fighting wind turbines

Honest, Unbiased Scientists Reject Global Warming Hysteria!

/ 1957chev / 9 Comments
December 4, 2013

Dr. Don Easterbrook Exposes Global Warming Hoax 

Global Cooling is Here

Evidence for Predicting Global Cooling for the Next Three Decades

Department of Geology, Western Washington University
Article originally published, 11/2/2008
Re-Published 10/29/2013
Addendum Video:  3/26/2013 Presentation to WA Senate committee added 12/4/2013 by HSaive
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Global Research Editor’s note

The following article represents an alternative view and analysis of global climate change, which challenges the dominant Global Warming Consensus.

Global Research does not necessarily endorse the proposition of “Global Cooling”, nor does it accept at face value the Consensus on Global Warming. Our purpose is to encourage a more balanced debate on the topic of global climate change.

INTRODUCTION

Dr Don Easterbrook mugDespite no global warming in 10 years and recording setting cold in 2007-2008, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC) and computer modelers who believe that CO2 is the cause of global warming still predict the Earth is in store for catastrophic warming in this century. IPCC computer models have predicted global warming of 1° F per decade and 5-6° C (10-11° F) by 2100 (Fig. 1), which would cause global catastrophe with ramifications for human life, natural habitat, energy and water resources, and food production. All of this is predicated on the assumption that global warming is caused by increasing atmospheric CO2 and that CO2 will continue to rise rapidly.

3/26/2013 Presentation to Washington State Senate Committee on Climate Change – In addition to evidence contrary to IPCC, Dr. Easterbrook alleges media bias and manipulation of data by East Anglia, NASA, NOAA and NSF. (TVW Original Broadcast)

Easterbrrok Video at TVW
Archive Backup Video

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Figure 1. A. IPCC prediction of global warming early in the 21st century. B. IPCC prediction of global warming to 2100. (Sources: IPCC website)

However, records of past climate changes suggest an altogether different scenario for the 21st century. Rather than drastic global warming at a rate of 0.5 ° C (1° F) per decade, historic records of past natural cycles suggest global cooling for the first several decades of the 21st century to about 2030, followed by global warming from about 2030 to about 2060, and renewed global cooling from 2060 to 2090 (Easterbrook, D.J., 2005, 2006a, b, 2007, 2008a, b); Easterbrook and Kovanen, 2000, 2001). Climatic fluctuations over the past several hundred years suggest ~30 year climatic cycles of global warming and cooling, on a general rising trend from the Little Ice Age.

PREDICTIONS BASED ON PAST CLIMATE PATTERNS

Global climate changes have been far more intense (12 to 20 times as intense in some cases) than the global warming of the past century, and they took place in as little as 20–100 years. Global warming of the past century (0.8° C) is virtually insignificant when compared to the magnitude of at least 10 global climate changes in the past 15,000 years. None of these sudden global climate changes could possibly have been caused by human CO2 input to the atmosphere because they all took place long before anthropogenic CO2 emissions began. The cause of the ten earlier ‘natural’ climate changes was most likely the same as the cause of global warming from 1977 to 1998.

Easterbrook-3-glcool1

Figure 2. Climate changes in the past 17,000 years from the GISP2 Greenland ice core. Red = warming, blue = cooling. (Modified from Cuffy and Clow, 1997)

Climatic fluctuations over the past several hundred years suggest ~30 year climatic cycles of global warming and cooling (Figure 3) on a generally rising trend from the Little Ice Age about 500 years ago.

Easterbrook-4-glcool1

Figure 3. Alternating warm and cool cycles since 1470 AD. Blue = cool, red = warm. Based on oxygen isotope ratios from the GISP2 Greenland ice core.

Relationships between glacial fluctuations, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and global climate change.

After several decades of studying alpine glacier fluctuations in the North Cascade Range, my research showed a distinct pattern of glacial advances and retreats (the Glacial Decadal Oscillation, GDO) that correlated well with climate records. In 1992, Mantua published the Pacific Decadal Oscillation curve showing warming and cooling of the Pacific Ocean that correlated remarkably well with glacial fluctuations. Both the GDA and the PDO matched global temperature records and were obviously related (Fig. 4). All but the latest 30 years of changes occurred prior to significant CO2 emissions so they were clearly unrelated to atmospheric CO2.

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Figure 4. Correspondence of the GDO, PDO, and global temperature variations.

The significance of the correlation between the GDO, PDO, and global temperature is that once this connection has been made, climatic changes during the past century can be understood, and the pattern of glacial and climatic fluctuations over the past millennia can be reconstructed. These patterns can then be used to project climatic changes in the future. Using the pattern established for the past several hundred years, in 1998 I projected the temperature curve for the past century into the next century and came up with curve ‘A’ in Figure 5 as an approximation of what might be in store for the world if the pattern of past climate changes continued. Ironically, that prediction was made in the warmest year of the past three decades and at the acme of the 1977-1998 warm period. At that time, the projected curved indicated global cooling beginning about 2005 ± 3-5 years until about 2030, then renewed warming from about 2030 to about 2060 (unrelated to CO2—just continuation of the natural cycle), then another cool period from about 2060 to about 2090. This was admittedly an approximation, but it was radically different from the 1° F per decade warming called for by the IPCC. Because the prediction was so different from the IPCC prediction, time would obviously show which projection was ultimately correct.

Now a decade later, the global climate has not warmed 1° F as forecast by the IPCC but has cooled slightly until 2007-08 when global temperatures turned sharply downward. In 2008, NASA satellite imagery (Figure 6) confirmed that the Pacific Ocean had switched from the warm mode it had been in since 1977 to its cool mode, similar to that of the 1945-1977 global cooling period. The shift strongly suggests that the next several decades will be cooler, not warmer as predicted by the IPCC. 

Easterbrook-6-glcool1

Figure 5.Global temperature projection for the coming century, based on warming/cooling cycles of the past several centuries. ‘A’ projection based on assuming next cool phase will be similar to the 1945-1977 cool phase. ‘B’ projection based on assuming next cool phase will be similar to the 1880-1915 cool phase. The predicted warm cycle from 2030 to 2060 is based on projection of the 1977 to 1998 warm phase and the cooling phase from 2060 to 2090 is based on projection of the 1945 to 1977 cool cycle.

Implications of PDO, NAO, GDO, and sun spot cycles for global climate in coming decades

The IPCC prediction of global temperatures, 1° F warmer by 2011 and 2° F by 2038 (Fig. 1), stand little chance of being correct. NASA’s imagery showing that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has shifted to its cool phase is right on schedule as predicted by past climate and PDO changes (Easterbrook, 2001, 2006, 2007). The PDO typically lasts 25-30 years and assures North America of cool, wetter climates during its cool phases and warmer, drier climates during its warm phases. The establishment of the cool PDO, together with similar cooling of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), virtually assures several decades of global cooling and the end of the past 30-year warm phase. It also means that the IPCC predictions of catastrophic global warming this century were highly inaccurate.

The switch of PDO cool mode to warm mode in 1977 initiated several decades of global warming. The PDO has now switched from its warm mode (where it had been since 1977) into its cool mode. As shown on the graph above, each time this had happened in the past century, global temperature has followed. The upper map shows cool ocean temperatures in blue (note the North American west coast). The lower diagram shows how the PDO has switched back and forth from warm to cool modes in the past century, each time causing global temperature to follow. Comparisons of historic global climate warming and cooling over the past century with PDO and NAO oscillations, glacial fluctuations, and sun spot activity show strong correlations and provide a solid data base for future climate change projections.

The Pacific Ocean has a warm temperature mode and a cool temperature mode, and in the past century, has switched back forth between these two modes every 25-30 years (known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or PDO). In 1977 the Pacific abruptly shifted from its cool mode (where it had been since about 1945) into its warm mode, and this initiated global warming from 1977 to 1998. The correlation between the PDO and global climate is well established. The announcement by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) had shifted to its cool phase is right on schedule as predicted by past climate and PDO changes (Easterbrook, 2001, 2006, 2007). The PDO typically lasts 25-30 years and assures North America of cool, wetter climates during its cool phases and warmer, drier climates during its warm phases. The establishment of the cool PDO, together with similar cooling of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), virtually assures several decades of global cooling and the end of the past 30-year warm phase.

Eaterbrrok-7-globalcool7

Figure 6. Switch of PDO cool mode to warm mode in 1977 initiated several decades of global warming. The PDO has now switched from its warm mode (where it had been since 1977) into its cool mode. As shown on the graph above, each time this has happened in the past century, global temperature has followed. The upper map shows cool ocean temperatures in blue (note the North American west coast). The lower diagram shows how the PDO has switched back and forth from warm to cool modes in the past century, each time causing global temperature to follow. Projection of the past pattern (right end of graph) assures 30 yrs of global cooling

Comparisons of historic global climate warming and cooling over the past century with PDO and NAO oscillations, glacial fluctuations, and sun spot activity show strong correlations and provide a solid data base for future climate change projections. As shown by the historic pattern of GDOs and PDOs over the past century and by corresponding global warming and cooling, the pattern is part of ongoing warm/cool cycles that last 25-30 years. The global cooling phase from 1880 to 1910, characterized by advance of glaciers worldwide, was followed by a shift to the warm-phase PDO for 30 years, global warming and rapid glacier recession. The cool-phase PDO returned in ~1945 accompanied by global cooling and glacial advance for 30 years. Shift to the warm-phase PDO in 1977 initiated global warming and recession of glaciers that persisted until 1998. Recent establishment of the PDO cool phase appeared right on target and assuming that its effect will be similar to past history, global climates can be expected to cool over the next 25-30 years. The global warming of this century is exactly in phase with the normal climatic pattern of cyclic warming and cooling and we have now switched from a warm phase to a cool phase right at the predicted time (Fig. 5)

The ramifications of the global cooling cycle for the next 30 years are far reaching―e.g., failure of crops in critical agricultural areas (it’s already happening this year), increasing energy demands, transportation difficulties, and habitat change. All this during which global population will increase from six billion to about nine billion. The real danger in spending trillions of dollars trying to reduce atmospheric CO2 is that little will be left to deal with the very real problems engendered by global cooling.

CONCLUSIONS

Global warming (i.e, the warming since 1977) is over. The minute increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere (0.008%) was not the cause of the warming—it was a continuation of natural cycles that occurred over the past 500 years.

The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling, perhaps much deeper than the global cooling from about 1945 to 1977. Just how much cooler the global climate will be during this cool cycle is uncertain. Recent solar changes suggest that it could be fairly severe, perhaps more like the 1880 to 1915 cool cycle than the more moderate 1945-1977 cool cycle. A more drastic cooling, similar to that during the Dalton and Maunder minimums, could plunge the Earth into another Little Ice Age, but only time will tell if that is likely.

Don J. Easterbrook is Professor Emeritus of Geology at Western Washington University. Bellingham, WA. He has published extensively on issues pertaining to global climate change. For further details see his list of publications

Dismantling the RET is the Smartest Idea, It’s a Scam!

/ 1957chev / 2 Comments

Nick Cater: the Mandatory RET the Greatest Rort of All Time

July 30, 2014 by  

nick_cater

Hostages to a renewable ruse
The Australian
Nick Cater
29 July 2014

The Abbott bashers are unwittingly siding with crafty merchant bankers.

THE power couple.

If there is a sound more pitiable than the whine of a pious environmental activist, it is the wail of a ­financier about to do his dough.

The mournful chorus now wafting from Greg Hunt’s waiting room is the sound of the two in unison, pleading with the Environment Minister to save the life of their misshapen bastard child, the renewable energy target.

You have to hand it to Hunt, who either has nerves of steel or is stone deaf, for he has retained both his cool and his fortitude.

The RET review by Dick Warburton on the government’s behalf has brought the rent-seekers out in force, for billions of dollars of corporate welfare is resting on its outcome.

As it stands, the RET will produce a bounteous return for a small group of investors shrewd enough to get into the windmill game while the rest of us are slapped with four-figure power bills.

Wind farms may be ugly but they are certainly not cheap, nor is the electricity that trickles from them. No one in their right minds would buy one if they had to sell power for $30 to $40 a megawatt hour, the going rate for conventional producers.

But since the retailers are forced to buy a proportion of renewable power, the windmill mafia can charge two to three times that price, a practice that in any other market would be known as price gouging.

As if a $60 premium were not reward enough, the transaction is further sweetened with a renewable energy certificate that they can sell to energy producers who insist on generating power in a more disreputable manner.

The going rate of $40 a megawatt hour means the total income per megawatt for wind farms is three to five times that of conventional power, and unless the government changes the scheme that return is only going to get better.

In an act of rent-seeking genius, the renewable lobby managed to persuade the Rudd government to set the 2020 target as a quantity — 41 terawatt hours — rather than 20 per cent of overall power as originally proposed.

Since the target was set, the energy generation forecast for 2020 has fallen substantially, meaning the locked-in renewable target is now more like 28 per cent.

That will send conventional producers scrambling for certificates, pushing up their price beyond $100. It’s a mouth-watering prospect for the merchant bankers and venture capitalists who were smart enough to jump on board, and brilliant news for Mercedes dealerships on the lower north shore, but of little or any benefit to the planet.

The cost of this speculative ­financial picnic will be about $17 billion by 2030 or thereabouts, ­according to Deloitte, which produced a report on the messy business last week.

Since the extra cost will be added to electricity bills, the RET is a carbon tax by another name, a regressive impost that will fall most heavily on those with limited incomes, such as pensioners.

The lowest income households already spend 7 per cent of their disposable incomes on energy, according to the Australian Council of Social Service. Energy takes just 2.6 per cent of the budget of those on high incomes.

Thus under the cover of responding to climate change — “the greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time” — billions of dollars are taken from the poor and given to the rich investors in the unsightly industrial turbines that are blighting the lives of rural communities and stripping value from the properties of people who just wish to be left to live in peace.

If the anti-Abbott budget bashers who are squealing about a minor adjustment to pension indexation were serious, they would demand the end of the RET’s iniquitous transfer of wealth.

Yet ironically they find themselves on the side of crafty merchant bankers in the romantic expectation that this complex ­financial ruse is doing something to assist the planet.

To speak up in opposition to this social injustice is to find oneself condemned as a climate change denier, right-wing ideologue, apologist for the coal industry or, worse still, to be ignored altogether, as the ABC’s Four Corners managed to do in its renewable energy special last month.

The corporation flew reporter Stephen Long to California to tell us how wonderful the renewable energy bonanza is going to be and how foolish Tony Abbott’s government is to even question the proposition that too many windmills are barely enough.

“This government has an ideological agenda,” insisted John Grimes, chief executive of the Australian Solar Council.

“They want to carve out the impact of renewable energy on the network and they want to stop renewals in their tracks.”

Jeremy Rifkin, author of a book called The Third Industrial Revolution, told Long: “Australia’s the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy. There’s so much sun; there’s so much wind off the coast, and so it makes absolutely no sense when you have an abundance of renewable energy, why would you rely on a depleting supply of fossil fuels with all of the attendant ­consequences to society and the planet?”

Fatuous arguments of this kind are rarely challenged on the ABC, nor are the purveyors of renewable energy subjected to the degree of scepticism that others with corporate vested interests can expect. Instead they find themselves in the company of a cheer squad.

“The new developments with renewable energy and storage seem to have passed the Prime Minister by,” Long editorialised halfway through his dispiriting ­report.

Finally, however, as Long was about to run out of time and throw back to Kerry O’Brien, he let slip the awkward truth he had managed so far to avoid.

“Yes, it costs money to create the infrastructure for renewable energy,” he says. “A lot of money.”

Indeed it does, and if the arbitrary, inefficient and regressive mechanism of the RET is all that is left to overcome that hurdle, we may as well give up.

It is through this complicated method that the consumers are forced to pay a subsidy to wind farms without the need for a ­carbon tax.
The Australian

A fantastic piece of analysis from Nick Cater.

But we take issue with Deloitte’s cost estimate for the mandatory RET of “$17 billion by 2030″, which is way off the mark.

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 alternative is to buy RECs 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).

Now to the numbers.

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 to 2030.

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 exceed $90 and may well exceed the $100 figure mentioned by Nick Cater.

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.

The mandatory RET must go now.

abbottcover

High Energy Costs Hurt Seniors and other Vulnerable Citizens!

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New Obama EPA Rules Will Devastate Seniors

Jim Martin | Jul 28, 2014

 

When President Obama proposed healthcare reform that added 30 million to the insurance rolls while promising lower costs, most people who passed fourth grade math raised an eyebrow, if not a ruckus. The simple realities of supply and demand, coupled with the burden of government mandates, could only push healthcare costs skyward. With Obamacare now in effect, those early concerns have come to be realized through skyrocketing premiums, as confirmed by a recent Morgan Stanley survey of 148 national insurance brokers.

Premiums are up as much as 100 percent in some cases, and this is after Obama promised “savings.” One can only imagine what would happen to the cost of a commodity the President promises to make Americans pay more for. Unfortunately, we don’t have to imagine, as this is exactly what Obama promised his energy plan would achieve.

In January of 2008, candidate Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle that “under my plan… electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket.” No sanguine language here about savings, just a flat out mission to make Americans pay through the nose for energy. It’s no coincidence that under Obama gasoline prices have doubled, and have remained above $3 per gallon throughout his two terms.

Now to make good on his promise to make electricity cost more, Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have issued brutal new rules on emissions for electricity generating power plants, just what the doctor ordered for skyrocketing electricity prices. This is a story largely ignored by the mainstream press who never miss an Obama chip shot on to the green or a grip and grin in some remote diner. But Americans are catching on fast.

On HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy declined to disagree with the host’s contention that Obama was waging a “war on coal.” Indeed, it was candidate Obama who in the same Chronicle interview stated, “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can. It’s just that [my plan] will bankrupt them.” The President makes no bones that his aim is to make producing electricity cost-prohibitive, but in the end it will be you, me, and everybody with an outlet and a light switch paying the bill.

The EPA’s war on coal is no less than a war on seniors and our nation’s most vulnerable. Seniors on fixed and diminishing incomes pay a disproportionate share of their monthly budget on utilities, and Obama’s EPA will serve only to make them poorer and more vulnerable. A recent Harris poll found 88 percent of seniors are at least somewhat concerned that the new EPA rules will force them to pay more. Sharing this view is a U.S. Chamber of Commerce analysis showing the new EPA rules will cost Americans $17 billion a year more to pay their electricity bills, and hit the economy with $50 billion a year in new costs.

As recently as six years ago coal accounted for about 50 percent of America’s electricity, and now stands at 40 percent. Obama wants it below 30 percent, a chokehold on energy production which is nothing short of pulling the emergency brake on the economy and letting America’s most vulnerable go flying through the windshield.

Seniors of limited means are least able to absorb the increasing costs of energy and electricity, as we’ve seen from far too many stories of elderly dying in their homes or requiring hospitalization during severe weather conditions. Clearly the President and the EPA are willing to gamble with the lives of seniors for the sake of their extreme ideology.

A study of the Administration’s new power plant emissions rules revealed job losses of 442,000 by 2022, and a loss of 40 percent of electrical capacity generated by coal in the next 15 years. What’s even more alarming is that the environmentalists at the EPA can’t even point to a tangible, achievable benefit to these new proposed standards. The truth is these additional regulations are of benefit to no one, and do nothing to address the fact that developing nations like China and India will double their power-plant emissions in short order with Americans essentially subsidizing their increased production.

The EPA counters that the short-term cost increase is easily absorbable and by 2030 we will all be paying less for energy, thanks to Obama and his environmental mandates. This is little comfort to the tens of millions of seniors now paying the price for Obama’s healthcare “savings.”

Concerns About Wind Turbines Too Close to Gas Lines!

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Turbine setback from gas lines sours some  

John Kreinbrink, an engineer who said he has worked on sour gas lines, contended that the potential for a puncture exists and that the lines could be damaged by vibrations from the shock if a windmill were to fall so close as allowed by the current setbacks on three DTE natural gas lines and one Omimex sour gas line.

Credit:  Steve Begnoche – Managing Editor, Ludington Daily News, www.ludingtondailynews.com 1 September 2011 ~~

One of the concerns raised during the run up to the Mason County Planning Commission’s approval of a special use permit for Consumers Energy’s proposed Lake Winds Energy Park was the seeming lack of awareness of the utility of sour and natural gas lines running through the wind park planned for Riverton and Summit townships.

These gas lines cross the county along rights of way used also by Consumers Energy, but the utility seemed surprised when critics of the proposed wind park pointed out the absence of the gas lines on Consumers’ wind park site maps.

Omimex Energy owns the sour gas lines and DTE the sweet gas lines.

Typically, utility concerns are ironed out in the early stages of planning for projects potentially affecting one another’s lines. The companies typically discuss with one another ways to work out logistics so one’s development doesn’t interfere with existing utility infrastructure, but that didn’t happen in the case of the Lake Winds Energy Park.

In subsequent months, conversations have taken place concerning placements of several of the turbines in relation to the gas lines.

Of concern, is how far away — or close — turbines are to the gas lines. Sour gas — which contains potentially deadly hydrogen sulfide — has to be “sweetened” before it can be used. The Omimex line transports sour gas to a sweetening plant in Manistee County.

The Vestas turbines Consumers plans to use are 476 feet tall to the tip of the 150-foot blades. The nacelle — the unit containing the generator and other equipment and where the blades connect to the tower — stands at 95 meters or about 312 feet.

Prior states in the e-mail that he would like the setback from the gas lines to be “at least a windmill height” and, he told the Daily News last week, he’d prefer it be at least 10 percent more so there could be no chance for the blades to hit the sour gas lines if a tower falls.

Schneider contends that engineering shows that if a windmill were to fall to the ground, the fiberglass blades could not penetrate the ground more than 4 feet, and thus could not damage the sour gas lines.

Prior counters if the turbines are set back beyond a tower’s height, he wouldn’t have to worry if the engineering is correct.

“I feel Consumers should move them to maximum setbacks that they can beyond the 476 feet since our pipeline contains 900 psi (pounds per square inch) of sour gas,” Prior wrote in an e-mail to the DTE Energy that he cc’ed to Mary Reilly, Mason County zoning director. The Citizens Alliance for Responsible Renewable Energy obtained a copy of the correspondence through a Freedom of Information Act request given to Reilly. “If Consumers has to reapply to the FAA, I would rather have them do that than sacrifice the potential safety of our public and our companies’ potential liability than expecting us to agree to lesser setback. If Consumer had done their homework ahead of time, this all could have been avoided.”

Consumers moved one turbine so it presents no concerns to Omimex, yet a second turbine, number 23, moved 95 feet back still is closer to the sour gas line than Prior said he’d like. The turbine is set back 376 feet from the Omimex line. Schneider said at that distance, the wind turbine is far enough away so the nacelle, which is the heaviest part of windmill, can’t fall on it and is situated in such a way that the blades can’t hit the line either. He compared the situation to a person being so close to a horse, that it can’t kick the person with its hoof because the person is too close.

CARRE’s members are using Omimex’s statements in the e-mail as one of the reasons the group wants the Mason County Zoning Board of Appeals to overturn the planning commission’s approval of the special land use permit for Lake Winds Energy Park.

At last week’s meeting, several people spoke about the matter. John Kreinbrink, an engineer who said he has worked on sour gas lines, contended that the potential for a puncture exists and that the lines could be damaged by vibrations from the shock if a windmill were to fall so close as allowed by the current setbacks on three DTE natural gas lines and one Omimex sour gas line.

“That’s a risk that had been ignored by the planning commission,” he said. “It’s something that can be detrimental to the general welfare.”

Evelyn Bergaila, long a critic of the wind park as designed, has spent much of the past year researching issues surrounding it as they have come up. She criticized the setbacks from the gas lines saying Consumers doesn’t want to move them more than the 1 foot vertical change or 100-foot horizontal change the FAA allows in its permit for the park without Consumers going back to that agency for review — a review that could slow down the project. CARRE members have said that rather than rush to construct the wind park, Consumers should slow down and address legitimate concerns, even if that means it misses a 2012 deadline to receive up to $75 million in government funds for the $200 million wind park.

Consumers seeks to have the park in production by the fall of 2012 in order to meet a deadline required for the government green energy subsidies for building the park. It is under a 2015 deadline to produce or purchase 10 percent of its power used in Michigan from renewable sources. Lake Winds Energy Park, and another park planned for the Thumb, are key components to Consumers’ plan to meet that State of Michigan green energy portfolio mandate.

Bergaila began her letter to the ZBA stating the planning commission erred in its decision to grant the permit “because the setback they are allowing for wind turbines to the Omimex sour gas line and the DTE sweet gas lines are inadequate. The health, safety, and welfare of the residents have not been protected as required by the Mason County Zoning Ordinance and Special Land Use Criteria.”

Bergaila contends Consumers is being inconsistent because on other setbacks, for instance one concerning a guy wire, the company recommended a greater setback than it is for the Omimex sour gas line at turbine 23.

“The acceptance of less than a tower height of setback of the wind turbines to sour and sweet gas lines … is an error that is dangerous to the health, safety and welfare of the Riverton community,” she stated.

Later in the same letter, Bergaila states, “The planning commission was both unduly influenced by the needs of Consumers Energy, in particular their schedule, and the commission erred in their decision to approve Consumers Energy’s special land use for 56 wind turbines in Riverton and Summit townships because the plan does not meet criteria number 3. This criteria states that the use ‘will not be hazardous or disturbing to existing or future permitted uses in the same general vicinity and in the community as a whole.’ The lack of adequate setbacks of the proposed wind turbines to the existing gas lines will be a hazard to our community.”

Complicating matters is that there is no setback standard in current law. Bergaila makes reference to a tower height plus 10 percent standard by the wind industry, but it is not a requirement.

“There are no set rules on the distance of setback and wind turbines,” Prior told the Daily News. “It’s a new concept.”

Prior, in the FOIA’d e-mail, also instructs Mary Reilly, planning administrator for Mason County, not to let Schneider speak on Prior’s or Omimex’s behalf on these matters. Prior state he would prefer not to be caught in the controversy on the matter, and had hoped it could be worked out among the companies.

The Mason County Zoning Board of Appeals will meet Wednesday, Sept. 7 at 7 p.m. in the community room in the basement of the Ludington City Hall. The appeal is expected to be a matter of deliberation. Public comment was taken last week.

Ridiculous Environmental Policies All Part of United Nation’s Agenda 21.

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Sniffing Out Bad Environmental Policies Is Much Like Culling Rotten Produce

By  

When buying produce, we’ve found ways to discern which pieces are worthy to place in our basket. Each piece of fruit or stalk of vegetable must be of good quality to justify spending our hard-earned income on it. So we look, we sniff and we gently squeeze them in order to cull the unripe or rotten pieces and glean the good ones.

Perhaps we should use a similar approach when evaluating the competing environmental proposals proffered by various organizations. We should carefully sniff out the rotten assumptions and gently squeeze the reasoning of their justifications in order to glean which proposals might be worthy of our real sacrifice in national treasure and personal freedoms.

For example, consider the World Bank’s proposals for reducing man-made influences over global climate change. Like most other organizations, they stress the urgency for all nations to take immediate, coordinated actions to reduce carbon emissions. However, they stress that the needed sacrifices should not be shared equally among the nations.

Upon closer inspection, the World Bank’s policy recommendations reveal intellectually unripe assumptions that employ ethically rotten reasoning to justify them. For example, in the World Development Report 2010, the President of the World Bank stresses that,

Developed countries have produced most of the emissions of the past and have higher per-capita emissions. These countries should lead the way by significantly reducing their carbon footprints and stimulating research into green alternatives.

First, consider the intellectually unripe assumption that per-capita carbon emissions are an appropriate basis for determining relative global warming culpability across the nations, and to identify which nations should bear the brunt of costly remediation efforts.

Let’s remember that carbon emissions result from economic activity. All else equal, greater economic activity in a nation’s economy creates greater carbon emissions per capita, but also greater prosperity (output per capita) for its citizens enjoy.

Humanitarians should want the citizens of all nations to become prosperous, but to achieve their prosperity with the smallest environmental footprint possible. Therefore, would not an intellectually ripe indicator of culpability be carbon emissions per-dollar of economic output?

Using this perspective, we could identify the various institutional characteristics among the nations that tend to create a “greener” prosperity, which would then better inform the efforts of environmental policy makers. For example, I point out in an earlier blog post that countries pursuing prosperity through free markets rather than through centralized planning consistently produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, per dollar of GDP.

Second, consider the ethically rotten policy implications that this intellectually unripe measure would likely create: In order for a nation with heavy carbon emissions per capita to reduce its culpability in global warming crimes against humanity, it must make relatively greater sacrifices. It must decrease its economic activity using current technologies and divert significant portions of its national treasure towards developing “green” technologies. Nations with lower per-capita emissions would not be called upon to sacrifice as much.

This means a country like China, which has an economy similar in size to the U.S. but generates 43% more total carbon emissions, would be expected to sacrifice less than the U.S. Why? With its 2 billion citizens (6 times the 325 million U.S. citizens), Chinese carbon emissions per capita are still far lower than the U.S.

This ethically rotten perspective ignores the fact that China has produced far more carbon emissions per dollar GDP than the U.S. As a result, Chinese citizens bear a much lower level of prosperity (output per person) than U.S. citizens, despite having imposed a far larger total environmental footprint than the U.S.

Using per-capita carbon emissions as an indicator of climate change culpability?  Hmm… I think I smell something rotten in Denmark.

– See more at: http://environmentblog.ncpa.org/sniffing-out-bad-environmental-policies-is-much-like-culling-rotten-produce/#sthash.iZ5AGrRf.dpuf

Discussion on Why Energy Costs in America, Are So High!

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NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS

President Obama Keeps Energy Costs High

By Filed under Energy on July 28, 2014 

While Obama has not yet been able to stop the fracking technology that is producing an American oil and natural gas boom on private and state owned lands, he has sharply constricted exploration and development on the extensive federally-owned lands and offshore. That is why gasoline prices have doubled since he became President.

The Heritage Foundation explains that under Obama’s policies, the EPA’s:

Proposed limits for carbon dioxide emissions essentially would prohibit the construction of new coal-fired power plants, and force existing ones into early retirement, driving up the cost of energy on American families and businesses.

Then there is Obama’s indefinite hold up of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would simply transport, at no cost to taxpayers, abundant, low cost Canadian oil and natural gas to American Gulf Coast refineries, assuring American access to low cost, reliable oil and gas supplies. But if Canada cannot sell to America through the Keystone pipeline, then they will sell the oil and gas to our emerging rival in China, through pipelines on the Canadian west coast. These policies would deprive America of 50,000 high paying jobs not only for construction of the extensive pipeline networks, but also for the budding boom and rebirth of American manufacturing and associated higher paying blue collar jobs, which the revival of low cost, reliable American energy supplies is producing.

The Heritage Foundation further explains that “higher energy prices shrink production and consumption, resulting in less income for families, more people in the unemployment line and less economic growth.” All of this means that Obama is on track for increasing electricity and other energy costs that are the inevitable result of a constricted supply of low cost, reliable, American energy.

– See more at: http://environmentblog.ncpa.org/president-obama-keeps-energy-costs-high/#sthash.iy1mLXmu.dpuf

Heartfelt Poetry, from a Victim of the Wind Scam! Life on a Windfarm…

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Life on a Wind Farm: 3 Poems by M. Krochmalnik Grabois

Under the Turbines

Infants and toddlers cannot speak

and even pre-teens

may not have the vocabulary to describe

the unprecedented symptoms they suffer

 

Teenagers can tell you more—

they are developing a lexicon for suffering

They are beginning to see that life is unfair

and full of strife

 

and even if they sometimes feel invulnerable

they watch their parents and know deep inside that

invulnerability is a lie

 

They watch the landscape change around them

see the five-hundred foot turbines erected

 

The sound of the gears up there are not like the sound

of their childhoods swings

which creak in the wind at night

a comforting sound

 

Now they hear the tangible sound of the wealthy

stealing from them

before they have even begun to acquire anything

 

 

More Symptoms from Living in a “Wind Farm”

Sleep disturbance in children and infants is common

Your child may feel bullied

even if no classmate is bullying him

 

He has just begun to get over the idea that there is a monster

under his bed

 

and now he awakens feeling that there is an intruder in the house

an intruder with more powerful weapons than Father’s guns

and a feeling that Father is powerless

against the greater forces in the world

 

Of course, it’s true

Father and his neighbors tried to stop the turbines

He pointed out that the Comprehensive Plan

forbade them

 

Father is powerless

 

Grit

I watch my sleeping daughter grit her teeth

When she was three she had bad earaches

and took so many antibiotics

the doctor forbade us to give her milk

because milk is full of antibiotics

and we can’t afford Organic

 

Now she has ear aches again

This time the doctor says there is no treatment

other than moving out of the “wind farm”

 

It’s the pressure he says

and because of her history she is particularly

vulnerable

 

We all involuntarily explore our vulnerabilities now

 

Anxiety, nervousness—

I’ve learned there’s a difference between the two

but when I startle awake with an elevated heart rate

I’m not sure which is which

 

Nausea

I’ve always eaten like a horse and never felt nauseous in my life

Now I feel nauseous all the time

I can’t figure out how the wind turbines cause nausea

though I’ve been told it’s an inner ear thing

I guess it’s something my daughter and I

have in common

 

My neighbor, the professor

now stands in front of the chalkboard

gripping the edges of the podium

staring at his notes

 

He’s got vertigo

and can’t perambulate around his classroom

speaking extemporaneously

like he used to

 

I never much liked that guy

kind of an egghead

who moved here from some city

for the peace and quiet

That’s a laugh, ain’t it, Professor?

 

Now I feel more brotherly toward him

We stood up in public hearings

and our arguments, our pleas

were equally ignored by the corrupt commissioners

 

him with his PhD

me with my high school diploma

 

I think I was right not to go on to college

though my mother told me

I was smart enough

 

(Photo Credit: Steve Sutherland)

Windweasels Won’t Take NO for an Answer! Appealing Court Decision!

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Utility Appeals Wind Turbine Noise Court Ruling

Ruling could impact wind plants across Michigan

By JACK SPENCER | July 29, 2014

The Lake Winds Energy Plant in Mason County.

Consumers Energy is appealing the 51st Circuit Court ruling that upheld Mason County’s determination that the Lake Winds Energy Plant near Ludington is in violation of the county’s 45-decibel noise ordinance.

Arguing that the County’s decision was an “erroneous ruling,” the utility filed a 38-page appeal with the Michigan Court of Appeals on July 18. In addition, Consumers Energy is saying that if the ruling by 51st Circuit Court Judge Richard Cooper were allowed to stand, it could have an impact on many other wind turbine plants across the state.

“This has implications beyond just Mason County,” Dennis Marvin, spokesman for Consumers Energy told Capitol Confidential. “We believe the study the county based its decision on was flawed. We took this decision (to appeal) very seriously, but ultimately our legal staff determined this was in the best interest of our customers and the landowners at the wind park.”

Rick James, of East Lansing-based E-Coustic Solutions, is an acoustician specializing in the production, control, transmission, reception and effects of sound. According to James, Consumers Energy is not exaggerating when it talks about the potential impact of the Lake Winds case.

“Consumers’ appeal has less to do with the supposed 1 decibel error, the topic of the appeal, and more to do with the wind industry’s broader concerns,” James said. “A decision by the Appeals Court in favor of Mason County would make it easier for other counties and townships with wind energy utility noise regulations to prove non-compliance.”

“Consumers would have been better advised if they had not accepted the conclusions of their acoustical consultant that the proposed project could be fit into the host community without causing problems,” James continued. “Both Consumers and its consultant should have known from past work on other projects that locating large, utility-scale wind turbines close to residential homes was likely to result in the type of litigation now in progress.”

Located south of Ludington, Lake Winds was the utility company’s first wind plant project in Michigan. Residents who live near the $255 million, 56-turbine facility started complaining of health problems shortly after the turbines began operating. They filed a lawsuit on April 1, 2013, arguing that noise, vibrations and flickering lights emanating from the wind plant were adversely affecting their health. Among the symptoms noted in the lawsuit were dizziness, sleeplessness and headaches.

Less than six months later, in September 2013, the Mason County Planning Commission determined that the wind plant was not in compliance with safety guidelines. CMS Energy, which is the parent company of Consumers Energy, then appealed that decision to the Mason County Zoning Board of Appeals and lost. In January, CMS took the case to court again, where it lost once more.

As the case began at the Circuit Court level, in January, the utility asked Judge Cooper to delay the requirement that it make efforts to mitigate the alleged noise problem until the court made its final ruling. Cooper denied that request. Now, as part of its appeal, Consumers Energy is asking the same thing of the Appeals Court.

“Lake Winds is an embarrassment for CMS and for good reason,” said Kevon Martis, director of the Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition, a nonprofit organization that is concerned about the construction of wind turbines in the region. “They denied well-established science that indicated in advance that this project would not comply with the noise language CMS essentially dictated to Mason County. The truth is that even if CMS complied with the wind turbine noise limits they demanded from Mason County, evidence from inside Lake Winds, as well as inside almost every major wind plant across the state, is clear: 45-decibel wind turbine noise limits are not adequate to protect homeowners whose township has been turned into a 47-story tall power plant.”

“Ohio just recently modified their turbine setback standards to 1,320 feet and for that distance to be established from property lines,” Martis continued. “Our home rule townships would be wise to adopt similar or stronger language to protect their residents from such abuse.”

Marvin denied that CMS dictated the details of Mason County’s noise ordinance.

“We provided input and so did others,” Marvin said.

Lake Winds is part of the utility’s effort to meet Michigan’s renewable energy mandate, which requires that 10 percent of the state’s energy be produced by in-state renewable sources by 2015. The mandate was supposedly aimed at reducing carbon emissions, however; the 2008 law did not require the monitoring of emissions to measure the mandate’s actual impact. 

~~~~~

Renewable Energy Targets, are the Best Targets to Miss. Stop them All Together!

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Hostages to a renewable ruse

Written by Nick Cater, Australian on 28 July 2014.

wind farm blightIf there is a sound more pitiable than the whine of a pious environmental activist, it is the wail of a ­financier about to do his dough.

The mournful chorus now wafting from Greg Hunt’s waiting room is the sound of the two in unison, pleading with the Environment Minister to save the life of their misshapen bastard child, the renewable energy target.

You have to hand it to Hunt, who either has nerves of steel or is stone deaf, for he has retained both his cool and his fortitude.

The RET review by Dick Warburton on the government’s behalf has brought the rent-seekers out in force, for billions of dollars of corporate welfare is resting on its outcome.

As it stands, the RET will produce a bounteous return for a small group of investors shrewd enough to get into the windmill game while the rest of us are slapped with four-figure power bills.

Wind farms may be ugly but they are certainly not cheap, nor is the electricity that trickles from them. No one in their right minds would buy one if they had to sell power for $30 to $40 a megawatt hour, the going rate for conventional producers.

But since the retailers are forced to buy a proportion of renewable power, the windmill mafia can charge two to three times that price, a practice that in any other market would be known as price gouging.

As if a $60 premium were not reward enough, the transaction is further sweetened with a renewable energy certificate that they can sell to energy producers who insist on generating power in a more disreputable manner.

The going rate of $40 a megawatt hour means the total income per megawatt for wind farms is three to five times that of conventional power, and unless the government changes the scheme that return is only going to get better.

In an act of rent-seeking genius, the renewable lobby managed to persuade the Rudd government to set the 2020 target as a quantity — 41 terawatt hours — rather than 20 per cent of overall power as originally proposed.

Since the target was set, the energy generation forecast for 2020 has fallen substantially, meaning the locked-in renewable target is now more like 28 per cent.

That will send conventional producers scrambling for certificates, pushing up their price beyond $100. It’s a mouth-watering prospect for the merchant bankers and venture capitalists who were smart enough to jump on board, and brilliant news for Mercedes dealerships on the lower north shore, but of little or any benefit to the planet.

The cost of this speculative ­financial picnic will be about $17 billion by 2030 or thereabouts, ­according to Deloitte, which produced a report on the messy business last week.

Since the extra cost will be added to electricity bills, the RET is a carbon tax by another name, a regressive impost that will fall most heavily on those with limited incomes, such as pensioners.

The lowest income households already spend 7 per cent of their disposable incomes on energy, according to the Australian Council of Social Service. Energy takes just 2.6 per cent of the budget of those on high incomes.

Thus under the cover of responding to climate change — “the greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time” — billions of dollars are taken from the poor and given to the rich investors in the unsightly industrial turbines that are blighting the lives of rural communities and stripping value from the properties of people who just wish to be left to live in peace.

Read rest…

The Global Warming Debate….Science is NEVER Settled!

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Hypocricy on the left of me, hypocricy on the right–censorship by fanatics

Posted on July 28, 2014 by  

I know Pat Michaels and David Legates–both honorable and intelligent scientists.

Who disagree with the arrogant warmers

Michaels, Legates and others named here at JunkScience,com have been wrongly6 and viciously attacked for having a different opinion than the not so honorable people at CRU and other IPCC gang hideouts.

Scientists should not be subjected to calumnious vilification and personal attacks for disagreeing with the censorious and vicious lefties of the watermelon gang.

Here’s Paul Driessen on the issue.

Who’s really waging the ‘war on science’?

When it comes to attacking climate scientists, the alarmist Left has the market cornered

Paul Driessen

Left-leaning environmentalists, media and academics have long railed against the alleged conservative “war on science.” They augment this vitriol with substantial money, books, documentaries and conference sessions devoted to “protecting” global warming alarmists from supposed “harassment” by climate chaos skeptics, whom they accuse of wanting to conduct “fishing expeditions” of alarmist emails and “rifle” their file cabinets in search of juicy material (which might expose collusion or manipulated science).

A primary target of this “unjustified harassment” has been Penn State University professor Dr. Michael Mann, creator of the infamous “hockey stick” temperature graph that purported to show a sudden spike in average planetary temperatures in recent decades, following centuries of supposedly stable climate. But at a recent AGU meeting a number of other “persecuted” scientists were trotted out to tell their story of how they have been “attacked” or had their research, policy demands or integrity questioned.

To fight back against this “harassment,” the American Geophysical Union actually created a “Climate Science Legal Defense Fund,” to pay mounting legal bills that these scientists have incurred. The AGU does not want any “prying eyes” to gain access to their emails or other information. These scientists and the AGU see themselves as “Freedom Fighters” in this “war on science.” It’s a bizarre war.

While proclaiming victimhood, they detest and vilify any experts who express doubts that we face an imminent climate Armageddon. They refuse to debate any such skeptics, or permit “nonbelievers” to participate in conferences where endless panels insist that every imaginable and imagined ecological problem is due to fossil fuels. They use hysteria and hyperbole to advance claims that slashing fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions will enable us to control Earth’s climate – and that references to computer model predictions and “extreme weather events” justify skyrocketing energy costs, millions of lost jobs, and severe damage to people’s livelihoods, living standards, health and welfare.

Reality is vastly different from what these alarmist, environmentalist, academic, media and political elites attempt to convey.

In 2009, before Mann’s problems began, Greenpeace started attacking scientists it calls “climate deniers,” focusing its venom on seven scientists at four institutions, including the University of Virginia and University of Delaware. This anti-humanity group claimed its effort would “bring greater transparency to the climate science discussion” through “educational and other charitable public interest activities.” (If you believe that, send your bank account number to those Nigerians with millions in unclaimed cash.)

UVA administrators quickly agreed to turn over all archived records belonging to Dr. Patrick Michaels, a prominent climate chaos skeptic who had recently retired from the university. They did not seem to mind that no press coverage ensued, and certainly none that was critical of these Spanish Inquisition tactics.

However, when the American Tradition Institute later filed a similar FOIA request for Dr. Mann’s records, UVA marshaled the troops and launched a media circus, saying conservatives were harassing a leading climate scientist. The AGU, American Meteorological Society and American Association of University Professors (the nation’s college faculty union) rushed forward to lend their support. All the while, in a remarkable display of hypocrisy and double standards, UVA and these organizations continued to insist it was proper and ethical to turn all of Dr. Michaels’ material over to Greenpeace.

Meanwhile, although it had started out similarly, the scenario played out quite differently at the University of Delaware. Greenpeace targeted Dr. David Legates, demanding access to records related to his role as the Delaware State Climatologist. The University not only agreed to this. It went further, and demanded that Legates produce all his records – regardless of whether they pertained to his role as State Climatologist, his position on the university faculty, or his outside speaking and writing activities, even though he had received no state money for any of this work. Everything was fair game.

But when the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed a FOIA request for documents belonging to several U of Delaware faculty members who had contributed to the IPCC, the university told CEI the state’s FOIA Law did not apply. (The hypocrisy and double standards disease is contagious.) Although one faculty contributor clearly had received state money for his climate change work, University Vice-President and General Counsel Lawrence White claimed none of the individuals had received state funds.

When Legates approached White to inquire about the disparate treatment, White said Legates did not understand the law. State law did not require that White produce anything, White insisted, but also did not preclude him from doing so. Under threat of termination for failure to respond to the demands of a senior university official, Legates was required to allow White to inspect his emails and hardcopy files.

Legates subsequently sought outside legal advice. At this, his academic dean told him he had now gone too far. “This puts you at odds with the University,” she told him, “and the College will no longer support anything you do.” This remarkable threat was promptly implemented. Legates was terminated as the State Climatologist, removed from a state weather network he had been instrumental in organizing and operating, and banished from serving on any faculty committees.

Legates appealed to the AAUP – the same union that had staunchly supported Mann at UVA. Although the local AAUP president had written extensively on the need to protect academic freedom, she told Legates that FOIA issues and actions taken by the University of Delaware’s vice-president and dean “would not fall within the scope of the AAUP.”

What about the precedent of the AAUP and other professional organizations supporting Dr. Mann so quickly and vigorously? Where was the legal defense fund to pay Legates’ legal bills? Fuggedaboutit.

In the end, it was shown that nothing White examined in Legates’ files originated from state funds. The State Climate Office had received no money while Legates was there, and the university funded none of Legates’ climate change research though state funds. This is important because, unlike in Virginia, Delaware’s FOIA law says that regarding university faculty, only state-funded work is subject to FOIA.

That means White used his position to bully and attack Legates for his scientific views – pure and simple. Moreover, a 1991 federal arbitration case had ruled that the University of Delaware had violated another faculty member’s academic freedom when it examined the content of her research. But now, more than twenty years later, U Del was at it again.

Obviously, academic freedom means nothing when one’s views differ from the liberal faculty majority – or when they contrast with views and “science” that garners the university millions of dollars a year from government, foundation, corporate and other sources, to advance the alarmist climate change agenda. All these institutions are intolerant of research by scientists like Legates, because they fear losing grant money if they permit contrarian views, discussions, debates or anything that questions the climate chaos “consensus.” At this point, academic freedom and free speech obviously apply only to advance selected political agendas, and campus “diversity” exists in everything but opinions.

Climate alarmists have been implicated in the ClimateGate scandal, for conspiring to prevent their adversaries from receiving grants, publishing scientific papers, and advancing their careers. Yet they are staunchly supported by their universities, professional organizations, union – and groups like Greenpeace.

Meanwhile, climate disaster skeptics are vilified and harassed by these same groups, who pretend they are fighting to “let scientists conduct research without the threat of politically motivated attacks.” Far worse, we taxpayers are paying the tab for the junk science – and then getting stuck with regulations, soaring energy bills, lost jobs and reduced living standards … based on that bogus science.

Right now, the climate alarmists appear to be winning their war on honest science. But storm clouds are gathering, and a powerful counteroffensive is heading their way.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.

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