming and assume it will all be business as usual. They generally don’t allow for technological advances or any other adjustments, as humans have done in the past.

Climatic determinism is interpreted to mean that people, like animals, are passive victims of change. The only adaptations are to move or die. What is overlooked in the entire discussion was the transition from humans, as passive victims, to active controllers of their destiny. It is an evolutionary transition that environmentalists oppose. Consider Ron Arnold, Executive Vice-President of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, observation that,

“Environmentalism intends to transform government, economy, and society in order to liberate nature from human exploitation.”

David Graber, a research biologist with the National park Service said,

“Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn’t true. Somewhere along the line – at about a billion years ago – we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth. It is cosmically unlikely that the developed world will choose to end its orgy of fossil energy consumption, and the Third World its suicidal consumption of landscape. Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”

That was likely the source of Prince Philips comment that, if reincarnated he would return as a deadly virus and eliminate most people. That’s fine if they start with monarchies. Richard Conniff’s comment in “Audubon” extends the idea.

“Among environmentalists sharing two or three beers, the notion is quite common that if only some calamity could wipe out the entire human race, other species might once again have a chance.”

Technological advances to offset the extent of climatic determinism, include, fire, clothing, irrigation and the transition from hunter-gatherer to sedentary agriculture. Why isn’t that part of evolution? It is, but it is philosophically opposite to the basis of environmentalism. Why assume that this evolution will not continue? Of course, if the environmentalists have their way we will be doomed back to absolute climatic determinism. The hockey stick rewrote history. The historic temperature record is lowered to rewrite history. Now they want to redress and halt evolution, the very theory sacrosanct to their belief in Darwin. Confused. Of course, because they haven’t learned from history, except to rewrite it for their political agenda.

Greentards Angry! PM Harper Allows Environment Canada, to tell the TRUTH!

August 9, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Environment Canada Engaging In Blatant Climate Denial

Posted on August 9, 2014by stevengoddard

Nobel Prize winner Al Gore says the Arctic will be ice free in a few weeks, but Environment Canada shows both ends of the Northwest Passage blocked with ice.

Ninety-seven percent of climate experts agree with Al Gore, so the only rational conclusion is that Environment Canada are engaging in heresy against the global warming religion.

Wind Industry Gets Rid of Top Acoustic Professor, Who Dared to Tell the Truth!

August 9, 2014 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

Vestas Helps Engineer Sacking of Denmark’s Top Acoustic Professor, Henrik Møller

August 9, 2014 by stopthesethings Leave a Comment

In Denmark, Vestas is the wind industry. And like the wind industry everywhere, it’s done its level best to infiltrate and influence every aspect of political and academic life: all aimed at preventing any pesky opposition to its plans to cover the planet with its giant fans.

Vestas isn’t afraid to cut all the ethical corners in its quest to be the world’s dominant fan maker: Vestas bosses are under investigation for abusing their positions to secure private financial gains through its business dealings with others in the wind industry (see our post here).

In Australia, Vestas splashed a fat pile of cash at “green” groups, going on the propaganda front foot, spending $millions in Australia to “shape the debate” – paying its team of dilettante advocates and juvenile propagandists a bucket of loot to “win hearts and minds” – and threw a fat pile of cash at the Australian Greens in their futile efforts to unseat STT Champion, SA Senator, Nick Xenophon at the Federal election last September (see our post here).

Back in Denmark, it appears Vestas has used its sway to see that Denmark’s leading academic expert on noise research, Henrik Møller would no longer be a thorn in its side. As a highly respected University Professor, Henrik Møller presented a clear and present danger to Vesta’s commercial interests: he has worked for years to show that turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound causes sleep deprivation and other adverse health effects; he has been especially critical of the noise “standards” set for households – which were written by the wind industry (read Vestas) in order to allow turbines to comply, no matter how large or how close to homes.

Vestas has been a vocal critic of Dr Møller and has continually complained about him to his boss, Dean Eskild Holm Nielsen. Vestas must be chuffed that its efforts have all paid off: Dr Møller has been sacked. Here’s John Droz Jr detailing Vesta’s successful effort to shoot the messenger.

The Danish Democracy Doesn’t Like the Truth
windfarmaction
John Droz Jr
5 August 2014

Henrik Møller, Denmark’s leading academic expert on noise research, has been fired by his university after exposing a far-reaching cover up by the Danish government of the health risks caused by wind turbine noise pollution.

Shock and outrage at this latest example of the heavy-handed cover up of government-backed junk science has brought strong condemnation from independent scientists. John Droz Jr, a respected critic of wind farms, has issued the following condemnatory response:

As you probably know, a passion of mine is defending my profession (Science) from assault.

This is approaching a full-time job, as those promoting political or economic agendas are painfully aware that real Science is a major threat to their aspirations — so they are aggressively attacking it on multiple fronts. (See ScienceUnderAssault.info.)

We now have yet another distressing example, where a leading scientist has lost his job — apparently for the crime of being a conscientious, competent academic, focused on quality research (instead of chasing grant money).

Dr. Henrik Møller, is a world-renowned expert on infra-sound, and has published several high-quality studies on low-frequency acoustics (like here, here, here, and here). More recently, some of these have dealt with industrial wind energy noise (e.g. here — which was peer-reviewed).

He has been praised as Denmark’s “leading noise researcher.” What’s even more important is that he has been courageous enough to have publicly spoken out against poor government policies, as well as the misinformation disseminated from the wind energy cartel.

In Denmark there have been several newspaper reports about this surprising firing, but I’m sending this to the AWED list as such an event should have much wider coverage. Here are English translations of a few Danish articles (I have the originals as well). It seems to me that some of the key points made in them are:

— Dr. Møller has had thirty eight (38) years of distinguished service for Aalborg University.

— Ironically, this institution publicly prides itself as looking out for its professors: “At Aalborg University we focus intensively on staff welfare and job satisfaction.”

— He was the only one of 200± researchers at the Department of Electronic Systems in Aalborg who was let go …

— The purported reason for his firing, is that the professor is no longer “financially lucrative” for the university …

— Despite claiming that the termination was due to a shortage of funds, the university had recently hired two additional people in the same department …

— Dr. Møller’s reasoned responses were:

1) During the last year he may not have produced that much income, but in many other years his work resulted in substantial profit to the university.

2) Statistically, approximately half of the faculty would be operating at a loss — so why single him out?

3) In his prior 38 years of employment, and reviews, he was never informed that his job was solely dependent on outside funding.

4) Additionally, prior to the sacking, he had not been informed that his income production was a problem that need to be addressed — giving him a chance to do so.

— The Danish Society of Engineers, and the Danish Association of Masters and PhDs, have gone on record stating that it is unreasonable to dismiss researchers due to a lack of grants. Furthermore they reportedly said such a policy is contrary to the Danish University Act, which specifies that the purpose of research is to promote education, not to be a profit-making venture …

— The VP of the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations stated that it’s rare that a Danish professor is fired.

— It has been reported that the wind industry has frequently complained about Dr. Møller to his boss (Dean Eskild Holm Nielsen) …

— Consider this: the same Dean Nielsen was a keynote speaker at the Wind Industry Association’s meeting, the day after he fired Dr. Møller!

— As one article explains, this termination might have also come from the fact that the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) has a very close association with the wind industry, and that Dr. Møller’s scientific research had resulted in embarrassing revelations.

— The same article states that with Dr. Møller out of the picture, wind industry friendly DTU will now take over responsibility for assessing acoustical impacts of industrial wind turbines on Danish citizens. (I wonder what conclusions they will reach?)

As one report accurately stated: it takes courage for academics to focus on scientific research, instead of pursuing outside funding.

Please consider writing a short, polite email to Dr. Møller’s boss (who fired him) objecting to this shameful termination: Dean Nielsen dekan-teknat@adm.aau.dk

It would be helpful to cc a reporter at an important Danish newspaper: Axel Pihl-Andersen:axel.andersen@jp.dkand bcc Dr. Møller:henrikmoeller2@gmail.com

Regards,
John Droz, Jr.
Physicist & Environmental Advocate

PS — Although his studies on industrial wind energy only comprise a small amount of his thirty eight years of academic work, they may have resulted in the most notoriety.

Since many of the people on this list are interested in that topic, here are a few other examples of Dr. Møller’s work related to wind energy, in his words:

1) We made an analysis of a wind project in Maastricht, planned to possibly have turbines from a Danish company. The City Council stopped the project after our report — a result that did not make us popular with the Danish wind industry.

2) A reason why we seem to be a nuisance to the wind industry in Denmark is that we keep finding errors in noise calculations and evaluations. As an example, we found serious errors in the environmental impact assessment behind a new law on a wind turbine test center, and the law had to be changed.

3) We also revealed that in a big Vestas promotion, they mixed up two acoustical terms (and Vestas had to change part of their campaign). I’m afraid there are only Danish newspaper articles about that — which is unfortunate, because it was quite funny.

4) We also criticized Danish regulation of wind turbine noise, which resulted in feature articles in Danish newspapers. I am not sure if others have been translated, but here is one example.

5) We also put together some web pages about the Danish wind regulations, which made the wind industry complain about me to the Dean (again).

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