We have a crisis folks, all around London, and it’s getting almost no attention by the politicians, and, quite frankly, by the media. (Andy Oudman, CJBK London)
As the skeptics all too painfully know, most of the mainstream media, including public broadcasters like the CBC and TVO, seem to be acting as enthusiastic trumpet blowers for every dire prognostication of doom and gloom made by the UN’s dishonest, disgraceful IPCC on the subject of man-made global warming/climate change.
Climate change as a planetary emergency has been the rationale for the deployment of useless and highly destructive “green” energy alternatives, such as industrial wind turbines. The media have been playing a crucial role in maintaining the fiction, spreading misinformation, giving only one side of the story, essentially propagandizing, and failing to dig deep with journalistic integrity to uncover the big picture.
Rarely will you see or hear learned, educated skeptics, of which there are plenty, invited as guests on any radio or television programs to present their views on the subject of man-made global warming, climate change, industrial wind turbines, or Ontario’s green energy fiasco. A few of the media are the exception proving the rule: the National Post, Financial Post, and Goldhawk Fights Back come to mind as having addressed some of these topics in a non-biased manner.
Today was a great day. A London, Ontario radio station, CJBK, on its program London Today With Any Oudman, spent most of the morning interviewing people about the ominous social unrest in Southern Ontario caused by the massive proliferation of industrial wind turbine projects. These factories cover huge swaths of prime farmland. The invasion of the towering machines has been aided and abetted by the democracy-robbingGreen Energy Act and the heartless see-hear-speak-no-evil attitude of the Ontario Liberal government. The people who live there and who have had to suffer the devastating social and personal consequences, with more to come, have struggled to make their voices heard.
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE’S HYPOCRISY ON FULL DISPLAY AGAIN. THIS TIME WITH BISPHENOL A.
We all know that one of the components of wind turbine blades is Bisphenol A, which breaks down over time and exposure to the weather, feeding into the air. The internal Vestas report which states that over 1 ton of hazardous waste is created with the production of every single turbine blade is well documented and has been discussed many times on this site. Bisphenol A is one of those wastes that Vesta was referring to.
“In a report released by the company, it was revealed that over the last four quarters waste from the Windsor facility increased by 44.7 percent and produced 36 percent more toxic waste than in the previous quarter.
Of that waste, almost ¾ of it was sent to landfills in the state. The waste consists of fiberglass epoxy resin, plastic, fiberglass dust and other items.
A Vestas employee, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the Gazette that he needs to shower every day prior to coming home to avoid harm to his children from the resins that get on his skin. The company has been cited by OSHA for violations related to chemicals used at the facility that have caused injury to employees.
The Greeley Report said an inside report indicates the plant produces approximately 40 blades per week with each blade generating 1 ton of waste.
Andrew Longeteig, A spokesman for Vestas, explained the reason for the increase in the amount of hazardous waste produced in 2011 was because of increases in production related to a record-breaking year for Vestas wind turbine sales in the United States and Canada in 2010.
He went on to say that none of the hazardous waste was considered toxic.”
Well, if hazardous waste isn’t toxic, exactly what is it?
Anyway, back to Environmental Defence….They’ve published an article on their site stating that human exposure levels to Bisphenol A deemed ‘safe’ may be over-estimated.
“Their research found that human testes were more than 100 times more susceptible to some compounds, including BPA, compared to those in rodents. BPA is linked to prostate cancer, obesity, heart disease and possibly breast cancer. This means that current standards may be based on an underestimate of the risk posed to humans by BPA exposure.
Considering that according to the Canadian Health Measures survey 95 per cent of Canadians aged 3-79 have BPA in their bodies, this is a huge cause for concern. BPA was banned from baby bottles because it was declared toxic by Health Canada. However, it is still far too widespread in other consumer products like receipts, cans, and plastic food containers, and it may be worse for our health than previously thought.
More needs to be done to protect Canadians from toxic chemicals like BPA.”
Yet, when I contacted Environmental Defence a couple of years ago to try to get them to take action against the negative environmental effects of wind turbines on Ontario residents, they advised me that they don’t get involved in such matters. Really? So whose environment are they defending? And what’s their criteria? It seems they’re up in arms about Bisphenol A polluting the air, but if that material comes from wind turbines, then it’s okay?
At the same time, I tried to see if Environmental Defence would support an initiative to get industrial wind turbines built in and around the GTA, including along the shoreline. Since they’re avid supporters of wind energy, I thought I could get them on board with getting them built near where they live. Again, I was advised that that’s not an area that they get involved with.
Ahhh….green hypocrisy. Always so easy to expose. — DQ
Crooked old Joe Romm defends Showtime’s Series On Climate Change
Note: Romm served as the series’ Chief Science Advisor. He doesn’t mention that in his article.
Romm also quotes “the country’s top climatologist” Michael Mann to support his temper tantrum. Mann is also a Science Advisor for the series. Romm didn’t mention that, either.
Romm repeatedly uses the word “they” rather than “we” to describe the film project.
The closest he comes to transparency is near the very end of the article when he writes, “I was not one of the producers of the show, but I have worked with them long enough to know that that sentence sums up their guiding philosophy.” True, he was not a “producer,” but his statement gives the impression he merely “worked with them” in some sort of minor, outside way. He never mentions just how central his role was as Chief Science Advisor.
Ironic that Romm’s article title accuses people who criticize the series as “dishonest,” yet he fails to be forthcoming about his role in the series and his lack of objectivity writing the article.
As soon as I saw the much discredited Michael Mann described as “one of the country’s top climatologists”, I stopped reading. Sometimes total detachment from the facts makes itself obvious — JR
The good news is the video of episode one of Showtime’s climate series, “Years Of Living Dangerously,” has been getting great reviews in the New York Times and elsewhere.
The bad news is the Times has published an error-riddled hit-job op-ed on the series that is filled with myths at odds with both the climate science and social science literature. For instance, the piece repeats the tired and baseless claim that Al Gore’s 2006 movie “An Inconvenient Truth” polarized the climate debate, when the peer-reviewed data says the polarization really jumped in 2009 (see chart above from “The Sociological Quarterly”).
As I said, “Years Of Living Dangerously” — the landmark 9-part Showtime docu-series produced by the legendary James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jerry Weintraub — has been getting great reviews. Andy Revkin, often a critic of climate messaging, wrote in the NY Times Monday:
“… a compellingly fresh approach to showing the importance of climate hazards to human affairs, the role of greenhouse gases in raising the odds of some costly and dangerous outcomes and — perhaps most important — revealing the roots of the polarizing divisions in society over this issue….”
George Marshall, “an expert on climate and communication,” — who is also often a critic of climate messaging — wrote me:
“What impressed me about the two episodes I watched was the respect that it showed to conservatives, evangelicals and ordinary working people…. it is still the best documentary I have seen.”
The New York Times op-ed is from the founders of the Breakthrough Institute — the same group where political scientist Roger Pielke, Jr. is a Senior Fellow. It pushes the same argument that Pielke made in his fivethirtyeight piece — which was so widely criticized and debunked that Nate Silver himself admitted its myriad flaws and ran a debunking piece by an MIT climate scientist.
Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, two widely debunked eco-critics who run The Breakthrough Institute (TBI), begin by asserting “IF you were looking for ways to increase public skepticism about global warming, you could hardly do better than the forthcoming nine-part series on climate change and natural disasters, starting this Sunday on Showtime.” But they never cite anything other than the trailer in making their case, dismissing the entire enterprise on the basis of 2 minutes of clips!
They base their entire argument on a misrepresentation of climate science and a misrepresentation of social science. They assert:
“But claims linking the latest blizzard, drought or hurricane to global warming simply can’t be supported by the science.”
I asked one of the country’s top climatologist, Michael Mann, to respond to that….
“The heavens reek, the waters below are foul … we are in a crisis of survival.” That’s how Walter Cronkite and CBS hyped the first Earth Day, back in 1970. Somehow we’ve survived since then, and most of life got better, although I never hear that from the worrywarts. Of course, some things got better because of government: We passed environmental rules that got most of the filth out of the air and sewage out of lakes and rivers. Great — but now we’re told that we’re in big trouble because greenhouse gases cause global warming. I mean, climate change.
Time and again, environmentalists oppose the energy production most likely to make the world cleaner and safer. Instead, they persuade politicians to spend billions of your dollars on symbolism like “renewable” energy.
“Crop yields are down, deaths from heat are up,” says the Los Angeles Times. The “Worst Is Yet to Come,” warns The New York Times. This hype is not new. Alarmists always fool the gullible media. They once fooled me. A few years back, we were going to be killed by global cooling, overpopulation, pesticide residues, West Nile virus, bird flu, Y2K, cellphone radiation, mad cow disease, etc. Now it’s global warming. Reporters don’t make these scares up. The recent hype about global warming comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Most of its members are serious scientists. But reporters don’t realize that those scientists, like bird flu specialists, have every incentive to hype the risk. If their computer models (which so far have been wrong) predict disaster, they get attention and money. If they say, “I’m not sure,” they get nothing. Also, the IPCC is not just a panel of scientists. It’s an intergovernmental panel. It’s a bureaucracy controlled by the sort of people who once ran for student council and are “exhilarated by the prospect of putting the thumb of the federal government on the scale.” Actually, that wasn’t a quote from a global warming alarmist. It’s from anti-marijuana alarmist and former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joe Califano. But it’s the same crisis mindset. Scientists who disagree, who are reluctant to put their thumbs on the government scale, don’t feel welcome in the IPCC. It’s possible climate change may become a problem. But even if industrialization brings warming, we’ve got more important problems. On my TV show this week, statistician Bjorn Lomborg points out that “air pollution kills 4.3 million people each year … We need to get a sense of priority.” That deadly air pollution happens because, to keep warm, poor people burn dung in their huts. Yet, time and again, environmentalists oppose the energy production most likely to make the world cleaner and safer. Instead, they persuade politicians to spend billions of your dollars on symbolism like “renewable” energy. “The amazing number that most people haven’t heard is, if you take all the solar panels and all the wind turbines in the world,” says Lomborg, “they have (eliminated) less CO2 than what U.S. fracking (cracking rocks below ground to extract oil and natural gas) managed to do.” That progress occurred despite opposition from environmentalists — and even bans in places like my stupid state, New York, where activists worry fracking will cause earthquakes or poison the water. Do environmentalists even care about measuring costs instead of just assuming benefits? We spend $7 billion to subsidize electric cars. Even if America reached the president’s absurd 2015 goal of “a million electric cars on the road” (we won’t get close), how much would it delay warming of the Earth? “One hour,” says Lomborg. “This is a symbolic act.” Symbolic. Environmentalism is now more religion than science. It even comes with built-in doomsday stories to warn people about what will happen if they disobey — a bit like the movie “Noah” that’s in theaters now. While environmentalists lament that our time is running out, environmental indicators get better, technological improvements reduce carbon dioxide, water gets cleaner for millions, and human life expectancy goes up. This Earth Day, instead of attacking those who sell fossil fuels, I will applaud them for overcoming constant environmental hysteria — while providing affordable energy that will allow us to fight poverty, which is the real threat to the people of the world. John Stossel joined Fox Business Network (FBN) in 2009. He is the host of “Stossel” (Thursdays at 9 PM/ET), a weekly program highlighting current consumer issues with a libertarian viewpoint. Stossel also appears regularly on Fox News Channel (FNC) providing signature analysis.
Energy Australia pulls the plug on Robertstown wind farm project
Great news for the tight little South Australian farming communities of Robertstown and Point Pass as Energy Australia pulls the plug on its plans to slam 40 giant fans into the heart of highly productive farming and grazing territory in SA’s Mid-North.
Here’s the story – as told by STT Champion, Mary Morris:
Colin Schaefer and Mary Morris celebrate a victory for common sense.
Colin Schaefer (Brady Creek) and Mary Morris (Buchanan) give the thumbs up to Australian Radio Towers workers as they dismantle an Energy Australia wind monitoring mast near Point Pass in the Mid North of South Australia.
Going, going …
This wind monitoring mast for the proposed Robertstown wind farm was taken down today by contractors under direction from Energy Australia. It was erected in 2009, a mere 500 m from a neighbouring farm house and close to the township of Point Pass and dozens of hobby farms and lifestyle blocks.
A second tower will be removed tomorrow near Inspiration Point, west of the township of Robertstown.
Initially local landowners were supportive when invited to take part in the project in 2005. However, local opposition to the proposed wind farm took off in late 2010, when the nearby Waterloo wind farm started operating and landowners who had signed up for Robertstown wind farm realised they could hear and feel noise and vibration from 8 km away.
Nine of the fourteen contracted Robertstown landowners believe they were misled about the impacts of the wind farm – especially noise – and no longer want to be part of the project. Colin Schaefer (pictured) was one of the contracted landowners who changed his mind when Waterloo wind farm started operating. He had worked on the construction at Waterloo and thought it was great idea – until the turbines started turning and his sleep was frequently disturbed.
A petition with 345 local signatures against any more turbines being built in the area south of Burra was presented to Energy Australia at a public information session at Marrabel in May 2012.
At the site today, Mary Morris thanked Clint Purkiss (Energy Australia) for removing the mast and asked him for his reasons for doing so. He replied “it’s fair to say, we listened”.
Mary Morris
14 April 2014
…. gone!
And here’s a Channel 7 News report on the victory:
****
****
Truth be told, a whole host of factors lined up to kill off the project.
In the end, Energy Australia didn’t have the land-holder agreements it needed to make the project viable.
One local farmer and grazier, Jim Dunstan (seen in the Channel 7 report) bought out a substantial property where the former owner had signed a land-holder agreement and was set to host a large number of turbines for Energy Australia. Jim managed to get rid of the contract, which meant the developer immediately lost the ability to erect a substantial part of its planned project. Nice work Jim!
Jim Dunstan is an avid environmentalist with a burning passion for Australia’s native birds and animals. He’s campaigned for years to keep a raft of planned giant fans from being built on the hills behind Robertstown – that would run North to Stony Gap and Burra – in order to prevent the destruction of the last-remaining habitat of the critically endangered Pygmy Blue-Tongue lizard (see below) – as well as to avoid having his many feathered friends sliced and diced by giant fans. So this retreat must be a doubly sweet victory for him.
No longer threatened by bulldozers, another local breathes a sigh of relief.
And, of course, the economics have caught up with wind power. Built and maintained on the mandatory Renewable Energy Target and the steady stream of Renewable Energy Certificates – that have been driving up retail power prices and upon which the whole fiasco critically depends – the wind industry is facing the very real prospect of the subsidy trough drying up quite a bit sooner than it budgeted on.
The RET Review will almost certainly spell the end of the current 41,000 GW/h annual target. On current forecasts showing declining demand, that figure will end up with renewables notionally supplying more than 27% of total demand. Demand for sparks has fallen in the last few years – and will continue to fall – as industry, minerals processors and manufacturers – belted by escalating power costs – shut their doors and bolt for cheaper places to operate overseas. The target was meant to be 20% by 2020 – so there can no justification for the current figure.
The Panel in charge of the review are all keen advocates of real (ie stand its own 2 feet) business and the Coalition have made plain their avid dislike of corporate welfare – which is precisely what the RET/REC scheme reduces to – as Angus “the Enforcer” Taylor put it: “corporate welfare on steroids”.
Energy Australia would not have secured a Power Purchase Agreement for its Robertstown project – in the absence of which it will never secure the finance to build.
In the end, the decision to drop the project was probably more about avoiding throwing good money after bad – than about “listening” to locals. But, whatever killed it, the locals are over the Moon.
Most people have never heard of Agenda 21. If they have heard of it, they likely believe it to be a vague United Nations program that will never see the light of day, or they believe it is imagined by conspiracy theorists. Yet, the principles contained in Agenda 21 are at the heart of many of our federal programs since the late 1990s. They reach every corner of the United States and impact millions of Americans who don’t even realize the document exists.
Although Agenda 21 was decades in the making, it was showcased to the world at the 1992 UN “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro. It was there that President George H. Bush, along with leaders from 177 other nations, signed onto this “non-binding” UN action plan that was purportedly designed to assist governments at the local, national and international level implement the principles of so-called “sustainable development.” The “21” in the name refers to the 21st Century.
Agenda 21 made its way into the U.S. the following year when President Clinton quietly established the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD). The PCSD codified Agenda 21 into U.S. policy through a program called Sustainable America. Today, nearly all federal programs dealing with land management, education, environment and much more are linked to Agenda 21 through Sustainable America.
Google has over 300 million references to Agenda 21, yet it’s hard for most people to get the truth about Agenda 21 because of the truckloads of smoke and misinformation generated by government bureaucrats and the progressive media. This UN program is indeed real and it is an affront to our personal liberties.\Agenda 21 is supposedly designed to make the world “sustainable” by limiting human activities that environmental extremists believe are harming the planet. That may sound fine to many people – until they understand what it means in practice. In order to protect the environment, Agenda 21 instructs governments to micromanage virtually all human activity – which the governments either severely restrict, or regulate to the point that such activity can be minimalized.
A good case in point took place in California recently, which as has been widely reported, experienced a major three-year drought. In mid-March 2014, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld federal guidelines that guaranteed minimal flow of the Sacramento River to benefit “endangered” Delta Smelt – totally neglecting the needs of local farmers. Most farmers are getting no water even though most of them have long-term contracts guaranteeing it to them.
Ironically, the Delta Smelt have survived many severe droughts in the past when farmers got virtually all the available water from the Sacramento River. Yet today the smelt get the water and the farmers don’t – even though many of the farmers will not survive the cutbacks. Seeing the needs of nature as being in conflict with the needs of people is a principle that is at the very heart of Agenda 21.
This is no small matter. Thousands of workers are being put out of work in California, and up to 700,000 acres of prime farmland will be removed from production. Since one-third of America’s fruit and vegetables originate in California’s Central Valley, this means that food prices could jump as much as 3.5%. While that may not seem like much to the more affluent in our society, it could be devastating to seniors and the poor who may no longer be able buy essential fruits and vegetables.
Simply stated, the only way Agenda 21 can work is to deny private citizens their private property rights. This should surprise no one since the UN has maintained that “public control of land use is…indispensable” since the 1976 Habitat I Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. Yet, recent research sponsored by the World Bank has shown that legally protected private property rights drastically reduce corruption, while establishing the foundation for wealth creation. This in turn also helps the environment as weathier nations spend more on environmental protection than poorer ones. The research stressed that “since these people do not have access to a comprehensive legal property system, they cannot leverage their assets to produce additional wealth.” The bottom line? “Nearly five billion people are legally and economically disenfranchised by their own gov ernments,” reports the Bank.
The vast bulk of this is occurring, of course, in the developing world – but not all. The same thing is happening in the U.S. as Agenda 21 principles are adopted into policy. It has already had devastating effects. According to the Fraser Institute and CATO’s Economic Freedom of the World, the legal-system and-private-property-rights ranking for the U.S. plummeted from number one in 1980 to38th in 2011; which not unsurprisingly has occurred since Agenda 21 principles began to be implemented in the 1990s. The U.S. combined economic ranking in the world from 1980 to 2000 was second or third place behind Hong Kong and Singapore. It plummeted to 19th between 2000 and 2011—mostly due to federal spending, debt, skyrocketing regulations (especially from EPA) and, most importantly, loss of a stable legal system and property rights.
Is it any wonder the current “economic recovery” is so anemic. Certainly not all of the economic woes we have experienced since President Obama’s election can be blamed on Agenda 21 policy. But Agenda 21 is no doubt a big factor in ravaging the U.S. economy. Citizens can begin to restore America’s health by supporting rational candidates at every level of government that are committed to ridding this nation of Agenda 21’s “sustainable development” policy plague.
Michael Coffman, PhD, is CEO of Sovereignty International and has worked to raise awareness about the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, one of the key goals of Agenda 21
You are here:Home»How the IPCC manipulates science to prove Global Warming
HOW THE IPCC MANIPULATES SCIENCE TO PROVE GLOBAL WARMING
Kevin Mooney — Capital Research Center– April 15, 2014
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
How a U.N. group manipulates science to “prove” Global Warming (pdf here)
By Kevin Mooney
Summary: The most prestigious international group claiming we face a global warming crisis has a history of twisting the scientific evidence involved in the controversy. It is so duplicitous that it has even misrepresented the findings of its own reports.
Why do so many people believe in Global Warming theory? Global Warming theory isn’t just that the earth is getting warmer, any more than the theory of evolution is that things evolve or the theory of relativity is that everything is relative. There’s a lot more to it than just warming.
Global Warming theory (sometimes fudged as “climate change” theory), in the words of Green Watch editor Steven J. Allen, is “that the earth as a whole is getting catastrophically warmer due not to natural causes but to ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions—especially carbon dioxide (CO2)—from human industry, transportation, and energy generation, and that the looming catastrophe of Global Warming can be averted with policies that are compatible with peace, prosperity, freedom, and democracy.”
That’s a lot of believe, and it’s inconsistent with what we know about both physical science and human behavior. Continue reading here…..
Thousands have protested in Dublin city centre against the Government’s wind energy and pylons policy.
Organisers claim up to 4,000 people attended the march, which began at the Garden of Remembrance and ended outside Leinster House.
The protest was organised by Wind Aware Ireland, a new group combined of organisations against pylons and overhead power cables and those opposed to wind farms.
With increasing alarm over climate change in recent weeks, Ireland’s energy policy is under scrutiny like never before.
The matter is of acute political significance in many parts of the country as the Local Elections approach.
News that a wind energy export deal with Britain was off the table has done little to reduce concerns.
Environmental campaigners are calling for the Government to encourage communities to take ownership of future wind energy plans.
Meanwhile, the Government has set a tentative date of later this year for publishing its Climate Bill.
Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin earlier said that Ireland faces particular challenges with regard to reducing its carbon footprint.
But, he said, Ireland needs a robust response to the issue of climate change.
Mr Howlin said Ireland’s agriculture sector would pose a challenge as it was not as intensive as others.
He said he believed that Ireland would hit its target of 40% renewable energy by 2020.
While there might be resistance in some sectors to this, he said, if people looked at the recent reports on climate change they would reflect that we need to do things differently.
The minister said that the Government is obliged to submit budget costings to the EU in April, but this was predicated on last year’s projections.
He said there were recent signs of new economic activity in the first quarter with more jobs, but the Government was currently working on last year’s projection of 2% growth.
He said there might be more growth than expected but the Government needed to be prudent.
By Jennifer Vandermeer, Norwich Gazette/IngersollTimes
NORWICH TOWNSHIP – The East Oxford Community Alliance wants to know how the Ministry of the Environment has been handling the Prowind Gunn’s Hill Wind Farm file. The alliance (EOCA) has filed Freedom of Information requests and asked the Ontario Ombudsman to look into it because of the number of changes that have been made to the project without due process for the public to participate.
Joan Morris, spokesperson for EOCA, said one issue is the “substantive changes” to the project since it was first filed with the MOE and considered complete and accurate. “A change to the project area was announced to the public only four days before the application was deemed complete by the Ministry on February 7, 2014,” Morris also said in a press release. “Apart from a cover page from the Ministry of Environment, none of the documents for public review and comment were modified to account for the changes.”Read article
WYNNE’S BROTHER-IN-LAW THE NEW CEO OF EHEALTH, BUT HE ALSO HAS DEEP TIES TO THE WIND INDUSTRY
How deep does the corruption of this Liberal government go? How great is their arrogance for making sure that their family and buddies make a fortune off the backs of Ontario taxpayers?
Turns out, not only has Kathleen Wynne’s brother-in-law been appointed the new CEO of EHealth, but he’s also on the Board of Directors for two renewable energy companies. The chutzpah and corruption of this gang of thieves just knows absolutely no bounds. He’s also been a lawyer for the past 30+ years.
It’s no wonder the fight against wind turbines seems so useless when the decks are stacked so high against the rural victims of these useless monster machines.
A Google search of his name — F. David Rounthwaite — reveals that his is on the B. o. D. for the following companies.
From 1997 to 2010 he was a trustee of Northland Power Income Fund and was lead independent trustee in several transactions of that fund including its acquisition of Northland Power Inc. in 2009. Northland Power has several wind facilities in Ontario, Quebec and B.C.
The more layers you peel back on this disgusting obscenely corrupt government the more it reeks. They need to be removed from office now.
Thanks to a fellow reader at the Toronto Sun for digging up this information.
Tuesday 15 April 2014 23.03
