Stop the Subsidies for Wind & Make Them Follow Regulations….NOW!

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A decade after welcoming wind, states reconsider

By SEAN MURPHY 

CALUMET, Okla. (AP) — A decade ago, states offered wind-energy developers an open-armed embrace, envisioning a bright future for an industry that would offer cheap electricity, new jobs and steady income for large landowners, especially in rural areas with few other economic prospects.

To ensure the opportunity didn’t slip away, lawmakers promised little or no regulation and generous tax breaks.

But now that wind turbines stand tall across many parts of the nation’s windy heartland, some leaders in Oklahoma and other states fear their efforts succeeded too well, attracting an industry that gobbles up huge subsidies, draws frequent complaints and uses its powerful lobby to resist any reforms. The tension could have broad implications for the expansion of wind power in other parts of the country.

“What we’ve got in this state is a time bomb just waiting to go off,” said Frank Robson, a real estate developer from Claremore in northeast Oklahoma. “And the fuse is burning, and nobody is paying any attention to it.”

Today, many of the same political leaders who initially welcomed the wind industry want to regulate it more tightly, even in red states like Oklahoma, where candidates regularly rail against government interference. The change of heart is happening as wind farms creep closer to more heavily populated areas.

Opposition is also mounting about the loss of scenic views, the noise from spinning blades, the flashing lights that dot the horizon at night and a lack of public notice about where the turbines will be erected.

Robson said the industry is turning the landscape into a “giant industrial complex,” and the growing cost of the subsidies could decimate state funding for schools, highways and prisons.

Oklahoma went from three farms with 113 turbines a decade ago to more than 30 projects and 1,700 active turbines today.

With the rapid expansion came political clout. The industry now has nearly a dozen registered lobbyists working to stop new regulations and preserve generous subsidies that are expected to top $40 million this year.

Evidence of that influence can be seen at the Statehouse. A bill by the Senate president pro tem to ban any new wind farms in the eastern half of the state was quickly scuttled in the House. When state Rep. Earl Sears tried to amend the proposal to include some basic regulations for the industry, lobbyists killed that idea, too.

“I personally believe that wind power has a place in Oklahoma, but I’m frustrated,” Sears said. “I think they should have more regulations.”

Wind developers say they’re just protecting their investment — more than $6 billion spent on construction of wind farms in Oklahoma over a decade, according to a study commissioned by the industry. In addition to royalties paid to landowners, the giant turbines themselves are valued at as much as $3 million each.

Monte Tucker, a farmer and rancher from Sweetwater in far western Oklahoma, said his family has received annual payments of more than $30,000 for the four wind turbines placed on their ranch two years ago.

“We’re generating money out of thin air,” Tucker said. “And if the landowners don’t want them, the developers have to go somewhere else.”

Tucker says the turbines take only about 5 acres of his property out of production, and they have not affected the deer, turkey and quail hunting on the land. On a recent 101-degree day, he found about 40 of his cows lined up in a single row in the turbine’s shadow.

Meanwhile, a formal inquiry into how the industry operates in Oklahoma is being launched by a state regulatory agency at lawmakers’ request. The fact-finding mission could lead to legislation targeting the industry.

The turbines are subject to local property taxes after a five-year exemption for which the state reimburses local counties and schools. The exemption for wind producers was designed to offset a lifetime property tax exemption in neighboring Kansas.

In addition, the state offers wind developers tax credits based on per-kilowatt production that can be applied to any corporate income tax liability and then sold back to the state for 85 cents on the dollar. Those cash subsidies are expected to total $80 million over the next four years, according to estimates from the Oklahoma Tax Commission.

Oklahoma is one of at least six states competing for wind industry development, which often breathes life into communities that have lost manufacturing jobs and family farms.

Over the last decade, the number of wind-generated megawatts has grown from 6,000 in 2003 to 61,000 last year, which equates to roughly 30,000 turbines.

The biggest wind industry boom is taking place in Texas. Iowa and Oklahoma are close behind. Other states that have announced major projects include Kansas, North Dakota and New Mexico, according to the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group.

In Kansas, Republican Gov. Sam Brownback is trying to balance his state’s embrace of wind with opposition to a 2009 state energy law that requires utilities to use more wind and other renewable sources of power. Brownback supports wind energy, but his political base includes free-market GOP conservatives who oppose such mandates.

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs released a report last week urging an end to state subsidies for wind power, saying that tax credits and property tax limits helped grow the industry but today give it an unfair advantage.

“It’s time,” Combs said, “for wind to stand on its own two feet.”

___

Rebecca Thompson is Wise to the Windweasels!

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A Lesson in Journalism: Rebecca Thompson Exposes the Great Wind Power Fraud

October 1, 2014 by

Rebeca Thompson Sun
Rebecca Thompson is the brilliant young journo behind the recent Sun News documentary, Down Wind – that tipped a bucket on the great wind power fraud in Canada (see our post here).

Down Wind, which runs for 96 minutes, can be purchased as a file and downloaded or as a DVD for those in the US and Canada (here’s the link). For those outside the US and Canada the file can be purchased and downloaded (using this link). If you’re in there fighting the great wind power fraud, Down Wind is essential viewing. For a detailed synopsis of Down Wind – see our post here.

Rebecca is a stand-out not simply because she exhibits the proper temerity to challenge the lunacy of wind power and those behind the fraud (it’s what journalists are supposed to do), but because she has taken the time and trouble to understand every aspect of the most destructive government sanctioned rort of all time: be it the infantile pointlessness of throwing $billions at an intermittent and unreliable power source; spiralling power prices; the utterly flawed economics; the slaughter of thousands of birds and bats; and the harm caused to thousands of hard-working rural people through incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound – Rebecca has a complete grip on the facts.

It’s almost incredible what happens when journalists open their eyes, ears and minds – instead of knocking out endless streams of drivel from the wind industry and its highly paid spin-masters – readers and viewers are gifted with a real insight into the insane costs and non-existent benefits of wind power. It’s a pity there aren’t more journos like Rebecca.

Here she is being interviewed by Alex Pierson on Sun News (22 September 2014) (transcript follows):

Straight Talk – Alex Pierson with Rebecca Thompson

Alex Pierson: Well call it the latest David verses Goliath kind of fight – as an Ontario farming family begs the court to help them stop an enormous wind farm that’s going to go up in their farming town, just in a little tiny farming community called Goderich, which is about an hour outside of Toronto.

And it’s bringing Rebecca Thompson to talk about the realities facing this particular family. What are we talking as far as this latest wind farm v turbine …

Rebecca Thompson: So interestingly, Downwind, which is a documentary that Sun News network aired a couple months ago, that featured this family that is asking the Divisional Court in Ontario, the Ontario Divisional Court to review their appeal to not have this 140 wind turbine project put up. And essentially the Divisional Court has never – this would be precedent-setting – if in fact this family among other families who are part of this appeal would be able to win this on the grounds that this would cause problems for their health.

So right now Health Canada, which is at the Federal level, is reviewing whether or not wind turbines cause health concerns. Given the fact that in Ontario the setbacks of wind turbines are only 500 feet. This is a concern because it’s too close to people’s homes.

Alex Pierson: You did a lot of work of on this in your documentary, and I urge any of you who haven’t yet seen Downwind – watch it. I don’t care if you are living in the city of Toronto. I don’t care if you’re living in a big urban centre – watch it because until you’ve seen what Rebecca exposes you don’t really truly get an understanding. And you made some really a valid points in the documentary that – what absolutely confounds me is that there are so many questions about health issues that are being looked into, and nobody seems to know what the long-term implications are. But yet the province is forging full steam ahead building these things.

Rebecca Thompson: The province is forging full steam ahead and they have indicated that there are no health concerns even though they haven’t done sufficient research into whether the or not there are health concerns. Look at places like Alberta. There are wind turbines set up, but they’re 2 miles away from anyone’s home. And in Ontario there was a theory that the reason why the wind turbines were admitted to be put up 500 foot away was because farms in Ontario are only an acre. So basically if the Ontario government can get away with putting wind turbines along a transmission line which is you know, a few turbines every other farm, then they could get away with a 500 foot setback.

The challenge with this that Health Canada is currently researching. I interviewed them – they said absolutely we’re seeing evidence that families have health issues, specifically …

Alex Pierson: sleeping issues, depression issues …

Rebecca Thompson: Sleeping, tinnitus, headaches, feeling faint, having stomach issues. There’s all sorts of issues.

Alex Pierson: So why wouldn’t the Courts then be listening to this and saying well hold on we don’t have enough conclusive evidence to say that there are no health problems, we have to rule in favour, there is doubt?

Rebecca Thompson: Well so far, the Provincial government has written its laws and its rules to be heavily in favour of the companies. And so essentially when any family, and there have been more than 20 appeals that have gone to Environmental review tribunals in Ontario, when any – and by the way these families they dip into their RSPs, they have to take it from their own small farming business, or whatever kind of businesses they have. They have to take it from the profits to pay for these appeals. Hire lawyers all the rest and they essentially lose the appeals because the Ontario government has written the regulations in a way where the wind turbine companies, often foreign companies, win time and time and again.

Alex Pierson: But when it comes to the bigger picture because all I’m hearing right now is massive lawsuits. Maybe not tomorrow, but in the next 5 or 6 years, when Health Canada finally comes out and says yes there are long-term health implications. So does the Ontario government not want to look at the bigger picture?

Rebecca Thompson: I don’t think they do. You know, I asked Kathleen Wynne, the Premier of Ontario point-blank will you put a moratorium on wind turbine projects that have not yet been built, given the fact that they’re causing endless amounts of communities serious concerns? Not only with health, but also property values. And also the fact that we pay through the nose for electricity now as a result of wind turbines, wind farms and wind power. And she said no we’re not going to put a stop to this.

Essentially they’ve offered the opportunity for wind turbine companies, often foreign based, to come in and have a 20 year contract to provide a source of wind power which is often intermittent. So the issue with these farmers – and you know I went out for the documentary and had an opportunity to meet with a ton of families. Thinking, you know what are the health issues?

Alex Pierson: What are they complaining about?

Rebecca Thompson: And I spoke with doctors, I spoke with researchers and experts and what they indicated is that yes, when it comes to the average person, it does effects to them – not everybody is affected – but children are seriously affected. Senior citizens are affected. You know it’s a concern that has driven these families to actually get a lawyer to fight at Divisional Court for them.

Alex Pierson: And I should point out one of the best lawyers in the country so I’m hoping that at least, under his guidance, they can get this seen – because I think it’s going to be one of these issues that ends up going to the Supreme Court and finally you’ll have someone ruling in on behalf of them.

You know it was interesting over the weekend I was reading an article by a Mexican ecologist who has opened the door, he’s blown the whistle on the corruption, the lies and what he calls the incompetence of the wind industry. And he talked about a whole bunch of countries – whether it be the United States, Australia and Canada – talking about the massive environmental damage these windmills are creating. And he talks about – it doesn’t seem that the environmentalists care about the clear cutting, they don’t care about the birds, they don’t care about the bees, they don’t care about the environmental ecosystems that are destroyed by these stupid windmills. But they’re aren’t doing anything. They’re just all about optics and there are people behind-the-scenes making billions of dollars. So it’s such a hypocritical hype.

Rebecca Thompson: Absolutely. You know what’s interesting is that these individuals – there’s a mass movement, not only in Ontario but across Canada to try to stop, to try to curtail wind power, or at least stop to research it before it goes up. And they reached out to a number of environmental groups. Specifically when it came to the mutilation of migratory birds by these wind turbine blades.

And the bird organisations in Ontario, sorry in Canada, said you know, we’re not interested. It’s partially because, you know Sierra is …

Alex Pierson: Are they getting funding from someone?

Rebecca Thompson: Well, they certainly rely on government funding. And essentially you have the Ontario government or the Canadian government or whoever offering these groups funding for in return they’re going to stay silent on these major issues.

Alex Pierson: It’s such an incestuous industry. You know we make a big stink about birds flying into buildings within city centres. And we do all sorts of things to protect birds by asking people ‘turn off your lights’ or do whatever, don’t seem to care about the birds. Don’t seem to care about the bees.

Rebecca Thompson: No, you know it’s interesting.

Alex Pierson: Certainly don’t care about bats.

Rebecca Thompson: They certainly don’t – and it’s the bats in fact, which are an endangered species in Ontario. You know, there’s evidence that in Northern Ontario, the bats that are an endangered species, could be obliterated as a result of wind turbines and you know maybe the Ministry of Natural Resources has stood by idly and said ‘Oh well’.

Alex Pierson: So where is David Suzuki? Because I would think that this is something he should care about. Because he should know. I’m no scientist. I’m no bat expert. But I do know that when you take out one species from the ecosystem, you unbalance the whole infrastructure of it. So if you take out the bats, that means other birds and bugs and all the rest of it, it unbalances the systems, and you get big problems.

Rebecca Thompson: Yes, and David Suzuki was out over few months ago saying what’s the big deal? Everybody should endorse wind power. You know this is the big question. It’s not only the environmental lies. It’s not only the major health concerns that right now are being researched and we don’t know the extent of the health problems. But it’s also the fact that our wallets and pocket books are being heavily hit because of the fact that electricity prices have gone through the roof. And I’m not just saying that. The Auditor General researched this. There have been countless studies researching and identifying the fact that wind power all around is just bad economics.

Alex Pierson: I think the Green Energy Act, maybe not this year but in the next few years is going to be exposed as the biggest, biggest failure, fraud and sham that we’ve ever seen. So we’ll continue watching it. Rebecca Thompson joining us here this morning. Thank you Ma’am.
Sun News

Definition of fraud

Low Frequency noise from Wind Turbines is Harmful!

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Living close to wind farms could cause hearing damage

New research published by the Royal Society warns of the possible danger posed by low frequency noise like that emitted by wind turbines

New research warns of the possible dangers posed by low frequency noise Photo: ALAMY

7:00AM BST 01 Oct 2014

Living close to wind farms may lead to severe hearing damage or even deafness, according to new research which warns of the possible danger posed by low frequency noise.

The physical composition of inner ear was “drastically” altered following exposure to low frequency noise, like that emitted by wind turbines, a study has found.

The research will delight critics of wind farms, who have long complained of their detrimental effects on the health of those who live nearby.

Published today by the Royal Society in their new journal Open Science, the research was carried out by a team of scientists from the University of Munich.

It relies on a study of 21 healthy men and women aged between 18 and 28 years. After being exposed to low frequency sound, scientists detected changes in the type of sound being emitted from the inner ear of 17 out of the 21 participants.

The changes were detected in a part of the ear called the cochlear, a spiral shaped cavity which essential for hearing and balance.

“We explored a very curious phenomenon of the human ear: the faint sounds which a healthy human ear constantly emits,” said Dr Marcus Drexl, one of the authors of the report.

“These are like a very faint constant whistling that comes out of your ear as a by-product of the hearing process. We used these as an indication of how processes in the inner ear change.”

Dr Drexl and his team measured these naturally emitted sounds before and after exposure to 90 seconds of low frequency sound.

“Usually the sound emitted from the ear stays at the same frequency,” he said. “But the interesting thing was that after exposure, these sounds changed very drastically.

“They started to oscillate slowly over a couple of minutes. This can be interpreted as a change of the mechanisms in the inner ear, produced by the low frequency sounds.

“This could be a first indication that damage might be done to the inner ear.

“We don’t know what happens if you are exposed for longer periods of time, [for example] if you live next to a wind turbine and listen to these sounds for months of years.”

Wind turbines emit a spectrum of frequencies of noise, which include the low frequency that was used in the research, Dr Drexl explained.

He said the study “might help to explain some of the symptoms that people who live near wind turbines report, such as sleep disturbance, hearing problems and high blood pressure”.

Dr Drexl explained how the low frequency noise is not perceived as being “intense or disturbing” simply because most of the time humans cannot hear it.

“The lower the frequency the you less you can hear it, and if it is very low you can’t hear it at all.

“People think if you can’t hear it then it is not a problem. But it is entering your inner ear even though it is not entering your consciousness.”

First Case of Ebola Diagnosed in the United States….Now in Hospital, in Texas

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CDC confirms first case of Ebola in US

Jessica Mulvihill

By

Published September 30, 2014

660_CDCpic.jpg

June 20, 2014: The Centers for Disease Control sign is seen at its main facility in Atlanta, Georgia. (Reuters)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed on Tuesday that a patient being treated at a Dallas hospital has tested positive for Ebola, the first case diagnosed in the United States.

The patient left Liberia on September 19 and arrived in the United States on September 20, CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden told reporters at a press conference Tuesday. It’s the first patient to be diagnosed with this particular strain of Ebola outside of Africa.

“[The patient] had no symptoms when departing Liberia or entering this country. But four or five days later on the 24th of September, he began to develop symptoms,” said Frieden.

The patient, who was in the U.S. visiting family in Texas, initially sought care on September 26, but was sent home and was not admitted until two days later. He was placed in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, where he remains critically ill, according to Frieden.

“The next steps are basically threefold,” said Frieden.  “First, to care for the patient … to provide the most effective care possible as safely as possible to keep to an absolute minimum the likelihood or possibility that anyone would become affected, and second, to maximize the chances that the patient might recover,” said Frieden.

Frieden said the CDC and Texas health officials were working to identify and monitor anyone who may have come in contact with the patient.

“It’s only someone who’s sick with Ebola who can spread the disease,” said Frieden. “Once those contacts are all identified, they’re all monitored for 21 days after exposure to see if they develop a fever.”

Frieden added that while it is possible that someone who had contact with the patient could develop Ebola in the coming weeks, he has no doubt the infection will be contained. At this point, he said, there is zero risk of transmission to anyone on the flight with the patient because he was not showing any symptoms at the time of travel.

It’s unclear how the patient became infected, but health officials said he “undoubtedly had close contact with someone who was sick with Ebola or who had died from it.”

The patient will stay at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital for treatment, where epidemiologist Dr. Edward Goodman, said medical staff have a plan in place for some time now in the event that a traveler brought Ebola to the United States, noting that the team had a crisis preparedness meeting just one week before the patient arrived at the facility.

Hospital officials are currently evaluating different treatment options, including experimental therapies which have been successful in other patients, according to Frieden.

Both the CDC and the Texas Department of State Health Services performed lab testing that is said to be highly accurate for detecting the Ebola virus disease.

“Our lab has a specially trained team to handle high-risk patients like this,” said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of Texas Department of State Health Services. “We have no other suspected cases in the state of Texas at this time.”

Zachary Thompson, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services urged residents to rest assured the agency was doing everything they could to ensure the safety of the community, and that they would be working closely with the CDC and local health officials to follow up and track possible contacts of the patient.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas officials said in a statement Monday that an unnamed patient was being tested for Ebola and had been placed in “strict isolation” due to the patient’s symptoms and recent travel history, and that the facility was taking measures to keep its doctors, staff and patients safe.

The hospital had announced a day earlier that the patient’s symptoms and recent travel indicated a case of Ebola, the virus that has killed more than 3,000 people across West Africa and infected a handful of Americans who have traveled to that region.

The CDC has said 12 other people in the U.S. have been tested for Ebola since July 27. Those tests came back negative.

Four American aid workers who have become infected while volunteering in West Africa have been treated in special isolation facilities in hospitals in Atlanta and Nebraska, and a U.S. doctor exposed to the virus in Sierra Leone is under observation in a similar facility at the National Institutes of Health.

The U.S. has only four such isolation units but the CDC has insisted that any hospital can safely care for someone with Ebola.

According to the CDC, Ebola symptoms can include fever, muscle pain, vomiting and bleeding, and can appear as long as 21 days after exposure to the virus.

Jason McDonald, spokesman for the CDC, said health officials use two primary guidelines when deciding whether to test a person for the virus.

“The first and foremost determinant is have they traveled to the region (of West Africa),” he said. The second is whether there’s been proximity to family, friends or others who’ve been exposed, he said.

U.S. health officials have been preparing since summer in case an individual traveler arrived here unknowingly infected, telling hospitals what infection-control steps to take to prevent the virus from spreading in health facilities. People boarding planes in the outbreak zone are checked for fever, but symptoms can begin up to 21 days after exposure. Ebola isn’t contagious until symptoms begin, and it takes close contact with bodily fluids to spread.

Frieden said there may be a handful of potential patient contacts who need monitoring in the United States. He compared that with the nearly 900 contacts who were monitored when an infected patient brought the Ebola virus to Lagos in July, reiterated his confidence in health officials’ ability to control the disease.

“The bottom line here is that I have no doubt that we will control this importation or this case of Ebola so that it does not spread widely throughout this country,” Frieden said. “There’s no doubt in my mind, we will stop it here.”

The Associated Press and FoxNews.com’s Colleen Cappon contributed to this report.

Wind Turbines are an Overpriced, Novelty Energy Form…..Not Suitable for Prime Time!

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The Fantasy of 100% Renewable Energy

By ALAN Y. WAYNE

Renewable energy is all the rage at the moment. Fears of global warming are ever present (and well-justified, I might add). Tax benefits for solar panels and wind turbines are at an all-time high. On Harvard’s campus, chants and rallies for divestment urge a shift away from fossil fuels toward renewables.

With Denmark’s wind power production exceeding its consumption on certain days last year, there have been calls for the United States to go completely fossil-free and become solely renewable-powered by 2050. After all, if Denmark can do it, why can’t we?

This is the point where I want to grab these 100-percent-renewable-promoting people and scream, “That’s not how it works! That’s not how any of this works!” (Oh, and Denmark isn’t entirely wind powered, that’s a misunderstanding—the true number is around 40 percent of electricity generation.)

Regardless of political pressure (which many have blamed for our lack of renewables), having a fully renewable-powered United States is physically impossible—and you can blame the sorry state of the U.S. energy grid.

Very few people know how the electricity is transmitted from, say, a wind turbine to their light bulb. We are lucky to live in a developed country where electricity can be taken for granted and blackouts are extraordinarily rare. This makes the electric grid appear to be a stable, ever-present figure that quietly and efficiently powers the country. In reality, the electric grid is less a perfectly fine-tuned blanket of distribution and more an ever-evolving patchwork quilt of relatively inefficient power lines.

There are two massive problems that currently plague the electric grid: We can’t store the electricity we produce, and we can’t transmit the electricity far from where it was generated.

There have been times when, in the Midwest on particularly windy days, there is so much energy generated by massive wind farms that there isn’t enough demand in the local area to use up all the electricity. When that happens, it would be fantastic if we could just put aside the excess electricity for another time when we need it. But we can’t. In fact, because there is absolutely no way to efficiently store this excess energy, the wind farm owners must sometimes pay money to offload their electricity.

Not being able to store it wouldn’t be an issue if we could just send all the excess electricity somewhere else though. After all, even if Wyoming’s five residents don’t need the energy at that moment, New York City is always hungry for more electricity. So what would happen if Wyoming’s wind farms generated the only energy available in the country, Wyoming had excess electricity, and a man in the Big Apple turned on his lights in an attempt to increase demand?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The light wouldn’t even go on. Due to the structure of our power grid, electricity cannot travel from Wyoming to New York.

In fact, the electric grid in the United States is actually three electric “interconnections”—the Western Interconnection, the Eastern Interconnection, and the Electrical Reliability Council of Texas. Electricity is hardly transferred between the interconnections—not out of choice, mind you. We physically cannot due to the difference between grid structures and a lack of infrastructure. And even within an interconnection, electricity struggles to travel distances of greater than 400 miles.

Now we return to the feasibility of a 100 percent renewable energy United States.

It’s true that if we covered just five percent of Arizona with solar photovoltaic panels, we would have more than enough energy to cover the four trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity consumed annually in the United States. However, if we actually built this massive solar farm, the consequence wouldn’t be a green United States. It would just mean that the Southwest would have massively negative energy prices (assuming the grid in the area could even handle the load) while the rest of the United States would be in a perpetual blackout. No storage, and no long-distance or cross-interconnection transmission, remember? And what happens if it gets cloudy?

Wind power suffers from the same problems—even worse, actually, since wind is less predictable than the sun.

We’ve tapped all the hydropower sources in the country and it only accounts for seven percent of our nation’s electricity production.

Geothermal sites are unlikely to have a production capacity of more than 20 percent of total U.S. consumption (and are currently sitting at 0.41 percent).

Despite the environmental benefits, the fact simply remains that renewable energy—wind and solar in particular—is simply too volatile from minute to minute to produce the steady power we need. And we don’t yet have the storage or transmission technology to address these issues.

Sadly, for the time being, we will simply have to accept that the vast majority of our electricity must come from fossil fuel and nuclear plants.

Sorry, Earth.

Alan Y. Wayne ’16, a Crimson editorial writer, is an economics concentrator in Kirkland House.

More Fear Mongering from the Eco-Terrorists! Now it’s our Wildlife…

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Baseless claim from WWF: Half of global wildlife lost, says new WWF report

/ September 30, 2014

from the World Wildlife Fund | World Wildlife Fund issues 10th edition of ‘The Living Planet Report,’ a science-based assessment of the planet’s health

Washington, DC – Monday, September 29: Between 1970 and 2010 populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish around the globe dropped 52 percent, says the 2014 Living Planet Report released today by World Wildlife Fund (WWF). This biodiversity loss occurs disproportionately in low-income countries—and correlates with the increasing resource use of high-income countries.

In addition to the precipitous decline in wildlife populations the report’s data point to other warning signs about the overall health of the planet. The amount of carbon in our atmosphere has risen to levels not seen in more than a million years, triggering climate change that is already destabilizing ecosystems. High concentrations of reactive nitrogen are degrading lands, rivers and oceans. Stress on already scarce water supplies is increasing. And more than 60 percent of the essential “services” provided by nature, from our forests to our seas, are in decline.

african-elephant

“We’re gradually destroying our planet’s ability to support our way of life,” said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of WWF. “But we already have the knowledge and tools to avoid the worst predictions. We all live on a finite planet and its time we started acting within those limits.”

The Living Planet Report, WWF’s biennial flagship publication, measures trends in three major areas:

  • populations of more than ten thousand vertebrate species;
  • human ecological footprint, a measure of consumption of goods, greenhouse gas emissions; and
  • existing biocapacity, the amount of natural resources for producing food, freshwater, and sequestering carbon.

“There is a lot of data in this report and it can seem very overwhelming and complex,” said Jon Hoekstra, chief scientist at WWF. “What’s not complicated are the clear trends we’re seeing — 39 percent of terrestrial wildlife gone, 39 percent of marine wildlife gone, 76 percent of freshwater wildlife gone – all in the past 40 years.”

The report says that the majority of high-income countries are increasingly consuming more per person than the planet can accommodate; maintaining per capita ecological footprints greater than the amount of biocapacity available per person. People in middle- and low-income countries have seen little increase in their per capita footprints over the same time period.

While high-income countries show a 10 percent increase in biodiversity, the rest of the world is seeing dramatic declines. Middle-income countries show 18 percent declines, and low-income countries show 58 percent declines. Latin America shows the biggest decline in biodiversity, with species populations falling by 83 percent.

“High-income countries use five times the ecological resources of low-income countries, but low income countries are suffering the greatest ecosystem losses,” said Keya Chatterjee, WWF’s senior director of footprint. “In effect, wealthy nations are outsourcing resource depletion.”

The report underscores that the declining trends are not inevitable. To achieve globally sustainable development, each country’s per capita ecological footprint must be less than the per capita biocapacity available on the planet, while maintaining a decent standard of living.

At the conclusion of the report, WWF recommends the following actions:

  1. Accelerate shift to smarter food and energy production
  2. Reduce ecological footprint through responsible consumption at the personal, corporate and government levels
  3. Value natural capital as a cornerstone of policy and development decisions
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Why is this a baseless claim? Read this: Where Are The Corpses?

Huge Congratulations to Marita Noon! Check this Out!

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For immediate release: September 29, 2014.
Commentary by Marita Noon
Executive Director, Energy Makes America Great Inc.
Contact: 505.239.8998, marita@responsiblenergy.org
Words: 1250

People’s Climate March Wants to Change the System, not the Weather
Americans are generous people. We want to believe the best in others. We’ve tried to accept the narrative out of the White House that Islam is a peaceful religion. There’s been talk of the good Muslims reining in the bad—before they ruin the reputation of all Muslims. But then, the Islamic extremists have posted videos of innocent Americans—even a Brit and a Frenchman—being beheaded.

It has now reached our homeland: Oklahoma. News reports show Alton Nolen, a recent convert to Islam, who, on Friday, beheaded a former coworker and stabbed another before his rampage was stopped when the company’s COO shot him.

American’s patience has worn thin as extremists have taken over. Mosques, fearing potential retaliatory violence, are taking extra security precautions to protect Muslims who gather there. Saad Mohammad, a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, said any anti-Muslim sentiments local residents might have could be heightened due to the beheadings and violence overseas by Islamic State militants.

Earlier this year, General Iyad Ameen Madani, Organization of Islamic Cooperation Secretary, in his address at the 25th Session of the Arab Summit, told the audience: “Extremist voices and groups have hijacked Islam and misappropriated the right to speak on its behalf.” He referenced the “discord and mutual killings which have gained ground in our ranks” as “a war where there is no victor but it will invite perils for all,” and defended “Islam with its established values and aspirations and with its advocacy of justice, equality, concord, coexistence and mutuality,” as totally unrelated to the extremists and to their “ideologies and what they call for.”

Much like Madani sees that his belief system has been hijacked by extremists, and is publically saying so, sincere lovers of nature need to speak up, as anti-eco sentiments are heightened by extremists, who have hijacked the environmental movement, as evidenced by the September 21 People’s Climate March in New York City and the subsequent UN Climate Summit. In HotAir.com, Noah Rothman states: “The modern climate alarmism movement has been hijacked by the remnants of those who still adhere to the defunct tenets of revolutionary Marxism.”

Much like Americans have wanted to believe the war on terrorism was over and that Al-Qaida was on the run, they’ve previously accepted the “green” narrative coming out of the White House. After all, everyone wants clean air and water. No one wants to be against a critter.

ISIS has shown that Islamic extremists are alive and well—and are a growing threat. The People’s Climate March revealed the true colors of eco-extremists—and their growing threat.

The People’s Climate March had little to do with the climate. The eco-extremists want to “change the system.”

While reported numbers vary, hundreds of thousands of people clogged (and littered) the streets of New York City. The parade had grand marshals like actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo and politicos Al Gore and Robert Kennedy Jr. But, it also had an astonishing assortment of anti-American, anti-capitalism, and anti-free marketeers, who showcased for all of America what the environmental movement has become. In Human Events, the menagerie was described this way: “If you’re in favor of totalitarian power, sympathetic to America’s enemies, dubious about representative democracy, hostile to free markets, or you just get turned on by fantasizing about violent revolution, there was a place for you at this march.”

Marchers carried a banner stating: “Capitalism is the disease, socialism is the cure.” Others: “Capitalism is killing the planet. Fight for a socialist future.”

Hydraulic fracturing—which is uniquely responsible for U.S. carbon dioxide emissions dropping to the lowest in 20 years—was victimized: “Make fracking a crime.” Marchers held signs saying: “Fracking = Climate Change. Ban fracking now.”

Speaking of crimes, Robert Kennedy, Jr., in an interview at the Climate March, told Climate Depot’s Marc Morano that he wishes there was a law to punish global warming skeptics. He’s previously called coal companies “criminal enterprises” and declared CEO’s “should be in jail… for all of eternity.”

Interviews with participants in the March revealed sentiments such as: “corporations have to be reined in” and we’re “building a revolution for a whole new society—a new socialist society.”

A man in a cow costume carried a sign: “I fart. Therefore, I am the problem.” Bob Linden, the host of the nationally syndicated radio program Go Vegan, stated: “if 50 to 85 percent of us switch to veganism by 2020, scientists tell us we can save the planet from climate change.”

Unfortunately, you won’t see any of this in the mainstream media. The New York Times slide show of the event features a pictorial display of flower wreaths being strung, and of children and happy dancers.

In a piece titled: “Rockets Red Glare Distract Nation From UN Climate Summit and Import of Global Climate Protests,” the Huffington Post laments: “the critically important UN Climate Summit in New York has had to compete on mainstream media with the far more dramatic war coverage.” It continues: “the climate’s fate is far more important to the world even than the desperately needed military campaign by the U.S. and its allies to eradicate barbaric ISIL terrorists from Syria and Iraq.”

The Christian Science Monitor reported: “just as the climate movement has captured global attention, major leaders are shifting their attention elsewhere.” Regarding last week’s UN meeting that followed the Climate March, it stated: “The UN meeting is likely to be overshadowed by the new war on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.”

The new war in Iraq and Syria, waged by Islamic extremists, centers on hate for all things Western and a desire to change systems of government to an Islamic caliphate. The shocking displays of violence have sounded an alarm that has awakened Americans and exposed the inconsistency and inaccuracy of most messaging coming from the Obama Administration.

The People’s Climate March also centers on hate and a desire to change the government. One description of the March said: “These people are defined by what they hate, and a big part of what they hate is capitalism.” Another offered this explanation of the participants: “the aimless in search of personal meaning complement the ranks of a movement which promises personal purpose.”

During a panel discussion held in conjunction with the March, Naomi Klein, author of “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate,” was asked: “Even if the climate change issue did not exist, you would be calling for the same structural changes.” Her answer: “Yeah.”

I know every Muslim isn’t a terrorist and every person who cares about the planet isn’t an eco-extremist, but as ISIS has changed American’s view—and Islamic leaders, such as, Madani, are unhappy that “Extremist voices and groups have hijacked Islam and misappropriated the right to speak on its behalf”—the Climate March made clear that extremist voices have hijacked the environmental movement. Our patience has worn thin, and we no longer trust Obama’s clean, green message.

National Geographic summed up the March this way: “Despite all the enthusiasm displayed in New York and elsewhere on a muggy September Sunday, public opinion polls consistently show that climate change is not a high priority for most Americans.”

Americans are smarter than the collection of anti-capitalism satellite groups think. They’ve seen through the rhetoric and realize, as the Climate March made clear: it is not about Climate Change, it is about system change.

These eco-extremists showed their true colors: green on the outside, red on the inside. Watermelons.

(A version of this content was originally published on Breitbart.com)

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). Together they work to educate the public and influence policy makers regarding energy, its role in freedom, and the American way of life. Combining energy, news, politics, and, the environment through public events, speaking engagements, and media, the organizations’ combined efforts serve as America’s voice for energy.

I am a bit tardy in getting you my column today as I was confirming the particulars with my editor (I’ve never had an “editor” before). He told me: “We basically run original, exclusive content, so there’s not a lot of precedent for sending out stuff that runs here first.” Here’s the deal. I wrote my usual, long, connect-the-dots style piece. He edited it, cutting it down by almost 50 percent. It’s good. I am happy with it. However, trimming it does remove some of the secondary messaging. Breitbart has agreed that I can send you both the full version and the version posted on Breitbart.com. In either case, please post the version you choose with the verbiage I’ve included. They ask that their version be posted with the first several paragraphs and then a link to Breitbart.com—which is how I am sending their version to you. If you choose the full version, please be sure to include “A version of this content was originally published on Breitbart.com”—and be sure to include the link. I trust that there will be refinements in the arrangements as the weeks go on.

With all that said, as always, the full version of People’s Climate March Wants to Change the System, not the Weather is attached and pasted-in-below. I’ve also attached the Breitbart version.

Thanks for your understanding. Please post, pass on, and/or personally enjoy whichever version of People’s Climate March Wants to Change the System, not the Weather works for you.

Marita Noon

Main Stream Media Refuses to Report the Truth About Climate Change.

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The Obvious Failures of Climate Science That Mainstream Media Ignores

/ September 30, 2014

Guest Post by Bob Tisdale –

The National Science Foundation press release Cause of California drought linked to climate change found its way into the mainstream media, with science reporters around the globe adding their hype. That press release is based on the recently published study Swain et al. (2014) “The Extraordinary California Drought of 2013/2014: Character, Context and the Role of Climate Change”, which can be found in the Special Supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS report)Vol. 95, No. 9, September 2014, Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 From A Climate Perspective.

I’ll publish a few comments about Swain et al. (2014) in a few days. But this post is not about that paper.

THE CALIFORNIA DROUGHT – WHO’S TO BLAME FOR THE LACK OF PREPAREDNESS?

As I was reading Anthony Watts excellent post about Swain et al. (2014), Claim: Cause of California drought linked to climate change – not one mention of ENSO or El Niño, a number of reoccurring thoughts replayed, thoughts that have struck me numerous times as the Western States drought unfolded last year and intensified this year.

Was California prepared for a drought?

Obviously, California was not prepared for a drought this intense, and the impacts of that lack of preparedness on California residents will grow much worse if the drought continues.

Why wasn’t California prepared for a short-term (multiyear) drought this intense?

The realistic blame should be the focus of climate science in general under the direction of the IPCC. In the opening paragraph of the IPCC’s History webpage, they state (my boldface and caps):

Today the IPCC’s role is as defined in Principles Governing IPCC Work, “…to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant tounderstanding the scientific basis of risk of HUMAN-INDUCED climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.

The fact that the IPCC has focused all of their efforts on “understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change” is very important. The IPCC has never realistically tried to determine if natural factors could have caused most of the warming the Earth has experienced over the past century. For decades, they’ve worn blinders that blocked their views of everything other than the possible impacts of carbon dioxide. The role of the IPCC has always been to prepare reports that support the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels. As a result, that’s where all of the research money goes. The decision to only study human-induced global warming is a political choice, not a scientific one. In efforts to justify agendas, politicians around the world jumped on the climate change stump and funded computer model-based studies of human-induced global warming…to the tune of billions of dollars annually.

Because of that political agenda, the latest and greatest climate models still cannot simulate the basic underlying processes that govern the naturally occurring, coupled ocean-atmosphere processes like ENSO (El Niños and La Niñas), like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation…processes that have strong influences on temperature and precipitation in west coast states. So there is no possible way climate models, as they exist today, could forecast what precipitation might be like in the future there. And that basic problem will persist until there is a redirection of climate-research funding. Yes, funding. Research follows the money.

What value do climate model-based studies provide?

None.

The paper Pierce et al. (2013) The Key Role of Heavy Precipitation Events in Climate Model Disagreements of Future Annual Precipitation Changes in California provides an overview of why the climate models have no value when it comes to forecasts like California drought. In their abstract Pierce et al. write (my boldface and caps):

Of the 25 downscaled model projections examined here, 21 agree that precipitation frequency will DECREASE by the 2060s, with a mean reduction of 6–14 days yr−1. This reduces California’s mean annual precipitation by about 5.7%. Partly offsetting this, 16 of the 25 projections agree that daily precipitation intensity will INCREASE, which accounts for a model average 5.3% increase in annual precipitation. Between these conflicting tendencies, 12 projections show drier annual conditions by the 2060s and 13 show wetter.

[Hat tip to blogger “Jimbo” on the WUWT thread Claim: Cause of California drought linked to climate change – not one mention of ENSO or El Niño.]

So some climate models say that daily precipitation intensity will increase and others say it will decrease. In other words, the climate science community is clueless about what the future might bring for west coast precipitation.

Some might say that climatologists for the State of California and other west coast states have been hampered by climate science. It’s tough to make recommendations to state and local governments for long-term planning when the climate science community provides them with nothing to work with.

Is California prepared for a drought that lasts multiple decades or even centuries?

Anthony Watts’s post included a graph from a paleoclimatological study of West Coast drought that showed past droughts have lasted for hundreds of years. For the original graph and discussion, see Figure 10 of Cook et al. (2007) North American drought: Reconstructions, causes, and consequences. (Note: That’s not the John Cook from SkepticalScience.)

Now I hate to make you think about bad news. But if it’s happened in the past, can it happen again?

Why are mainstream media simply parroting press releases?

Climate-change news reports have become echo chambers of the press releases put out by colleges, universities and government research agencies. Individual reporters might provide a more in-depth report by asking the scientist-authors for a few extra word of wisdom.

But why aren’t the media asking the tough questions, like:

  • Why weren’t west-coast residents warned 10 or 15 years ago that a severe drought is just a weather anomaly away?
  • Why aren’t there enough desalinization plants in place to supplement rainfall deficits?
  • Why are the people of the west coast protesting for, and why are state governments funding, more wind farms and solar arrays when they need something more basic to maintain life there, water?

Seems to me we may very soon be seeing a reversal of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, with vast flocks of California residents migrating back to the Midwest, which also is subject to periodic droughts.

Poor planning on the parts of a few—based on politically motivated, unsound science—may make for emergencies for millions.

One More Reason Why Industrial Wind Turbines are a Dismal Failure….

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GCube Scrutinizes Blade Breakages: Specialist renewable energy insurer analyses causes & frequency of wind turbine blade failure in new report

Specialist renewable energy underwriter GCube Underwriting Ltd has authored a detailed report to examine the problem of blade failure and breakage throughout the wind industry.

Entitled “Breaking Blades: Global Trends in Wind Turbine Downtime Events,” the report draws on a combination of GCube’s extensive proprietary claims database and publicly available market news to identify the root causes of common types of blade failure and suggests proactive mitigation measures to counter this inherent risk to wind energy assets and investment.

As wind power continues a high-profile migration from traditional growth markets to newer, often highly remote locations in Asia Pacific, Africa and Latin America and turbine manufacturers find themselves under increasing pressure to deliver cost competitive electricity generation through larger turbines with minimum unscheduled downtime and longer, lighter rotor blades, the overall integrity of wind turbines and, specifically, the performance and reliability of their blades, appears to have suffered.

With an estimated 700,000 blades in operation globally, there are, on average, 3,800 incidents of blade failure each year. While the frequency of such incidents and their severity varies significantly from country to country, blade incidents can cost in the order of $1 million to resolve and there is a clear industry imperative to ensure that these failures are kept to a minimum.

In the Breaking Blades report, GCube categorises the common causes of blade failure, ranging from lightning damage to human error and manufacturing defect, before explaining the factors influencing the cost of blade claims. The report then goes on to look in detail at the individual components of a standard blade and outlines a range of inspection criteria that should help to mitigate the risk of blade failure and loss.

This advice is followed by in-depth interviews with representatives from key industry stakeholders RES, IM FutuRe and Renewable Energy Loss Adjusters (RELA), highlighting the most frequent origins of blade damage and its wider effects on industry investment.

The launch of the report marks the first time that an insurer has shared this level of data with its client base in the renewables sector. Breaking Blades forms part of a wider knowledge sharing initiative as the first of four reports on wind turbine failure to be released by GCube between September this year and June 2015.

“As the wind industry looks to attract secondary investment from the pension and fund management communities, blade failure and the associated business interruption costs – exacerbated by the shift into emerging markets and growing pressure on manufacturers – can be an unwelcome deterrent,” said Jatin Sharma, Business Development Leader, GCube.

“Ultimately it’s in the interests of all parties to minimise unscheduled downtime and the frequency and severity of turbine failure. The Breaking Blades report is by no means an answer to the problem, but should serve to raise further questions and create opportunities for greater industry-wide collaboration.”

To request a copy of Breaking Blades: Global Trends in Wind Turbine Downtime Events, please email info@gcube-insurance.com.

GCube
http://www.gcube-insurance.com

Don’t Follow Germany’s Green Path…..They’re Lost! Epic Fail!

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Germany’s Green Energy Failure

  • Date: 29/09/14
  • Doug L Hoffman, The Resilient Earth

The first grand experiment in renewable energy is a catastrophe. The vast scale of the failure has only started to become clear over the past year or so.

A new analysis answers the question “should other nations follow Germany’s lead on promoting solar Power?” That question was asked on Quora and answered by Ryan Carlyle, BSChE, and a Subsea Hydraulics Engineer. His detailed and well reasoned answer is the most forceful possible NO. According to Carlyle Germany’s program has the “absurd distinction” of hitting the trifecta of bad energy policy: bad for consumers, bad for industry, and bad for the environment. So while misguided greens point to Germany as a solar success, a rising tide of opposition and resentment is growing among the German public.

Along with all the other troubles besetting the world, Germany has watched its economy, the so called “engine of Europe,” stumble. This is mostly attributable to the horribly botched shift to a renewable energy economy. In Carlyle’s own words:

I was shocked to find out how useless, costly, and counter-productive their world-renowned energy policy has turned out. This is a serious problem for Germany, but an even greater problem for the rest of the world, who hope to follow in their footsteps. The first grand experiment in renewable energy is a catastrophe! The vast scale of the failure has only started to become clear over the past year or so. So I can forgive renewables advocates for not realizing it yet — but it’s time for the green movement to do a 180 on this.

Pretty strong stuff, but as good skeptics we should demand evidence to back up these statements. Fortunately, the author provides data to back up his claims. Here are some of Carlyle’s “awful statistics”:

Germany is widely considered the global leader in solar power, with over a third of the world’s nameplate (peak) solar power capacity. Germany has over twice as much solar capacity per capita as sunny, subsidy-rich, high-energy-cost California. (That doesn’t sound bad, but keep going.)

Germany’s residential electricity cost is about $0.34/kWh, one of the highest rates in the world. About $0.07/kWh goes directly to subsidizing renewables, which is actually higher than the wholesale electricity price in Europe. (This means they could simply buy zero-carbon power from France and Denmark for less than they spend to subsidize their own.) More than 300,000 households per year are seeing their electricity shut off because they cannot afford the bills. Many people are blaming high residential prices on business exemptions, but eliminating them would save households less than 1 euro per month on average. Billing rates are predicted by the government to rise another 40% by 2020.

Germany’s utilities and taxpayers are losing vast sums of money due to excessive feed-in tariffs and grid management problems. The environment minister says the cost will be one trillion euros (~$1.35 trillion) over the next two decades if the program is not radically scaled back. This doesn’t even include the hundreds of billions it has already cost to date. Siemens, a major supplier of renewable energy equipment, estimated in 2011 that the direct lifetime cost of Energiewende through 2050 will be $4.5 trillion, which means it will cost about 2.5% of Germany’s GDP for 50 years straight. That doesn’t include economic damage from high energy prices, which is difficult to quantify but appears to be significant.

Here’s the truly dismaying part: the latest numbers show Germany’s carbon output and global warming impact is actually increasing despite flat economic output and declining population, because of ill-planned “renewables first” market mechanisms. This regime is paradoxically forcing the growth of dirty coal power. Photovoltaic solar has a fundamental flaw for large-scale generation in the absence of electricity storage — it only works for about 5-10 hours a day. Electricity must be produced at the exact same time it’s used. The more daytime summer solar capacity Germany builds, the more coal power they need for nights and winters as cleaner power sources are forced offline. This happens because excessive daytime solar power production makes base-load nuclear plants impossible to operate, and makes load-following natural gas plants uneconomical to run. Large-scale PV solar power is unmanageable without equally-large-scale grid storage, but even pumped-storage hydroelectricity facilities are being driven out of business by the severe grid fluctuations. They can’t run steadily enough to operate at a profit. Coal is the only non-subsidized power source that doesn’t hemorrhage money now. The result is that utilities must choose between coal, blackouts, or bankruptcy. Which means much more pollution.

The emphasized passages are the author’s from the original posting.

Full post

– See more at: http://www.thegwpf.com/germanys-green-energy-failure/#sthash.fFTAlKrn.dpuf