| Citizens’ Climate Lobby founder must rein in overaggressive volunteers
Posted: 28 May 2015 By Tom Harris
In my December 29, 2014 Augusta Free Press article, “Taming the climate debate”, I wrote about the importance of working to establish a social climate in which “leaders in science, engineering, economics, and public policy” can “contribute to the [climate change] debate without fear of retribution.”
 At stake are trillions of dollars, countless jobs, the security of our energy supply, and, if people like Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) founder and president, Marshall Saunders, are right, the fate of the global environment itself. So, it is a tragedy that, because the debate is now riddled with censorship, personal attacks, and even death threats, many experts are afraid to comment publicly. Saunders should consider whether the behaviour of some of his CCL volunteers is exacerbating this problem.
In describing their “Methodology,” CCL assert on their Website that they “believe in respect for all viewpoints, even for those who would oppose us.” In his September 20, 2014 article, “Speaking Truth to Power – and to Friends,” former NASA scientist and now CCL Advisory Board Member Dr. James Hansen writes, “Founder Marshall Saunders espouses respect and love for political opponents of a carbon fee…”
In that light, let’s examine how some CCL volunteers have behaved when faced with opponents of their belief that human emissions of greenhouse gases are causing a climate crisis.
My interactions with the group started in late 2012 when CCL (Canada) spokesperson Cheryl McNamara had the following letter to the editor published in the Vancouver Sun in response to my December 26 article, ”Ottawa must get real on climate change”:
The points made in McNamara’s letter are completely false.
CCL had made similar erroneous charges against me earlier in the year in the Edmonton Journal which I ignored. However, since the falsehoods were continuing even though they were provably wrong, I notified the Vancouver Sun about the problem. They agreed with my corrections and took the CCL letter off their site and the original URL no longer functions.
Despite my requests to representatives within both the Canadian and American CCL that they remove the offending letter from their site in their list of media triumphs, they would not. How does this fit with Saunders’ goal of “respect and love” for opponents?
This sort of thing has continued ever since, CCL representatives repeatedly attacking me with erroneous and irrelevant charges when I disagree with their stance on climate science. A recent example was CCL’s Pete Kuntz’s May 23 letter to the editor of the Union-Bulletin in Walla Walla, Washington. Kuntz is listed as writing from Northglenn, Colorado.
Besides the usual CCL accusations of ICSC receiving funding from vested interests, Kuntz wrote “Harris is a lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry.”
A quick check of the Website of the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada shows that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a lobbyist for anyone, let alone “the fossil fuel industry.” We consider lobbying mostly a waste of time until the public better understand the science, which is why we concentrate on public education.
Kuntz also repeated CCL’s old chestnut about my supposed pro-tobacco work: “Harris used to work for Big Tobacco back in the day when it was denying smoking causes lung cancer, fake ‘doctors’ and all (DeSmog Blog).”
I never respond in kind but simply make appropriate factual corrections when possible. But it isn’t long before CCL personal repeat their bogus claims in other media outlets.
So I was not surprised to see Kuntz’s May 25 Augusta Free Press piece “Climate change denial is a scam,” this time identifying himself as hailing from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He repeated CCL’s tall tales about my pro-tobacco work as well as ICSC’s supposed funding sources, something he could not possibly know since the identities of those who help ICSC cover its operating expenses have been confidential since I started as Executive Director in 2008.
The suggestion that my opinion is for sale is, of course, seriously offensive, and begs the question: how does this fulfil Saunders’ goal of “respect and love” for opponents?
It does not matter who funds us. All that matters is whether what we are saying is correct or not, a point we are happy to debate with anyone. If funding sources did matter, then we note that most climate scientists are employed by organizations that promote the hypothesis of dangerous anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (DAGW). These researchers obviously have a direct interest in supporting their employers’ point of view.
Perhaps most ironic in Kuntz’s Free Press piece is his criticism that I and Bryan Leyland, my co-author, are not scientists but are engineers. He does not seem to know that engineering is applied science and requires a good understanding of science and applied mathematics. With both Leyland (MSC—Power Systems) and myself (MEng—thermofluids) having advanced degrees and having spent many years studying climate science and computer modelling, we are quite capable of commenting meaningfully on the evidence for and against DAGW.
But qualifications do not prove anyone right. All that counts is the validity of what is being said. For instance, before being trained by Al Gore in 2007, Saunders’ professional career was in real estate brokerage specializing in shopping center development and leasing. Yet we never criticize him for lacking a background in the field because, once again, the accuracy of his comments is all that matters.
Kuntz directs readers to a site critical of the second year climate science course I gave to 1,500 students at Carleton University in Ottawa. He fails to mention that both the course originator and current instructor, Earth Sciences professor Tim Patterson, and I have debunked the critique as hopelessly naïve and misleading. I even went on TV (see here) to respond to the attack.
In defense of his position on the science, Kuntz proclaims, “Every climate scientist publishing in peer-reviewed science journals worldwide agrees.” Nonsense. The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change reports list hundreds of peer-reviewed papers published in the world’s leading science journals that either question or refute the DAGW hypothesis that CCL holds dear.
Kuntz concludes by directing readers to the CCL Website, saying, “They’ve got a realistic plan.” Like many of CCL’s published letters, there is no mention of his affiliation with CCL.
Kuntz and McNamara are just two examples of CCL spokespeople who seem to ignore the respectful approach advocated by their founder. Saunders will soon have an ideal platform from which to remind them that their passionate belief in their cause does not give them license to abuse opponents. From June 21—23, one thousand CCL volunteers gather in Washington DC to “hear from inspiring speakers, receive lobby training and go to Capitol Hill to meet with members of Congress.” Let’s hope CCL’s president and founder uses the opportunity to rein in overly aggressive members of his team.
Tom Harris is Executive Director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition (www.ClimateScienceInternational.org).
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climate scam
More Countries Caught Manipulating Their Climate Data. FRAUD!
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Al Gore: green house gases and sweat.
More Countries Caught Manipulating Their Climate Data
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MICHAEL BASTASCH
05/19/2015
Weather agencies in Australia, Paraguay and Switzerland may be manipulating temperature data to create a sharper warming trend than is present in the raw data — a practice that has come under scrutiny in recent months.
Most recently, Dr. H. Sterling Burnett with the Heartland Institute detailed how the Swiss Meteorological Service adjusted its climate data “to show greater warming than actually measured by its temperature instruments.”
In his latest article, Sterling wrote that Switzerland’s weather bureau adjusted its raw temperature data so that “the temperatures reported were consistently higher than those actually recorded.” For example, the cities of Sion and Zurich saw “a doubling of the temperature trend” after such adjustments were made.
But even with the data tampering, Sterling noted that “there has been an 18-year-pause in rising temperatures, even with data- tampering.”
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“Even with fudged data, governments have been unable to hide the fact winters in Switzerland and in Central Europe have become colder over the past 20 years, defying predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other climate alarmists,” according to Sterling.
The Swiss affair, however, is not the first instance of data “homogenization” catalogued by scientists and researchers who are skeptical of man-made global warming. In January, skeptic blogger Paul Homewood documented how NASA has “homogenized” temperature data across Paraguay to create a warming trend that doesn’t exist in the raw data.
Homewood found that all three operational rural thermometers in Paraguay had been adjusted by NASA to show a warming trend where one did not exist before. Homewood also found that urban thermometers in Paraguay had similarly been adjusted by NASA.
“[NASA is] supposed to make a ‘homogenisation adjustment,’ to allow for [urban heat island (UHI)] bias,” Homewood wrote. “The sort of thing you would expect to see at Asuncion Airport, Paraguay’s main gateway, handling over 800,000 passengers a year.”
“However, far from increasing historic temperatures to allow for UHI, [NASA] has done the opposite and decreased temperatures prior to 1972 by 0.4C,” Homewood added.
Before that, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (ABM) was forced to admit it adjusts temperatures recorded at all weather stations across the country. Aussie journalists had been critical of ABM for being secretive about its data adjustments.
“Almost all the alterations resulted in higher temperatures being reported for the present and lower numbers for the past–with the higher numbers being used to demonstrate a historical warming trend–than the numbers that were actually recorded,” wrote Sterling.
“Downward homogenizations in recent years were rare. In some areas, downward temperature trends measured over time showed a significantly increased temperature trend after homogenization,” he added. “The difference between actually measured temperatures and homogenized temperatures topped 4 degrees Celsius over certain periods at some measuring stations.”
Global warming skeptics have increasingly become critical of adjustments to raw temperature data made by government climate agencies. Such adjustments seem to overwhelmingly show a massive warming trend not present in the raw data.
Such adjusted data has been used by climate scientists and environmental activists to claim that 2014 was the warmest year on record. Adjusted data also shows that 13 of the warmest years on record have occurred since 2000.
NOAA and other climate agencies have defended such adjustments to the temperature record, arguing they are necessary to correct for “biases” that distort the reality of the Earth’s climate.
NOAA scientists increase or decrease temperatures to correct for things like changes in the locations of thermometers (some that were once in rural areas are now in the suburbs or even in cities). Scientists have also had to correct for a drastic change in the time of day temperatures were recorded (for whatever reason, past temperatures were recorded in the afternoon, but are now often collected in the morning).
Other adjustments have been made to the data to correct for such “biases,” but global warming skeptics question if the scope of the data adjustments are justifiable.
The U.K.’s Global Warming Policy Foundation has created a panel of skeptical scientists from around the world who will evaluate temperature adjustments to find out if they are scientifically justified.
“Many people have found the extent of adjustments to the data surprising,” Terence Kealey, former vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham, said in a statement.
“While we believe that the 20th century warming is real, we are concerned by claims that the actual trend is different from — or less certain than — has been suggested,” said Kealey, who has been appointed chairman of the foundation’s investigative task force. “We hope to perform a valuable public service by getting everything out into the open.”
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Climate Change Scare, is nothing but a tool, for Wealth Redistribution….
UN Negotiating Text For Climate Agreement Opens Up Gravy Train
How the UN is ‘breaking bad’ with U.S. taxpayer money.In December the United Nations will convene in Paris, for the purpose of hammering out an international agreement on climate change. Reaching an agreement has become a“legacy issue” for President Obama, and his administration is devoting enormous resources towards the successful completion of this task.
In March the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change distributed draft language to serve as options for the agreement that may be decided in December. In a previous IER post I showed how the two climate change goals adopted in the UN text could not be justified, using the UN’s own scientific reports, and how the draft language opened the doors to massive international bureaucracies.
In this post I’ll focus specifically on the enormous wealth transfers from rich to poor countries that are being proposed in the draft—as high as annual transfers in excess of $100 billion from the United States alone, according to some of the language.
To be sure, at this stage these ludicrous suggestions are merely a “wish list,” but average Americans should realize just how much of their money will be on the buffet line when the UN delegates meet in December. In November President Obama already pledged $3 billion for such efforts, and the new UN proposal shows how much more the most zealous advocates have in mind.
The UN’s $100 Billion+ Bonanza
Anyone with the stamina to click on the link and skim through the UN’s draft language will see that the 90-page document is very redundant. However, the following excerpt gives a good sampling of a theme reiterated throughout:
- [Scale of resources provided by developed country Parties shall be based on a percentage of their GNP of at least (X per cent) taking into consideration the following:
- The provision of finance to be based on a floor of USD 100 billion per year, and shall take into account the different assessment of climate-related finance needs prepared by the secretariat and reports by other international organizations;
- Based on an ex ante process to commit quantified support relative to the required effort and in line with developing countries’ needs… [UNFCCC Negotiating Text, p. 43]
Later on, in section 96, the document states, “a. Developed country Parties to provide 1 per cent of gross domestic product per year from 2020 and additional funds during the pre-2020 period to the GCF [Green Climate Fund]…” (bold added).
Thus we see that this negotiating text contains more than a simple pledge for various countries to cap their emissions—it also includes enormous transfers of money from rich to developing countries. If the particular suggestion quoted above from section 96 were to be implemented, it would entail some $175 billion annually in transfers from Americans (because U.S. GDP is currently above $17.5 trillion). Note that this is in addition to conventional foreign aid programs—the UN document makes that clear, elsewhere. The sole (ostensible) purpose of these dedicated funds is to help poorer countries deal with climate change. The recipient countries will no doubt be quite creative in justifying all sorts of infrastructure and other spending projects necessary to combat climate change.
Now, a reasonable reader might think, “Well, supposing the ‘pause’ in global warming continues, they’d probably scale back the funds needed for adaptation, right?” But such common sense would be mistaken. On page 22 of the document we learn that “since adaptation efforts will need to be undertaken far in advance of the temperature rise,” therefore “planning for adaptation and undertaking adaptation should be based on an evaluation of temperature scenarios that are expected to result from particular levels of mitigation action…”
In other words, the authors of this proposed treaty language want the transfer spigot turned on with no accountability. So long as they can point to future damages that occur inside a computer simulation, the United States and other wealthy countries will be expected to cough up billions of dollars to fight the computer-projected threat of future climate change damage.
Already, the Green Climate Fund is beefing up staff, with openings ranging from “gender social specialist” to“marketing consultant” whose duties include “helping to shape the brand of the fund.” It is quite clear from the bureaucratic progress of the Green Climate Fund that they mean business (of some kind) and are counting on the money to fund their multiple activities.
Conclusion
The UN has released the Negotiating Text of the possible treaty that may come out of talks in Paris in December. Americans should familiarize themselves with the main items contained in this document. In a previous IER post I showed that the UN document adopts climate change goals that the UN’s own reports can’t justify, and furthermore would create a huge new international bureaucracy.
In the present post, I quoted from the document to show the desire to fund these unaccountable extra-national organizations with an enormous flow of money taken from rich countries. Although the demands are so ludicrous that they should be viewed as a “wish list,” it is nonetheless instructive—and alarming—to see just how expensive they could be. According to one idea contained in the text that the UN has released, the U.S. would be expected to contribute more than $175 billion annually into the giant pot of money. President Obama in November already pledged $3 billion to such an effort. How far do Americans want to go along?
The Horrific Slaughter of Birds, Even Endangered Species, is Hidden by the Wind Industry.
Covering up the massacre
European crane.
Unlike cats, cars and buildings, wind turbines kill cranes, eagles, storks etc.
Wind farms: a slaughter kept hidden from the public
15 May 2015
Submission to the Australian Senate – updated version
WIND TURBINES SELECT COMMITTEE
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Subject:
Impact of wind turbines on bird and bat populations
Distinguished Senators of the Commonwealth of Australia,
Australian members of our organisation have complained to us that mortality predictions being used in Australia to assess the impacts of wind turbines on birds and bats are minimised to a level that thoroughly misleads decision makers. To wit, in a widely used report prepared for the Australian Government by consultant Biosis Research Pty Ltd, we read: “the additional mortality predicted for the cumulative effects of turbine collisions for wind farms within the range of the Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle (TWTE) is likely to result in the additional death of approximately one bird per annum” (1). Yet, actual eagle mortality at just one of the 7 wind farms considered by the study turned out to be 3.2 eagles per year, according to the operator of the Woolnorth wind farm (2). Dr. Stephen Debus puts the number at 5 TWTE per year (3). As the 6 other wind farms have not been monitored, “there might be tens of eagle deaths per year in Tasmania” (from blade strikes), adds Dr. Debus. Of these, the vast majority concerns the TWTE: at the Woolnorth wind farm, from 20 eagles killed in 4 years, 17 were TWTEs and 3 were white-bellied sea eagles (2).
The Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle, a (bigger) sub-species of the Wedge-tailed Eagle, numbered only 130 successful breeding pairs in 2010 according to the state’s National Parks and Wildlife Service (2) – and obviously less now, as the killings are allowed to continue. It is classified as “endangered”. The result of the misleading assessment of Biosis will be to condemn to extinction the largest of Australia’s eagles.
I analysed the Biosis TWTE study in 2010, and found disturbing “errors” in it, huge ones at that, totalling two orders of magnitude. So I wrote an open letter to the authors (4). They failed to reply. Australian ornithologists, which had been copied on it, also kept silent. The letter generated record levels of traffic on the Iberica 2000 website that had published it, but nobody responded, no one. Apparently, nobody wanted to hear the bad news, let alone acknowledge them, especially ornithologists, bird societies, and even the media, enthralled as they all are by the “goodness” of wind turbines. In fact, I realised that everyone had an interest in continuing business as usual. And business as usual it has been, in the five years that followed to this date. As we speak, mendacious mortality predictions from eager-to-please consultants continue to be used to promote wind farms across your great country.
The Tasmanian situation was resolved by making sure that no more news of eagles killed by wind farms on the island would be published by the media. This cover-up is now 5 years old, and has been quite effective: no news of eagle mortality has transpired from Woolnorth or any other Tasmanian wind farm.
I shall come back to the matter of unethical consultants and bird societies later, but I would like to cite another example briefly, to make my point. It’s about the Macarthur wind farm, in Victoria. Before the project was built, consultants had estimated that the level of bird activity was low in the area, and that the impact on birds would be insignificant. But after construction, a monitoring surveycounted the carcasses and estimated the death toll at about 1500 birds in one year, including nearly 500 raptors – among which 6 wedge-tailed eagles) (5). So much for the negligible bird mortality…
This scenario is repeating itself at wind farms all over the world, wherever post-construction monitoring surveys are performed. My experience has been that predicted rates of mortality are often two orders of magnitude (100 times) lower than reality. The monitoring surveys themselves play their part, by never reflecting the full extent of the death toll (for technical reasons – e.g. the insufficient size of the area searched under each turbine * – as well as conflicts of interest).
* search area: a 50-meter-radius circle around each mast, whereas a 150-meter-tall wind turbine can project the body of a small bird 200 meters away and beyond).
MANIPULATED MORTALITY STATISTICS
It is my duty, as President of the World Council for Nature, to bring to your attention the true extent of the carnage which is taking place at wind farms around the world, including Australia. The deception being staged by consultants in order to fool people and their governments will have unfathomed consequences for wildlife, biodiversity, natural habitats, and the health of forests and agriculture. We are facing widespread corrupt behavior, which is putting private interests ahead of the common good.
In Australia, but also elsewhere, consultants mislead decision-makers by predicting insignificant mortality. We have seen the case of the Macarthur wind farm. In Europe it is much the same, e.g. in France the official mortality estimate is about one bird/turbine/year (6). Here again,consultants willing to please the wind industry, their main employer, are the source of the deception.
In the US, the latest nationwide windfarm mortality estimates are Dr. Smallwood’s 573,000 birds and 888,000 bats per year, i.e. almost 15 birds and 23 bats per turbine (7). But there are also European estimates of interest: for instance, extrapolating to Germany the findings of reknowned Dutch biologist J.E. Winkelman, ornithologistBernd Koop had calculated that annual mortality would be 60,000 – 100,000 birds per Gigawatt of installed wind capacity (8). For today’s Germany, which has 39 Gigawatts, this would add up to 2,340,000 – 3,900,000 dead birds a year.
The Koop estimate is much closer to reality, which was revealed in 2012 by a comprehensive evaluation of wind farm mortality by the Spanish ornithological society SEO-BirdLife (Sociedad Española de Ornitología). In response to a request based on the right to information in environmental matters (Aarhus Convention), SEO has obtained copies of 136 monitoring studies of wind farms, studies that the Spanish government had filed without publishing. Having analysed them, SEO researchers estimated the mortality as follows: Spain’s 18,000 wind turbines kill on average 6 – 18 million birds and bats a year. Considering that wind turbines kill roughly twice as many bats as birds, this comes to a death toll of 100 – 300 birds and 200 – 600 bats per turbine per year (9). Averaging these numbers, we can say that, on average, each wind turbine kills 200 birds and 400 bats a year. For the Macarthur wind farm: 200 birds x 140 turbines = 28,000 birds a year, as opposed to 1,500 estimated by monitoring consultants.
These figures are actually shy of the first estimates of two decades ago. In a study published by an agency of the California government, the California Energy Commission, we can read as follows: “In a summary of avian impacts at wind turbines by Benner et al. (1993) bird deaths per turbine per year were as high as 309 in Germany and 895 in Sweden “(10). We are very far indeed from the 1 bird per turbine/year being routinely predicted by some remarkably mendacious consultants or government agencies.
THE COVER-UP
Something obviously happened between the high mortality found in the early days of wind farms by biologists such as Winkelman, Benner, Lekuona, Everaert etc. and present estimates as low as 1 bird per turbine/year being “predicted” in Australia, France, the UK etc. Could it be that actual mortality has come down to such a low level?
– Not in the least: if you need convincing, see the mortality at Altamont Pass, Macarthur, Wolfe Island etc.
What actually happened was that powerful political and financial interests have worked together towards deceiving our perception of mortality from wind turbines – i.e. putting in place a cover-up. To succeed in this mystification, it was essential to obtain the cooperation of ornithological NGOs. This was generally done by way of donations, and a plethora of attractive contracts: impact studies for wind projects, monitoring avian mortality once the projects are built, modelling ornithological mortality etc… In countries with high penetration of “green” energy, the wind industry quickly became the main employer of ornithologists.
In Spain, Iberdrola and Banco Triodos (the renewable energies’ bank) used to make donations to SEO-Birdlife amounting to nearly 25% of its budget. After a number of years, this finally caused some dissension among members, eventually resulting in the departure of the General Manager, Alejandro Sánchez, in 2010 (11). Less than two years later, the ornithological society published its estimate of windfarm mortality in Spain, revealing the enormity of the massacre (9). But their report was neither published nor mentioned by ornithological societies in other countries –what better proof of the collusion between wind interests and ornithology?
An average of 200 dead birds per turbine per year is not at all surprising: it is less than one bird per 24 hours. It could easily be more, considering that song birds migrate at night, to avoid overheating. On moonless nights, all they can see from the turbines are the position lights on the nacelles, while the blades are slashing through the air at up to 300 km/h, invisible, up to 30, 40 or 50 meters away…
Accidents also happen during the day, particularly in the case of those species that are attracted to wind turbines(12). This attraction puts their lives in danger, because the blades can reach speeds of 300 km/h at the tip (see further below). It is the case for swallows, swifts and other birds that catch insects on the wing; Professor Ahlén found that they look for insects that are themselves attracted to wind turbines (12).
THE CASE OF RAPTORS
It is also the case of raptors, which are attracted by dead or wounded birds or bats that lie under the turbines, or by the mice and rabbits that live there. Indeed, rodents find plenty of food in these open spaces covered in gramineae; also, it is easy to dig burrows where the soil has been softened up by foundation work – see picture below.
Rabbit in front of its burrow, Altamont Pass wind farm, California – (first generation turbines).
Perched on the still blades (picture further below), or on the nacelles, birds of prey have a commanding view of this exceptional hunting territory. Many will hunt successfully without getting struck by a blade. But their very success will cause their brains to establish a connection between wind turbines and great hunting opportunities. Thus, when they spot some wind turbines, which may be seen from many miles away, they will be attracted to them. Young, unattached raptors will therefore visit many windfarms, and so will adults on migration. Breeding adults, on the other hand, will only visit the wind turbines within their territories, but will do it over and over again. In either case, the more time they spend near the turbines, the greater the chances they will be struck by a blade, the speed of which it is very easy to misjudge .
For birds as for humans, the blades appear to be moving at a leisurly pace. Yet, they travel at up to 300km/h at their tip. Here is the calculation for a 2.3 MW ENERCON Model E-70: 71m (diameter) x 3.14 = circumference of 223m x 21.5 revolutions per minute (in winds above 45 km/h) = 4.794m travelled by the tip of each blade in a minute x 60 minutes = 287,640m travelled in an hour, i.e. at a speed of 287km/h. In low winds, the speed is of 100 – 200 km/h. The difference between apparent slowness and actual high speed, plus the attraction they exert, are what turn wind turbines into deadly traps for birds and bats.
Raptors, experience has shown, are prone to be decimated by wind turbines (13). Yet these birds are very useful to us, as they control certain animal populations (rats, mice, rabbits, and nest plunderers such as magpies, crows etc.). They also eliminate sick or dead animals, thus preventing epidemics and contributing to the health of many species. Their role is important for the maintenance of natural balances, biodiversity and ecosystems. Yet, a new peer-reviewed study is alerting us that wind turbines are partly responsible for the coming extinction of some species of raptors (in southern Europe). One of them, the Egyptian Vulture, is seeing its population of breeding adults decline by 3-4% per year (14). This spectacular glider is already very rare in Europe, and millions of euros have been spent for its protection (and its reintroduction in France).
Photo: Red-tailed hawk perched on a blade, Altamont Pass, California.
Perching opportunities make wind turbines attractive to raptors, so does the prey or carcasses to be found under them (as we commented above). Here are more pictures (15), and videos (25 and 26) proving the point. But consultants promote the fiction that raptors “avoid” wind turbines, and the ornithology profession turns a blind eye to that baseless assertion, all of which is helping their common employers: wind farm promoters. But if raptors avoided wind turbines, why would so many be killed by their blades? (13).
Consultants use a wide array of deceptive tricks, which they developped over the years. I listed some of them years ago in an article, “the Shame of Scotland” (16). One of these tricks has been pushed to unprecedented levels in Australia: the “core-range manipulation” (16). There, consultants have decided, based upon unscientific, biased and unpublishedobservations, that wind turbines can be safely erected as close as 300 meters from the nests of eagles or other raptors. For instance, in the Bulgana Windfarm Flora and Fauna Assessment Report No. 13051 (7.6), page 97, we read: “Previous studies on wind farms have shown that resident Wedge-tailed Eagles are able to successfully nest and raise young on wind farms, if turbines are located at least 300 metres away (BL&A unpublished data )”.
Years ago, I debunked an identical assertion which was based on 24 searches spread over two years at theChallicum Hills wind farm – hardly constituting solid scientific evidence, to say the least. Biosis even admitted:“the work does not discount the possibility of WT eagle collisions” (17). Yet the fiction perdures, and wind turbines continue to be erected in Australia as close as 300 meters from eagle and other raptors’ nests. Nowhere else in the world are protected birds being treated so carelessly. We have seen the tragic results of this attitude at Woolnorth, Macarthur, Starfish Hill, etc. Australia’s eagles are being slaughtered, but the cover-up keeps Australians uninformed.
By contrast, Scottish raptor expert Michael J. McGrady recommends a 5 km buffer zone for the Golden Eagle, in the peer-reviewed study “A model of golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) ranging behavior”, J. Raptor Res. 36 (1 Supplement): 62-69 – by McGrady, M.J., Grant, J. R., Baingridge, I. P. & David R.A. McLeod D.R.A. (2002) (18). This study and its recommendation are mentioned in SEO-Birdlife’s guide for the assessment of windfarms as regards bird life, in which one can find the buffer zones recommended by scientists for various protected bird species (18). The shortest is 1 km, for the smallest of the kestrel species. For eagles, they vary from 5 to 10 km (18). Ospreys (“Águila pescadora” in Spanish): 2 km. Peregrine falcons: 2 – 4 km. Cranes: 10 km.
PLUNDERING NATURE WITH PUBLIC FUNDS
Out of control windfarm development is hurting many protected species, riding as it does on the optimistic estimates put out by hired consultants, government agencies, bird societies, the wind industry and its agents, pro-wind activists etc. It is also facilitated by considerable flows of public money, in the form of subsidies, tax credits, special loans, carbon certificates, etc. These millions of dollars (billions in those countries that have thousands of wind turbines) enable private interests to remove all obstacles to their greed, and this includes overriding nature protection legislation. Migration routes and stopover areas, shrinking habitat of threatened species (e.g. brolgas), high bird-traffic areas bordering natural reserves (e.g. Bald Hills, Victoria), nothing is sacred: the plunder has no limits.
Planning authorities which give the green light to wind projects rarely have other bird data at hand than what’s reported in impact studies prepared by unethical consultants. I read about a hundred of these reports over the past 12 years, and none concluded that the impact on the environment would be unacceptable, even when the project was to be located inside a protected nature reserve, or was threatening an endangered species with extinction. None of them was honest, without errors or omissions, and free of manipulations.
MITIGATION
To obtain approval for wind projects that will highly impact protected species, consultants usually suggest applying some techniques for avoiding, minimising, or attenuating the risks of collision. They call these “mitigation”. But we must be aware that none of these schemes, none of these formulas have proved effective. Wherever they have been implemented, they have failed (Altamont Pass, Woolnorth, Smola, Tarifa). The President of the French bird society LPO-Birdlife acknowledged the fact that mitigation does not work (19).
In situations where opponents to a wind project have raised the issue of bat mortality, consultants often propose a mitigation which consists in increasing the cut-in wind speed to, say, 6 meters per second. This means not letting the blades rotate unless the speed of the wind exceeds 22 km/h. The idea is that, as few bats fly when the wind exceeds that speed, mortality will be reduced by about 90%. We would comment on this particular mitigation as follows:
– First observation: the promised reduction in mortality to 90% has not been verified. To our knowledge, no wind farm has put this measure into practice and published the results.
– Second observation: a 10% residual mortality is considered by consultants to be negligible, as if it were acceptable to kill 1.2 million bats per year instead of 12 million (supposing a country that has, or will have, 18,000 wind turbines as in Spain). Most bat species are endangered, all are extremely useful. Killing them in such numbers is irresponsible. Also consider that the figure of 1,2 million will be much higher, as a) the reduction to 10% is unproven, b) only few wind projects contemplate “bat mitigation”.
– Third observation: the practical application of such a measure is not verifiable . Indeed, who would make sure that, during 25 years, the computer program controlling the feathering of the blades a) reflects that mitigation, b) is in good order and c) is being applied? The interest of the windfarm owner is to not apply it, as it reduces his income. Thus, inspectors would be needed, but who would pay them during 25 years? It would have to be the State. And who would ensure that the operators of the wind farms will not “convince” these civil servants to turn a blind eye? Indeed, wind farms are often associated with corruption (20).
BATS
Thus, mitigation of bat mortality is doubtful at best. Yet bats are killed in bigger numbers than birds – about twice as many, i.e. circa 400 per turbine/year, or one bat per turbine/night. According to a study published in France, bats“are the most valuable fauna group” (in French:«constituent le groupe faunistique ayant la plus forte valeur patrimoniale» )(21). Indeed, bat species are very useful to humans, but they all are in decline. To make things worse, their populations cannot recover easily, most females only raising one pup a year.
Many of the chiropter species are classified as threatened with extinction. This is especially worrying because, without bats, farmers, the forest industry, and national forestry administrations would have to use more pesticides to control insects that attack trees and crops. This would lead to undesirable effects on prices and on the health of citizens. Services rendered by bats to US agriculture have been valued at $3.7 billion – $53 billion annually (22). That we know of, no evaluation has been made for services rendered by chiropters to forestry, but their usefulness in controlling some forest pests is recognised (23). Yet they are being killed in their millions by wind turbines. This is causing considerable harm to the environment.
In this video (24), we see bats getting hit by turbine blades, and others falling to the ground due to “barotrauma” (fatal injuries in the lungs caused by large pressure differences created around the blades).
COMPENSATION
The ineffectiveness of mitigation resulted in wily consultants proposing yet another deceptive scheme: “compensation”. This stratagem is useful to businesses that are causing serious harm to nature as a result of their activities. So much so that “offset programs” (27) are being set up, fooling people into believing that destroying more nature can be compensated. “No net biodiverity loss” is the publicised goal, but it is yet another scam to facilitate more plundering of nature. It boggles the mind to see most ecologists and bird societies support this. Here again, ethics vanish where there is money to be made…
Natural wetlands cannot be replaced by man-made reservoirs, any more than destroying primary tropical forests can be compensated by planting eucalyptus, nor killing birds of a protected species can be offset by giving money to a bird society. This scheme of redeeming one’s ecological sins with money is not without parallel with the indulgences that were sold by the Church in the Middle Ages.
Compensation is increasingly being used in the windfarm business. For instance, it is being alleged that, if new hunting areas for raptors are created nearby, it is acceptable to install wind turbines in their breeding territories. But this only works on paper. It hasn’t been successful anywhere in the world. The example of Beinn an Tuirc, Scotland, is sometimes quoted by some consultant as a reference. But this example is anything but conclusive. I exposed its false claim to success years ago (28).
The since-discovered fact that raptors are attracted to wind turbines further proves the ineffectiveness of this compensation. A wind farm is a giant bird trap which acts as a population sink, attracting its victims from many miles around. Nothing can compensate this ongoing massacre. Creating new hunting grounds next to it is as absurd as “killing the children but building orphanages”. .
No government in the world has considered objectively the cumulative effects of so many wind turbines, each of them an ecological trap attracting and killing many protected species. Some residents report that, since wind turbines were built, there are no more bats where they live; others noted that they see fewer and fewer raptors. Swallows and swifts are becoming rarer too, according to others.
The situation is serious, if only because these species are of great benefit to humanity. Natural equilibriums are also at risk, and so is quality of life. Are we willing to replace our countryside with industrial landscapes, our birds and bats with crop dusters? Where are we headed, with this “green” ideology which destroys nature by calling for a new, unnecessary industrial revolution, and misleads people into thinking it’s for the greater good of the planet?
What an awful mess are these ideologues making of our world, under the pretext of saving it… The wind industry has never been able to prove it can achieve its goal of significantly reducing harmful emissions. The wind’s intermittency stands in its way. The German experience is far from being conclusive in this regard, to say the least (29). A few years from now, when all the expensive tinkering will have failed (more power lines, international connections, smart meters, giant batteries, reservoirs and pumping stations, etc.), the Germans will have to face the harsh reality: wind intermittency has no economically viable solution.
Independent engineers keep repeating it (30), but stubborn governments are not listening. Through the famous “revolving door” of politics, wind power subsidies help finance political parties. Thus, cutting subsidies would be suicide for the party that would decide to do so (30). The wind industry clearly calls the shots, be it in Canberra, Copenhagen, London, Berlin, Paris or Washington.
The renewable energy bubble has burst in Spain and other southern European countries. It occurred when the cost of subsidies became unaffordable, i.e. when these countries became technically bankrupt and HAD to cut down on government expenses. When this happened, the so-called “green jobs” vanished. The countries were left with households impoverished by the high cost of “renewable” electricity. Some companies relocated abroad due to this cost, or are contemplating doing so. Tourists looking for nature, landscapes and relaxation choose other destinations. In the countryside, residents are poorer as their homes are worth a fraction of their normal value. Many live unhappy lives because of the Wind Turbine Syndrome, shorter too as they suffer chronically from high levels of cortisol. As for the birds, they keep being chopped up year after year…
Mark Duchamp
Chairman, World Council for Nature
Tél: +34 693 643 736 wcfn@live.com
References:
1) –http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/2d42fcbd-31ea-4739-b109-b420571338a3/files/wind-farm-bird-risk.pdf page 32 of TWTE modelling study
2) – http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/deaths-of-rare-eagles-rise-20101116-17vy7.html
3) –http://www.iberica2000.org/documents/eolica/BIRD_MORTALITY/Yaloak_South_Debus_comments.pdf
4) – http://www.iberica2000.org/Es/Articulo.asp?Id=4382
5) –http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/national/wind-farm-turbines-take-toll-on-birds-of-prey/story-fnkfnspy-1227066199577
(6) – http://www.lefigaro.fr/sciences/2007/03/19/01008-20070319ARTFIG90140-l_effet_des_eoliennes_sur_les_oiseaux.php
(7) –http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wsb.260/abstract
(8) – (Koop B., 1997. Vogelzug und Windenergieplanung. Beispiele für Auswirkungen aus dem Kreis Plön (Schleswig-Holstein). Naturschutz und Landschaftsplanung 29 (7): 202-207).
(9) –http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/releases/spanish-wind-farms-kill-6-to-18-million-birds-bats-a-year.html
(10) –http://www.iberica2000.org/documents/EOLICA/REPORTS/Dave_Sterner_2002.pdfPage 12, 1er paragraphe.
(11) –http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_S%C3%A1nchez_P%C3%A9rez
(12) – http://wcfn.org/2013/07/24/biodiversity-alert/
(13) – Some of the eagles killed by wind turbines (tip of the iceberg)
http://www.iberica2000.org/es/Articulo.asp?Id=3071 – Last updated in 2006
– Some of the ospreys killed by wind turbines (tip of the iceberg)
http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/new/843-2.html
– Effects on red kites
http://rapaces.lpo.fr/sites/default/files/milan-royal/63/actesmilan150.pdf (pages 96, 97).
(14) – Study “Action on multiple fronts, illegal poisoning and wind farm planning, is required to reverse the decline of the Egyptian vulture in southern Spain”
Ana Sanz-Aguilar, José Antonio Sánchez-Zapata, Martina Carrete, José Ramón Benítez, Enrique Ávila, Rafael Arenas f, José Antonio Donázar (a).
Study published on April 21 2015 by ELSEVIER, Biological Conservation, Volume 187, July 2015, pages 10–18
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320715001408
(15) – –https://savetheeagles.wordpress.com/2013/05/28/raptors-attracted-to-windfarms-2/
(16) – The Shame of Scotland:http://www.iberica2000.org/es/Articulo.asp?Id=3426
See –> ” 3 . THE CORE RANGE MANIPULATION ”
(17) – http://www.iberica2000.org/es/Articulo.asp?Id=4313
See –> ” 4 – The precedent of Challicum Hills ”
(18) – https://www.seo.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/MANUAL-MOLINOS-VERSION-31_WEB.pdf
See –> Annex II, pages 106 and 107
Literature review of recommended buffer zones and sizes of home range for eagles and other raptors.
(19) –https://conseilmondialpourlanature.wordpress.com/2014/12/01/lpo-et-systemes-de-dissuasion-avienne/
(20) – http://wcfn.org/2015/04/22/huge-wind-farm-corruption-scandal-in-spain/
(21) –http://www.aude.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/Etude_d_impacts_CVO_21-06-2013_Partie2_cle55bcf8.pdf
See –> page 89
(22) –
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2743#.VU4hv_ntmkp
(23) –http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4186828/
(24) – VIDEO http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/bats-struck-by-wind-turbines.html
(25) – VIDEO http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/vulture-struck-by-wind-turbine.html
(26) – VIDEO http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/vultures-killed-videos.html
(27) – http://bbop.forest-trends.org/
(28) –http://www.iberica2000.org/Documents/eolica/BIRD_MORTALITY/Critique_Beinn_an_Tuirc_report.rtf
(29) –
http://online.wsj.com/articles/germanys-expensive-gamble-on-renewable-energy-1409106602 Available upon request to wcfn@live.com
(30) – http://www.epaw.org/documents.php?lang=en&matter=backup
(31) – http://en.friends-against-wind.org/realities/windfarms-are-only-good-for-financing-political-parties
X X X
Windpushers Lie about CO2 Abatement from Wind Turbines. Top Physics Professor Disputes Their Claims.
Wind Industry’s CO2 Abatement Claims Smashed by Top Physics Professor – Dr Joseph Wheatley
May 17, 2015 by
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The mandatory RET has seen the cost of around $9 billion worth of Renewable Energy Certificates added to retail power prices and recovered from all Australian power consumers.
Under the Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target, a further $45 to $55 billion will be transferred from power consumers to wind power outfits via the REC Tax/Subsidy over the next 17 years; depending on whether Ian “Macca” Macfarlane and his youthful ward, Gregory Hunt strike a deal with Labor to cut the ultimate annual target from 41,000 GWh to 33,000 GWh (see our post here). The ‘deal’ is aimed at saving their mates at Infigen, Vestas & Co – and is doomed to fail, in any event (see our postshere and here).
With that phenomenal cost being added to already spiralling power bills – there will be many more households who will be unable to afford power; adding to the tens of thousands of homes already deprived of what was once a basic necessity of (a decent) life. And thousands more destined to suffer “energy poverty” as they find themselves forced to choose between heating (or cooling) and eating:
Victoria’s Wind Rush sees 34,000 Households Chopped from the Power Grid
Casualties of South Australia’s Wind Power Debacle Mount: Thousands Can’t Afford Power
If our political betters in Canberra don’t get a grip and line up to kill the LRET very soon – in less than a decade – Australia will have created an entrenched energy underclass, dividing Australian society into energy “haves” and “have-nots”.
For a taste of an escalating social welfare disaster, here are articles from Queensland (click here); Victoria (click here); South Australia (click here); and New South Wales (click here).
There’s something deeply troubling about thousands of Australian households descending into gloom after dark – unable to afford the power needed for electric lighting; or troubling, at least, for those with a social conscience.
The ONLY justification for the massive stream of subsidies filched from power consumers and directed to wind power outfits is the claim that wind power reduces CO2 emissions in the electricity sector and, therefore, provides a solution to climate change (or what used to be called “global warming”). The former proposition is a proven fallacy (seeour post here). And, because the planet hasn’t reached boiling point (in bitter defiance of the IPCC’s models), the once concrete relationship between CO2 emissions and increasing global temperature now seems murky, at best.
Claiming the “global warming” moral high ground, wind power proponents continue to blindly chant the mantra that wind power reduces CO2 emissions – although they rarely, if ever, talk about the actual cost of the claimed reductions. Probably because there are, in fact, no reductions.
STT has focused on the fact that industrial scale wind power does not – and will never – reduce CO2 emissions simply because it is intermittent; being delivered at crazy, random intervals, such that 100% of its capacity must be backed up 100% of the time by fossil fuel generation sources (see our post here). Accordingly, we call it an environmental fraud.
Because wind power fails to deliver on its primary claim (and the wind industry’s only reason for existence) the $billions in subsidies purloined from taxpayers and power consumers have been received on an utterly false premise. Accordingly, we call it an economic fraud. Wind power, whichever way you slice it, is not, and will never be, a meaningful power generation source.
With that in mind, power consumers and taxpayers are clearly entitled to ask whether the subsidies received by wind power generators represent a cost-effective means of reducing CO2 emissions; if, indeed, there is any such reduction at all.
One such group is the Association for Research of Renewable Energy in Australia (ARREA): a band of hard-hitting, pro-farming and pro-community advocates, with a mission to ensure Australia gets the sensible energy policy it needs. Rather than the present policy fiasco, foisted on power consumers and rural communities by eco-fascist nutjobs – that wouldn’t know the first thing about markets and/or power generation – and the rent-seekers from the wind industry and its parasites that profit from the useful idiots they pay handsomely to run cover on their behalf: like yes2-ruining-us, GetUp!, the Climate Speculator and ruin-economy.
On that score, ARREA’s latest effort is to put some facts before the Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud – that kicked off in Portland on 30 March, and which continues at a clip this week in Cairns and Canberra. ARREA’s submission is available here: sub372_ARREA
ARREA has a very solid crack at the most colossal industry subsidy scheme in the history of the Commonwealth; and the fact that, despite the ridiculous cost of the LRET (set up as a $3.8 billion a year subsidy for wind power), there has never been any cost/benefit analysis of the policy in its 15 years of operation.
ARREA also takes a well-aimed swipe at the ludicrous claims by the wind industry that each and every MWh of wind power dispatched to the grid results in the abatement (or reduction) of 1 tonne of CO2 gas in the electricity generation sector.
It’s that relationship that is said to justify – what Greg Hunt calls – the “massive $93 per tonne carbon tax” imposed on all Australian power consumers under the LRET (see our post here).
Under the LRET, a REC is issued for each MWh of wind power dispatched to the grid, on the assumption that it in fact reduces or abates 1 tonne of CO2, that would otherwise be emitted by a conventional generator. The figure of $93 talked about by Hunt as a 1 “tonne carbon tax” is the full cost of a REC, that will be reached when the shortfall penalty starts to apply: the full cost of the REC is added to retail power bills.
STT hears that young Greg has taken to arguing that there is no such assumption: his argument appears to be that a REC is issued for a MWh of wind power, irrespective of whether any CO2 is abated elsewhere in the electricity sector; which simply begs the question as to what Australians are getting for their $93 per MWh electricity tax? Hmmm …
ARREA’s submission also picks up on the work done by Dr Joseph Wheatley, a graduate of Trinity College Dublin with a PhD in condensed matter physics from Princeton University. Here’s a little primer on Dr Wheatley’s submission from Graham Lloyd.
Emission cuts due to wind power ‘not so big as claimed’
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
16 May 2015
Carbon dioxide emissions savings from wind turbines were 20 per cent less than claimed, leading to the overpayment of renewable energy certificates worth about $70 million last year, according to an international analysis of Australia’s national electricity market.
The study found wind farm inefficiencies were likely to grow as more turbines were added to the grid under the renewable energy target.
Joseph Wheatley analysed the output of 256 generators connected to the national electricity market last year. His research, funded by private individuals through the Association for Research of Renewable Energy in Australia, found that while wind provided 4.5 per cent of national electricity generation, it reduced emissions by only 3.5 per cent.
“This represents a significant loss of effectiveness,” Dr Wheatley said. His research found the possibility that wind power was 100 per cent effective in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, as is the current basis for issuing renewable energy certificates, was not supported by evidence.
“The evidence in this study suggests that effectiveness in the national electricity market would fall to less than 70 per cent if the proportion of energy provided by wind is doubled from 2014 levels,” the report says.
Dr Wheatley said more data was needed on actual fuel consumption at coal-fired power stations but there were several reasons for the inefficiencies of wind in abating emissions.
“Lower emissions gas and black-coal plant were displaced more than brown-coal plant,” he said. “Displaced thermal generators operating under part load were less efficient on average and wind power also tended to be subject to larger system losses.”
Dr Wheatley is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin with a PhD in condensed matter physics from Princeton University. He has worked as a researcher at Cambridge University. A report of his findings has been submitted to the Senate inquiry into wind turbines and health issues.
The Clean Energy Council said it would not respond to the detailed findings in Dr Wheatley’s paper. But Clean Energy Council policy director Russell Marsh said “the vast majority of Australians support renewable energy and would be better served by objective scientific analysis rather than a group of grumblers brainstorming imaginary problems”.
ARREA is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2013 by a group of senior businessmen including former liquidator, Tony Hodgson. ARREA spokesman Rodd Pahl said the group believed “the behaviour of wind farm companies and the level of subsidies they are given is the result of bad policy settings and sloppy administration”.
The Australian
Nice ‘work’ there from wind industry spruiker, “Rusty” Marsh!
STT followers will remember Rusty as the creator of the “Atari defence“, which he conjured up in answer to the highly relevant work done by NASA in the 1980s, that proved the direct causal relationship between turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound and adverse health effects, and which Rusty and his ilk have spent 30 years covering up, ever since (see our post here).
Now, Rusty appears to be more than just a little flummoxed by the hard-hitting qualifications of Jo Wheatley and what he has to say. So, as is the wind industry fashion, he sets out to attack the boys at ARREA, instead. Clever!
Jo Wheatley’s submission to the Senate Inquiry is available here:sub348_Wheatley
STT thinks that Dr Wheatley is on the right track – he’s travelled the path before (see his paper on the Irish situation here).
However, his findings are estimates, based on assumptions, rather than a complete set of actual fuel use data. As is noted in the piece above, where Dr Wheatley says: “more data was needed on actual fuel consumption at coal-fired power stations”. For that reason, his finding that the chaotic delivery of wind power connected to a coal/gas fired grid might reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector as a whole is a form of polite flattery.
The coal and gas generators have never been that keen to hand over their fuel use data; the ‘carbon’ tax set up under the Green/Labor alliance would have seen them liable for a much greater whack if they did. And, with the threat of such a tax always on the horizon, they have no incentive in opening their fuel use books to public scrutiny, any time soon.
****
And it was for that reason that, STT Champion, Hamish Cumming ran into a brick wall, as he set about thumping the wind industry’s wild claims about CO2 abatement. Hamish – a farmer and grazier and engineer with 20 years of international experience – has already given evidence to the Inquiry about the wind industry’s bogus CO2 abatement claims:
Senator LEYONHJELM: Thank you. I have a couple more questions, and then I will give someone else a go. Mr Cumming, in your submission you say that the Loy Yang A power station annual report shows a rising carbon intensity, which is increasing proportionally to the increase in wind turbine output. Why is this so?
Mr Cumming: If you look through the annual reports from 2005 report through to about 2013 you will see that carbon intensity has continued to rise. Off the top of my head, it was something like 1.14 tonnes of carbon per megawatt and it is currently running at about 1.35. If you look at all the power stations, you will see where you can get the information – it is very hard to get some of it – and you will see that it is happening across the board, even in Queensland.
The Queensland power stations are the same. It is all to do with backing up wind farms and making the grid safe so that it will not blackout. The more wind farms that come on, the higher the backup has to be. In 2005, it was something like 600 megawatts and now it is over 1,000. Nothing has changed in the grid. In fact, demand is less. The reasons for having it should be less. Industry is less. And it is all in line with wind farms coming on line.
Senator LEYONHJELM: So you think Loy Yang, Yallourn and Hazelwood burn more coal now than prior to the penetration of wind energy capacity into the grid?
Mr Cumming: Very much so. The data for Loy Yang is very clear and very public – much to their horror when I point it out to them. Now they have even changed the way they do their carbon intensity calculation. They have removed a third of the input data to try and make it look smaller, but it is very public for Loy Yang.
If you look at the savings that they have made in thermal efficiency and other in-house savings of performance of the plant and then you look at the coal-led burning, there is a gap for Loy Yang of six million tonnes of coal a year today versus 2005.
Senator LEYONHJELM: Did you hear the evidence of Pacific Hydro this morning?
Mr Cumming: No. I was not here for that, sorry.
Senator LEYONHJELM: They basically put a completely alternative point of view to us on that.
Mr Cumming: Did he use Loy Yang’s annual reports and public data?
Senator LEYONHJELM: He did not provide any data. The view was simply that there was no increase in spinning capacity.
Mr Cumming: That is incorrect. You have to look at the documents that the industry runs on. There is a guy called Hugh Saddler, who works for Pitt & Sherry. He does what are called CEDEX reports, ACIL Tasman reports. That is what the industry is always based on. All the emissions, all the RECs – everything – is based on that.
It is all reverse calculated. It is all calculated from what power is sold through theoretical thermal efficiency and data. It has a number of errors in it, including a seven per cent error for the Yallourn power station. When I highlighted this to them, they said, yes, they know. It is the closest thing they have got, whereas carbon intensity is actual fuel burnt. You cannot get away from it.
Senator LEYONHJELM: Do you think the Clean Energy Regulator’s reports of emissions reductions are accurate?
Mr Cumming: No, not at all.
Senator LEYONHJELM: Why is that?
Mr Cumming: Because they are relying on the CEDEX reports and the ACIL Tasman reports and those are all based on reverse calculation. None of it is based on fact. The fact has to come from the actual carbon, the actual fuel burnt –
Senator LEYONHJELM: The actual fuel burnt?
Mr Cumming: The actual fuel burnt. If you have actual fuel burnt for a half-hour period and then you use the AEMO data for the same half-hour period, you can see exactly what is happening.
And this was highlighted in my submission on 4 July 2013, when Macarthur, Lake Bonney and another one went off line at the same time. The power was instantly picked up, without a flicker of a light bulb, without down time of any industry. It was picked up by New South Wales and Queensland coal-fired power stations – 450 megawatts. That is a massive amount of power. It is bigger than the largest Victorian single generating plant, and it was picked up instantly. The only way they can do that is if they are burning the coal already and venting for steam as backup. None of that is covered in the reports that are used officially by government.
Senator LEYONHJELM: Do you have a view on how effectively the Clean Energy Regulator is performing its legislated responsibilities?
Mr Cumming: My personal belief is that they cannot perform their responsibilities if they are not using facts. If they are using reverse calculated data estimates, they cannot perform their responsibilities. They have got to get the facts.
Senator LEYONHJELM: What would you do? Would you broaden their responsibilities or change the way they calculate what they are supposed to calculate already?
Mr Cumming: I would change the rules so that they have to use base data from the entire power industry. That will force the generators to provide the hourly coal feed, gas feed, fuel feed data.
At the moment there is no regulation to enforce those companies to provide the data – and it is not in their interests to because it affects how they get paid. If they tell the truth about what they are doing then the investors are not going to allow AGL to buy more wind farms or build more wind farms when AGL owns Loy Yang A. It is the same with the other power stations. They all own wind farms, power stations and coal seam gas. It is in none of their interests to tell the truth.
Hansard, 30 March 2015
Hamish hits the bulls-eye! The actual fuel use data needed to make any definitive statement on the purported ability of wind power to reduce CO2 emissions just simply isn’t made available, in order to protect the commercial interests of all parties involved. However, getting at that data is very much on the Senate Inquiry’s radar.
No wonder the wind industry and its spruikers, like the CEC’s Rusty Marsh are working in a pool of cold sweat, as they try to deflect, diminish, deny and otherwise attempt to throw cold water on the work of ARREA; and the likes of Jo Wheatley and Hamish Cumming.
STT predicts that this week will see the wind industry, its parasites, spruikers and their institutional aiders and abetters enter a new world of pain, as the Senators on the Inquiry start smacking into the lies, treachery and deceit, that defines the greatest fraud of all time, with an unparalleled zeal for the task.
STT will bring you blow-by-blow descriptions of the carnage; it won’t be pretty, but, in a “let’s get it over with”, kind of way, it will be fun.
“Bring it on”, as the REAL contenders say.
Among Non-Biased, Informed Scientists, there is No 97% Consensus. That was a “Con”.
The con in consensus: Climate change consensus among the misinformed is not worth much
Ross McKitrick, Special to Financial Post | May 11, 2015
AP Photo/Jim Cole, FileRoss McKitrick: Lots of people get called “climate experts” and contribute to the appearance of consensus, without necessarily being knowledgeable about core issues. A consensus among the misinformed is not worth much.
Not only is there no 97 per cent consensus among climate scientists; many misunderstand core issues
In the lead-up to the Paris climate summit, massive activist pressure is on all governments, especially Canada’s, to fall in line with the global warming agenda and accept emission targets that could seriously harm our economy. One of the most powerful rhetorical weapons being deployed is the claim that 97 per cent of the world’s scientists agree what the problem is and what we have to do about it. In the face of such near-unanimity, it would be understandable if Prime Minister Harper and the Canadian government were simply to capitulate and throw Canada’s economy under the climate change bandwagon. But it would be a tragedy because the 97 per cent claim is a fabrication.
Like so much else in the climate change debate, one needs to check the numbers. First of all, on what exactly are 97 per cent of experts supposed to agree? In 2013 President Obama sent out a tweet claiming 97 per cent of climate experts believe global warming is “real, man-made and dangerous.” As it turns out the survey he was referring to didn’t ask that question, so he was basically making it up. At a recent debate in New Orleans I heard climate activist Bill McKibben claim there was a consensus that greenhouse gases are “a grave danger.” But when challenged for the source of his claim, he promptly withdrew it.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change asserts the conclusion that most (more than 50 per cent) of the post-1950 global warming is due to human activity, chiefly greenhouse gas emissions and land use change. But it does not survey its own contributors, let alone anyone else, so we do not know how many experts agree with it. And the statement, even if true, does not imply that we face a crisis requiring massive restructuring of the worldwide economy. In fact it is consistent with the view that the benefits of fossil fuel use greatly outweigh the climate-related costs.
One commonly-cited survey asked if carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and human activities contribute to climate change. But these are trivial statements that even many IPCC skeptics agree with. And again, both statements are consistent with the view that climate change is harmless. So there are no policy implications of such surveys, regardless of the level of agreement.
More than half acknowledge that their profession is split on the issue
The most highly-cited paper supposedly found 97 per cent of published scientific studies support man-made global warming. But in addition to poor survey methodology, that tabulation is often misrepresented. Most papers (66 per cent) actually took no position. Of the remaining 34 per cent, 33 per cent supported at least a weak human contribution to global warming. So divide 33 by 34 and you get 97 per cent, but this is unremarkable since the 33 per cent includes many papers that critique key elements of the IPCC position.
Two recent surveys shed more light on what atmospheric scientists actually think. Bear in mind that on a topic as complex as climate change, a survey is hardly a reliable guide to scientific truth, but if you want to know how many people agree with your view, a survey is the only way to find out.
In 2012 the American Meteorological Society (AMS) surveyed its 7,000 members, receiving 1,862 responses. Of those, only 52 per cent said they think global warming over the 20th century has happened and is mostly manmade (the IPCC position). The remaining 48 per cent either think it happened but natural causes explain at least half of it, or it didn’t happen, or they don’t know. Furthermore, 53 per cent agree that there is conflict among AMS members on the question.
So no sign of a 97 per cent consensus. Not only do about half reject the IPCC conclusion, more than half acknowledge that their profession is split on the issue.
The Netherlands Environmental Agency recently published a survey of international climate experts. 6550 questionnaires were sent out, and 1868 responses were received, a similar sample and response rate to the AMS survey. In this case the questions referred only to the post-1950 period. 66 per cent agreed with the IPCC that global warming has happened and humans are mostly responsible. The rest either don’t know or think human influence was not dominant. So again, no 97 per cent consensus behind the IPCC.
But the Dutch survey is even more interesting because of the questions it raises about the level of knowledge of the respondents. Although all were described as “climate experts,” a large fraction only work in connected fields such as policy analysis, health and engineering, and may not follow the primary physical science literature.
But in addition to poor survey methodology, that tabulation is often misrepresented
Regarding the recent slowdown in warming, here is what the IPCC said: “The observed global mean surface temperature (GMST) has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years than over the past 30 to 60 years.” Yet 46 per cent of the Dutch survey respondents – nearly half – believe the warming trend has stayed the same or increased. And only 25 per cent agreed that global warming has been less than projected over the past 15 to 20 years, even though the IPCC reported that 111 out of 114 model projections overestimated warming since 1998.
Three quarters of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement “Climate is chaotic and cannot be predicted.” Here is what the IPCC said in its 2003 report: “In climate research and modelling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
Looking into further detail there are other interesting ways in which the so-called experts are unaware of unresolved discrepancies between models and observations regarding issues like warming in the tropical troposphere and overall climate sensitivity.
Second, it is obvious that the “97 per cent” mantra is untrue. The underlying issues are so complex it is ludicrous to expect unanimity. The near 50/50 split among AMS members on the role of greenhouse gases is a much more accurate picture of the situation. The phony claim of 97 per cent consensus is mere political rhetoric aimed at stifling debate and intimidating people into silence.
The Canadian government has the unenviable task of defending the interest of the energy producers and consumers of a cold, thinly-populated country, in the face of furious, deafening global warming alarmism. Some of the worst of it is now emanating from the highest places. Barack Obama’s website (barackobama.com) says “97 per cent of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and man-made…Find the deniers near you — and call them out today.” How nice. But what we really need to call out is the use of false propaganda and demagoguery to derail factual debate and careful consideration of all facets of the most complex scientific and policy issue of our time.
Ross McKitrick is a professor of economics at the University of Guelph, a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute and an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute.
Educated Consumers are the Wind Industry’s Worst Enemy! Knowledge is power!
America’s Worst Wind-Energy Project
Wind-energy proponents admit they need lots of spin to overwhelm the truly informed.
The more people know about the wind-energy business, the less they like it. And when it comes to lousy wind deals, General Electric’s Shepherds Flat project in northernOregon is a real stinker.
I’ll come back to the GE project momentarily. Before getting to that, please ponder that first sentence. It sounds like a claim made by an anti-renewable-energy campaigner. It’s not. Instead, that rather astounding admission was made by a communications strategist during a March 23 webinar sponsored by the American Council on Renewable Energy called “Speaking Out on Renewable Energy: Communications Strategies for the Renewable Energy Industry.”
During the webinar, Justin Rolfe-Redding, a doctoral student from the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, discussed ways for wind-energy proponents to get their message out to the public.Rolfe-Redding said that polling data showed that “after reading arguments for and against wind, wind lost support.” He went on to say that concerns about wind energy’s cost and its effect on property values “crowded out climate change” among those surveyed.
The most astounding thing to come out of Rolfe-Redding’s mouth — and yes, I heard him say it myself — was this: “The things people are educated about are a real deficit for us.” After the briefings on the pros and cons of wind, said Rolfe-Redding, “enthusiasm decreased for wind. That’s a troubling finding.” The solution to these problems, said Rolfe-Redding, was to “weaken counterarguments” against wind as much as possible. He suggested using “inoculation theory” by telling people that “wind is a clean source, it provides jobs” and adding that “it’s an investment in the future.” He also said that proponents should weaken objections by “saying prices are coming down every day.”
It’s remarkable to see how similar the arguments being put forward by wind-energy proponents are to those that the Obama administration is using to justify its support of Solyndra, the now-bankrupt solar company that got a $529 million loan guarantee from the federal government. But in some ways, the government support for the Shepherds Flat deal is worse than what happened with Solyndra.
The majority of the funding for the $1.9 billion, 845-megawatt Shepherds Flat wind project in Oregon is coming courtesy of federal taxpayers. And that largesse will provide a windfall for General Electric and its partners on the deal who include Google, Sumitomo, and Caithness Energy. Not only is the Energy Department giving GE and its partners a $1.06 billion loan guarantee, but as soon as GE’s 338 turbines start turning at Shepherds Flat, the Treasury Department will send the project developers a cash grant of $490 million.
The deal was so lucrative for the project developers that last October, some of Obama’s top advisers, including energy-policy czar Carol Browner and economic adviser Larry Summers, wrote a memo saying that the project’s backers had “little skin in the game” while the government would be providing “a significant subsidy (65+ percent).” The memo goes on to say that, while the project backers would only provide equity equal to about 11 percent of the total cost of the wind project, they would receive an “estimated return on equity of 30 percent.”
The memo continues, explaining that the carbon dioxide reductions associated with the project “would have to be valued at nearly $130 per ton for CO2 for the climate benefits to equal the subsidies.” The memo continues, saying that that per-ton cost is “more than 6 times the primary estimate used by the government in evaluating rules.”
The Obama administration’s loan guarantee for the now-bankrupt Solyndra has garnered lots of attention, but the Shepherds Flat deal is an even better example of corporate welfare. Several questions are immediately obvious:
First: Why, as Browner and Summers asked, is the federal government providing loan guarantees and subsidies for an energy project that could easily be financed by GE, which has a market capitalization of about $170 billion?
Second: Why is the Obama administration providing subsidies to GE, which paid little or no federal income taxes last year even though it generatedsome $5.1 billion in profits from its U.S. operations?
Third: How is it that GE’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, can be the head of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness while his company is paying little or no federal income taxes? That question is particularly germane as the president never seems to tire of bashing the oil and gas industry for what he claims are the industry’s excessive tax breaks.
Over the past year, according to Yahoo! Finance, the average electric utility’s return on equity has been 7.1 percent. Thus, taxpayer money is helping GE and its partners earn more than four times the average return on equity in the electricity business.
A few months ago, I ran into Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy. I asked him why Duke — which has about 14,000 megawatts of coal-fired generation capacity — was investing in wind energy projects. The answer, said Rogers forthrightly, was simple: The subsidies available for wind projects allow Duke to earn returns on equity of 17 to 22 percent.
In other words, for all of the bragging by the wind-industry proponents about the rapid growth in wind-generation capacity, the main reason that capacity is growing is that companies such as GE and Duke are able to goose their profits by putting up turbines so they can collect subsidies from taxpayers.
There are other reasons to dislike the Shepherds Flat project: It’s being built in Oregon to supply electricity to customers in Southern California. That’s nothing new. According to the Energy Information Administration, “California imports more electricity from other states than any other state.” Heaven forbid that consumers in the Golden State would have to actually live near a power plant, refinery, or any other industrial facility. And by building the wind project in Oregon, electricity consumers inCalifornia are only adding to the electricity congestion problems that have been plaguing the region served by the Bonneville Power Authority. Earlier this year, the BPA was forced to curtail electricity generated by wind projects in the area because a near-record spring runoff had dramatically increased the amount of power generated by the BPA’s dams. In other words, Shepherds Flat is adding yet more wind turbines to a region that has been overwhelmed this year by excess electrical generation capacity from renewables. And that region will now have to spending huge sums of money building new transmission capacity to export its excess electricity.
Finally, there’s the question of the jobs being created by the new wind project. In 2009, when GE and Caithness announced the Shepherds Flat deal, CNN Money reported that the project would create 35 permanent jobs. And in an April 2011 press release issued by GE on the Shepherds Flat project, one of GE’s partners in the deal said they were pleased to be bringing “green energy jobs to our economy.”
How much will those “green energy” jobs cost? Well, if we ignore the value of the federal loan guarantee and only focus on the $490 million cash grant that will be given to GE and its partners when Shepherds Flat gets finished, the cost of those “green energy” jobs will be about $16.3 million each.
As Rolfe-Redding said, the more people know about the wind business, the less they like it.
— Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His latest book, Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future, was recently issued in paperback.
Angry Locals Willing to Fight the Wind Scam!!!
Community Defenders Down MET Mast in Donegal, Ireland
May 10, 2015 by 3 Comments
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There aren’t many guarantees in life – death and taxes spring to mind: to which can be added open community hostility to giant fans.
Wherever wind farms have appeared – or have been threatened – big numbers of locals take a set against the monsters being speared into their previously peaceful – and often idyllic – rural communities. Their anger extends to the goons that lied their way to development approval – and the bent officials that rubber-stamped their applications and who, thereafter, actively help the operators ride roughshod over locals’ rights to live in and enjoy the peace and comfort of their own homes and properties.
The Irish have already hit the streets to bring an end to the fraud: some 10,000 stormed Dublin back in April last year. The sense of anger in Ireland – as elsewhere – is palpable (see our post here). And they’re tooling up for a raft of litigation in order to prevent the construction of wind farms, wherever they’ve been threatened on the Emerald Isle (seeour post here).
Having seen their political betters co-opted by the wind industry and acquiesce – if not actively condone – the wanton and needless destruction of neighbours’ common law rights to live in and enjoy their own homes and properties, community defenders in Ireland are fighting back. And, as elsewhere, some of the tactics used have led to sanctimonious huffing and puffing from an industry devoid of any moral compass or human empathy, and always quick to ride roughshod over the living and the dead:
Wind Power Outfits – Thugs and Bullies the World Over
The MET masts used by hopeful wind power outfits to gauge wind speeds are the vanguard for every wind farm disaster: no MET mast data, no wind farm. As soon as they go up, the locals circle their wagons, marshal their forces and declare war on the proponent. No surprises there.
With the wind industry on the ropes in Australia, developers are quietly pulling down their MET masts at places like Robertstown and Hallett in South Australia – much to the delight of locals (see our post here).
In Ireland, and elsewhere, locals have sought to bring matters to a head by bringing MET masts plummeting back to earth, a little earlier than their wind weasel owners had planned.
Do you know who tore down this mast at Lismulladuff in Co Donegal?
Irish Mirror
Stephen Maguire
4 April 2015
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This giant 250ft mast was found cut down today on the site of Ireland’s biggest wind farm.
The scene of the crime at Lismulladuff outside Killygordon is currently the subject of local protests.
Plans were lodged with with An Bord Pleanala (ABP) a number of weeks ago by Planree Ltd for the Carrickaduff Wind Farm.
The giant wind farm will stretch from the iconic Barnesmore Gap in Donegal, along the Tyrone border, to near Castlefin.
The plans include an application for 49 giant wind turbines, some of which will be 500ft in height.
A recent meeting organised by protest group Finn Valley Wind Action (FVWA) group, was held in the Parochial Hall in the tiny village of Crossroads and attracted more than 300 locals.
The test mast was erected in recent weeks to take wind readings in the area.
Now gardai believe the mast was attacked in recent days but only discovered yesterday.
The group who are protesting over the planned wind farm have condemned the attack.
A spokesperson for the FVWA protest group condemned the attack on the test mast.
“It’s down so other than that we don’t know what happened. We can’t understand why anyone would want to do that.
“It’s bad form because it wasn’t bothering anybody. We think it was better up – as a size guide being half the height of the proposed wind turbines.
“The FVWA condemns this act of vandalism any anyone with any information should contact Ballybofey Gardai,” said the spokesperson.
Gardai from Ballybofey were on site this morning and have launched a full investigation into the attack.
Irish Mirror
The FVWA “Goldilocks” position is ‘just right’; as an effort to distance themselves from the guerrilla tactics employed – and understandable from that political perspective.
However, the saboteurs’ actions are – given what they’re up against – perfectly understandable too; and not without precedent:
More MET Mast Mayhem: Community Defenders Drop Mast in Fight to Save Homes near Bangor, Maine
MET Mast Mayhem: Scots Use Guerrilla Tactics to Stop These Things
Wave of Destruction: Ontario Wind Farm Neighbours in Open Revolt
While the Gardai set off to investigate a crime scene, it’s clearly arguable – on moral, if not legal, grounds – that what is laid out in the story (and the posts linked above) is conduct aimed at preventing a series of greater – and wholly unnecessary – crimes.
Faced with the threat of sonic torture, smashed property values and the risk of death and injury from self-igniting turbines and “uncontrolled flying blades” – from the developer’s potential victims’ viewpoint – it could equally earn the tag of community “self-defence”. And self-defence is a complete defence, to all bar murder.
As the defenders in Donegal (and elsewhere) were ostensibly acting to protect their homes, families and businesses from an acoustic trespasser (see our post here) the “castle doctrine” clearly comes into play.
That doctrine is one of some force and antiquity – it’s been on the books for nearly 400 years, when lawyer and politician Sir Edward Coke (pronounced Cook), scratched it out in The Institutes of the Laws of England, 1628:
“For a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium [and each man’s home is his safest refuge].”
And so, if a few pro-family and pro-community activists have to drop a MET mast here and there to make their point in the active defence of their homes, and the health and safety of their families, it’s action that’s probably excusable and clearly understandable. And, all the more so, when those that are paid handsomely to protect the health and welfare of their citizens, do little more than spin propaganda on behalf of the wind industry – a form of malign indifference, at best.
Many a good revolution kicked off with a handful of hotheads out to make their point, with a few misdemeanors against the property of the powerful; acts quickly deemed ‘threats to civil order’, if not ‘crimes against the state’, by those under threat – with the actors just as quickly rounded up in chains.
In the main, efforts aimed at suppressing the outrage that led the offenders to act, and punishing them for their actions, only added to their fury, and encouraged other, less passionate souls, to eagerly join the fray; and, thereafter, the rest – as they say – “is history”.
Governments World-wide Have Knowingly Tortured Residents Near Wind Turbines.
Falmouth wind turbines vs Guantanamo torture techniques
How Much Sleep Deprivation Is Acceptable -None
Falmouth residents have lost sleep and property rights
The United States government used sleep deprivation in the U.S.-operated military Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Sleep deprivation is a very effective torture technique primarily used to break down the will of the detainee. Sleep deprivation causes impaired memory and cognitive functioning, decreased short term memory, speech impairment, hallucinations, psychosis, lowered immunity, headaches, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stress, anxiety and depression.
Sleep deprivation is the major complaint from the wind turbine victims in Falmouth, Massachusetts and other communities with megawatt turbines placed in residential communities. Falmouth residents were made to file written certified noise complaints to the town in an effort to try and make the residents jump through hoops like a circus act in an effort to make them give up and go away.
Recently a letter dated August 3, 2010 from the manufacturer of the turbines Vestas wind company had warned the town prior to the installations of the megawatt turbines about noise. The turbines generate 110 decibels of noise or what is equal to a hard rock band playing outdoors. Falmouth officials had always known about the excessive noise yet acted like the wind turbine victims had wild imaginations and it was NIMBYism . Not In My Back Yard
Today we know how reckless Falmouth planning authorities allowed the town to site industrial-scale wind turbines in residential neighborhoods., The state and local health authorities ignored consistent reports of sleep deprivation from neighboring residents. Falmouth and other Massachusetts towns are violating fundamental human rights. Again according to the August 3, 2010 letter from Vestas town officials had known about the excessive noise long before any wind turbines were installed
Sleep deprivation at Guantanamo was authorized under the 2002 Department of Defense Memo in the form of 20 hour interrogations. The U.S. military authorized sleep deprivation for its prisoners for up to seventy two hours. Falmouth residents were subjected to two distinct types of noise 24 hours a day -7 days a week . The noise is regulatory and human annoyance or what today is called infra sound.
In 2014 no commercial megawatt turbines were built in Massachusetts despite a wind turbine renewable energy goal of 2000 megawatts of commercial wind by the year 2020.
Government agencies have admitted siting mistakes while the news media has been placed in an embarrassing position after reporting press releases from former Governor Patrick as if it was real news.
The question now whether those who ordered the wind turbines into residential neighborhoods will be held accountable.
Facts Like These, Put Climate Alarmists to Shame….
A Winter to Remember
In the Northeast, February 2015 was a month like no other in our lifetime; January through March Harshest since 1717?
No one who has lived in many parts of the Northeast into Canada experienced a six-week and calendar month as extreme for the combination of cold and snow as we have this late winter. From this writer’s viewpoint in southern New Hampshire, February 2015 was the coldest month ever recorded in nearby Nashua with an average temperature of 12.2 degrees Fahrenheit. It beat out January 1888, which had averaged 12.9F. A record 18 days had low temperatures at or below zero (as cold as 14F below). 25 days remained freezing or below, also a record.
Not far away in Boston, where temperature records began in 1872, February 2015 was exceeded only by February 1934, which brought Boston its all-time record of -18F. Temperatures never rose out of the 30s this year in February in Boston, though it topped 40 four times in 1934.
The cold in February 2015 was not confined to the Boston-Nashua area. It was the coldest month ever in Worcester, Hartford and Portland. It was the coldest February in Chicago and Cleveland, third coldest in New York City and fifth coldest ever in Detroit and Baltimore, both with records back into the early 1870s.
Boston set a record for monthly snow with 64.6 inches in February and 100.4 inches in the 39 days following January 24th. The 110.6 inches for the entire season exceeded the 107.6 inch record from 1995/96. The snow that year was spread out over six months with thaws, not concentrated so much in less than six weeks. The snow blitz and the intense cold is why the snow piles were so high this year. College students were shown on local television jumping out second story windows onto huge snowbanks in their bathing suit.
ONLY 1717 BEAT THIS?
Looking back through accounts of big snows in New England by the late weather historian David Ludlum, it appears for the eastern areas this winter’s snow blitz may have delivered the most snow since perhaps 1717.
That year, snows had reached five feet in December with drifts of 25 feet in January before one great last assault in late February into early March of 40 to 60 more inches. The snow was so deep that people could only leave their houses from the second floor, implying actual snow depths of as much as eight feet or more. The New England Historical Society’s account indicated New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut were hardest hit, a lot like 2015 in what was known as the year of the great snows.
“Entire houses were covered over, identifiable only by a thin curl of smoke coming out of a hole in the snow. In Hampton, N.H., search parties went out after the storms hunting for elderly people at risk of freezing to death… Sometimes they were found burning their furniture because they couldn’t get to the woodshed. People maintained tunnels and paths through the snow from house to house.”
You may hear or read that increased snow is consistent with global warming because warmer air holds more moisture. In actual fact, 93% of the years with more than 60 inches of snow in Boston were colder than normal.
During the 40 days of snowy weather this winter, we averaged over 11F below normal, and moisture content of the air in the snow region was well below the long-term average. Cooling, not warming, increases snowfall. Indeed, winter temperatures have cooled over the last two decades in the Northeast and the 10-year running mean of Boston area snowfall has skyrocketed to the highest level since snow records were first kept.
The cold continued in March here in New England. The month averaged 5.1F below in Boston and 5.8F below normal in Nashua. There were only four 50F days in March after no 40F days in February in Boston. This compares with seventeen 50F days, eleven 60F days, seven 70F days and one 80F day in March 2012.
JANUARY TO MARCH RECORD COLD
January to March average temperatures were the coldest in the entire record in Worcester, Providence, Hartford and Nashua and third coldest in Boston behind only 1885 and 1895.
In fact, it was the coldest January through March on average in the entire Northeast (the 10 Northeast states and the District of Colombia) in NOAA’s climate record, which started in 1895.
Note how from January to March temperatures in the Northeast have declined for 20 years at a rate of 1.5F/decade.
This season, most areas of central New England had the snowiest mid to late winter and many spots the snowiest winter season on record. In 2013/14, Chicago had its coldest December to March back to 1872 and third snowiest while Detroit had its snowiest back to 1880.
The Great Lakes ice in the two years was the greatest in the record back to 1973, when measurements began edging out the late 1970s, when the world was worrying about a new ice age.
The Adirondacks into southeast Canada in these years usually gets the worst of the Arctic cold. Saranac Lake in February 2015 was 13.6F below normal with 23 sub-zero days, no day reaching freezing and four record lows. March had 15 days zero or below with 10 record lows. Last March (2014), Saranac Lake was 11.4F below normal with 10 sub-zero days and seven record lows.
All of eastern Canada set all-time records for cold, and in Maritime Canada, in many locations, this winter produced more snow than any winter season on record. Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island had a record, incredible 18.1 feet of snow. These were two amazing late winters.
WHAT IS BEHIND THE EXTREMES?
I learned early in my career from the some of the giants in the field like Jerome Namias how ocean temperature pools that develop in conjunction with strong El Niño and La Niña events meander with the ocean currents determine how the jet stream sets up and how strong and persistent it is. This determines how and where extreme winters and summers are for both temperature and precipitation.
A super La Niña in 2010/11 (second strongest in 120 years by some measures) set up warm water in the central Pacific and cold water near the West Coast of North America, which lead to that record warm and droughty 2011/12 central and eastern winter, spring and summer. That warm water came east first to off of Alaska last year leading to the historic winter near the western Lakes and north-central areas (highlighted January’s so-called ‘polar vortex’). Then in 2014 the warm water was carried by the currents southeast to the entire West Coast, forcing the cold to take aim more on the eastern Lakes and Northeast that was at its worst in February.
Similar changes occurred in the Atlantic. Starting in 2007, a warm North Atlantic helped build high pressure in the polar regions and drive Siberian air west to Europe where, in December 2010, the UK had its second coldest December since 1659 in the Little Ice Age.
Though scientists had warned snow was a thing of the past, the UK and much of northern Europe had all–time record snows and cold in five of six years. The North Atlantic turned cold last year and more so this year and Europe turned milder. But a cold North Atlantic means colder and snowier winters in eastern Canada, the Great Lakes and Northeast. The Atlantic thus helped exaggerate the Pacific-driven central U.S. and Northeast cold the last two winters.
At Weatherbell.com, where we use the oceans and sun in our statistical models for long-range prediction, we successfully predicted many months in advance these historic winters. Unless we see major changes in the eastern Pacific, we expect we may make this a threepeat about the time the administration signs a treaty in Paris with other nations at the UN to disassemble our current energy policies to supposedly save the planet from the ravages of warming, which we will show you in the next story is not happening globally and hasn’t for over 18 years.
Joe D’Aleo is a certified Consulting Meteorologist, Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), former chair AMS Committee on Weather Analysis and Forecasting, co-founder and first Director of Meteorology at The Weather Channel and a former college professor of Meteorology and Climatology.
"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising... 