The Hidden Agenda, Behind The Global Warming/Climate change scam!

May 8, 2015 / 1957chev / 4 Comments

Australia PM adviser says climate change is ‘UN-led ruse to establish new world order’

Tony Abbott’s business adviser says global warming a fallacy supported by United Nations to ‘create a new authoritarian world order under its control’

Maurice Newman, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council Photo: AP

By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney

2:39PM BST 08 May 2015

Climate change is a hoax developed as part of a secret plot by the United Nations to undermine democracies and takeover the world, a top adviser toTony Abbott, Australia’s prime minister, has warned.

Maurice Newman, the chief business adviser to the prime minister, said the science showing links between human activity and the warming climate was wrong but was being used as a “hook” by the UN to expand its global control.

“This is not about facts or logic. It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN,” he wrote in The Australian.

“It is opposed to capitalism and freedom and has made environmental catastrophism a household topic to achieve its objective.” Born in Ilford, England, and educated in Australia, Mr Newman, a staunch conservative and former chairman of the Australian Stock Exchange, has long been an outspoken critic of climate change science.

He was appointed chairman of the government’s business advisory council by Mr Abbott, who himself is something of a climate change sceptic and once famously described climate change as “absolute cr**” – a comment he later recanted.

In his comment piece – described by critics as “whacko” – Mr Newman said the world has been “subjected to extravagance from climate catastrophists for close to 50 years”.

“It’s a well-kept secret, but 95 per cent of the climate models we are told prove the link between human CO2 emissions and catastrophic global warming have been found, after nearly two decades of temperature stasis, to be in error,” he wrote.

“The real agenda is concentrated political authority. Global warming is the hook. Eco-catastrophists [ …] have captured the UN and are extremely well funded. They have a hugely powerful ally in the White House.”

Environmental groups and scientists described Mr Newman as a ‘crazed’ conspiracy theorist and some called on him to resign.

“His anti-science, fringe views are indistinguishable from those made by angry trolls on conspiracy theory forums,” said the Climate Change Council.

Professor Will Steffen, a climate change scientist, told The Australian Financial Review: “These are bizarre comments that would be funny if they did not come from [Mr Abbott’s] chief business adviser.” Mr Abbott’s office did not respond but his environment minister said he did not agree with Mr Newman’s comments.

The article was written by Mr Newman to coincide with a visit by Christiana Figueres, the UN climate change negotiation, who has urged Australia to reduce its reliance on coal. Australia is one of the world’s biggest emitters of carbon emissions per capita.

Since his election in 2013, Mr Abbott has abolished Labor’s carbon tax, scaled back renewable energy targets and appointed sceptics to several significant government positions.

Father of Green Communities Act, Convicted Under the RICO Act! Who’s Next?

April 28, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Falmouth Wind Turbines – RICO Act

Prior to Wind Turbine Installations Falmouth had the Octave Band Data / Sound performance for the V82 turbine

Falmouth Wind Turbines & RICO Act

Did the Town of Falmouth violate the RICO Act ? They all knew the turbines would break state noise laws !

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)
Noise Control Regulation 310 CMR 7.10

310 CMR 7.10 Noise
(1) No person owning, leasing, or controlling a source of sound shall willfully, negligently, or through failure to provide necessary equipment, service, or maintenance or to take necessary precautions cause, suffer, allow, or permit unnecessary emissions from said source of sound that may cause noise.

Prior to the installations of the Falmouth wind turbines it appears Vestas Wind Company forewarned the Town of Falmouth, Town of Falmouth contract engineers and construction contractors. The manufacturer ( Vestas )also needs confirmation that the Town of

Falmouth understands they are fully responsible for the site selection of the turbine and bear all responsibilities to address any mitigation needs of the neighbors.

The turbines operated full time until May of 2012. State officials shut down the wind turbine in Falmouth after measurements showed the machine generating more than 10 decibels above ordinary background noise.

The turbines operate 12 hours a day during daylight now and are shut off on Sunday

Passed in 1970, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) is a federal law designed to combat organized crime in the United States. It allows prosecution and civil penalties for racketeering activity performed as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise.

To convict a defendant under RICO, the government must prove that the defendant engaged in two or more instances of racketeering activity and that the defendant directly invested in, maintained an interest in, or participated in a criminal enterprise affecting interstate or foreign commerce.

Political Corruption

Politicians :
. UNITED STATES V. CIANCI
Providence Rhode Island
For twenty-one years, from 1975-1984 and from 1991-2002, Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci was the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island.

Ultimately, Cianci was only convicted of one RICO conspiracy count.
The First Circuit notes—for a RICO conspiracy conviction, a defendant simply “must intend to further an endeavor which, if completed, would satisfy all of the elements of a substantive criminal offense, but it suffices that he adopted the goal of furthering or facilitating the criminal endeavor.”

Buddy Cianci was therefore found guilty of a §1962(d) RICO conspiracy violation and sentenced to five years and four months in prison.

Falmouth noise letter recently released through a Freedom of Information Request

August 3, 2010
Mr. Gerald Potamis
WasteWater Superintendent
Town of Falmouth Public Works
59 Town Hall Square
Falmouth, MA 02540

RE: Falmouth WWTF Wind Energy Facility II “Wind II”, Falmouth, MA
Contract No. #3297

Dear Mr. Potamis,

Due to the sound concerns regarding the first wind turbine installed at the wastewater treatment facility, the manufacturer of the turbines, Vestas, is keen for the Town of Falmouth to understand the possible noise and other risks associated with the installation of the second wind turbine.

The Town has previously been provided with the Octave Band Data / Sound performance for the V82 turbine. This shows that the turbine normally operates at 103.2dB but the manufacturer has also stated that it may produce up to 110dB under certain circumstances. These measurements are based on IEC standards for sound measurement which is calculated at a height of 10m above of the base of the turbine.

We understand that a sound study is being performed to determine what, if any, Impacts the second turbine will have to the nearest residences. Please be advised that should noise concerns arise with this turbine, the only option to mitigate normal operating sound from the V82 is to shut down the machine at certain wind speeds and directions. Naturally this would detrimentally affect power production.

The manufacturer also needs confirmation that the Town of Falmouth understands they are fully responsible for the site selection of the turbine and bear all responsibilities to address any mitigation needs of the neighbors.

Finally, the manufacturer has raised the possibility of ice throw concerns. Since Route 28 is relatively close to the turbine, precautions should be taken in weather that may cause icing.

To date on this project we have been unable to move forward with signing the contract with Vestas. The inability to release the turbine for shipment to the project site has caused significant [SIC] delays in our project schedule. In order to move forward the manufacturer requires your understanding and acknowledgement of these risks. We kindly request for this acknowledgement to be sent to us by August 4, 2010, as we have scheduled a coordination meeting with Vestas to discuss the project schedule and steps forward for completion of the project.

Please sign in the space provided below to indicate your understanding and acknowledgement of this letter. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call me.

Sincerely,

(Bruce Mabbott’s signature)
_____________________
Bruce Mabbott Gerald Potamis
Project Manager Town of Falmouth

CC: Sumul Shah, Lumus Construction, Inc.
(Town of Falmouth’s Wind-1 and Wind-2 Construction contractor)

Stephen Wiehe, Weston & Sampson
(Town of Falmouth’s contract engineers)

Brian Hopkins, Vestas
(Wind-1, Wind-2’s turbine manufacturer, and also Webb/NOTUS turbine)

Climate Change Fraud is Much Bigger Than it Seems!

April 17, 2015April 17, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

The Great Wind Power Fraud: Just the Tip of the Climate Change Hysteria Spending Iceberg

April 17, 2015 by stopthesethings

****

The tip of the climate spending iceberg
CFACT
Paul Driessen
31 March 2015

Lockheed Martin, a recent Washington Post article notes, is getting into renewable energy, nuclear fusion, “sustainability” and even fish farming projects, to augment its reduced defense profits. The company plans to forge new ties with Defense Department and other Obama initiatives, based on a shared belief in manmade climate change as a critical security and planetary threat.

It is charging ahead where other defense contractors have failed, confident that its expertise, lobbying skills and “socially responsible” commitment to preventing climate chaos will land it plentiful contracts and subsidies.

As with its polar counterparts, 90% of the titanic climate funding iceberg is invisible to most citizens, businessmen and politicians. The Lockheed action is the mere tip of the icy mountaintop.

The multi-billion-dollar agenda reflects the Obama Administration’s commitment to using climate change to radically transform America. It reflects a determination to make the climate crisis industry so enormous that no one will be able to tear it down, even as computer models and disaster claims become less and less credible – and even if Republicans control Congress and the White House after 2016. Lockheed is merely the latest in a long list of regulators, researchers, universities, businesses, manufacturers, pressure groups, journalists and politicians with such strong monetary, reputational and authority interests in alarmism that they will defend its tenets and largesse tooth and nail.

Above all, it reflects a conviction that alarmists have a right to control our energy use, lives, livelihoods and living standards, with no transparency and no accountability for mistakes they make or damage they inflict on disfavored industries and families.

And they are pursuing this agenda despite global warming again beingdead last in the latest Gallup poll of 15 issues of greatest concern to Americans: only 25% say they worry about it “a great deal,” despite steady hysteria; 24% are “not at all” worried about the climate. By comparison, 46% percent worry a great deal about the size and power of the federal government.

But Climate Crisis, Inc. is using our tax and consumer dollars to advance six simultaneous strategies.

1) Climate research. The US government spends $2.5 billion per year on research that focuses on carbon dioxide, ignores powerful natural forces that have always driven climate change, and generates numerous reports and press releases warning of record high temperatures, melting icecaps, rising seas, stronger storms, more droughts and other “unprecedented” crises. The claims are erroneous and deceitful.

They are consistently contradicted by actual climate and weather records, and so alarmists increasingly emphasize computer models that reinvent and substitute for reality. Penn State modeler Michael Mann has collected millions for headline-grabbing work like his latest assertion that the Gulf Stream is slowing – contrary to 20 years of actual measurements that show no change. Former NASA astronomer James Hansen received a questionable $250,000 Heinz Award from Secretary of State John Kerry’s wife, for his climate crisis and anti-coal advocacy. Al Gore and350.org also rake in millions. Alarmist scientists and institutions seek billions more, while virtually no government money goes to research into natural forces.

2) Renewable energy research and implementation grants, loans, subsidies and mandates drive projects to replace hydrocarbons that are still abundant and still 82% of all US energy consumed. Many recipientswent bankrupt despite huge taxpayer grants and loan guarantees. Wind turbine installations butcher millions of birds and bats annually, but are exempt from Endangered Species Act fines and penalties.

Tesla Motors received $256 million to produce electric cars for wealthy elites who receive $2,500 to $7,500 in tax credits, plus free charging and express lane access. From 2007 to 2013, corn ethanol interests spent$158 million lobbying for more “green” mandates and subsidies – and $6 million in campaign contributions – for a fuel that reduces mileage, damages engines, requires enormous amounts of land, water and fertilizer, and from stalk to tailpipe emits more carbon dioxide than gasoline.

General Electric spends tens of millions lobbying for more taxpayer renewable energy dollars; so do many other companies. The payoffs add up to tens of billions of dollars, from taxpayers and consumers.

3) Regulatory fiats increasingly substitute for laws and carbon taxes thatCongress refuses to enact, due to concerns about economic and employment impacts, and because China, India and other countries’ CO2 emissions dwarf America’s. EPA’s war on coal has already claimed thousands of jobs, raised electricity costs for millions of businesses and families, and adversely affected living standards, health and welfare for millions of families. The White House and EPA are also targeting oil and gas drilling and fracking.

Now the Obama Administration is unleashing a host of new mandates and standards, based on arbitrary “social cost of carbon” calculations that assume fossil fuel use imposes numerous climate and other costs, but brings minimal or no economic or societal benefits. The rules will require onerous new energy efficiency and CO2 emission reduction standards that will send consumer costs skyrocketing, while channeling billions of dollars to retailers, installers, banks and mostly overseas manufacturers.

As analyst Roger Bezdek explains, water heaters that now cost $675-1,500 will soon cost $1,200-2,450 – with newfangled exhaust fans, vent pipes and condensate removal systems. Pickup trucks with more fuel efficiency and less power will nearly double in price. Microwaves, cell phones, vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, toasters, coffee pots, lawn mowers, photocopiers, televisions and almost everything else will cost far more. Poor and middle class families will get clobbered, to prevent perhaps 5% of the USA’s 15% of all human CO2 emissions toward 0.04% of atmospheric CO2, and maybe 0.00001 degrees of warming.

4) A new UN climate treaty would limit fossil fuel use by developed countries, place no binding limits or timetables on developing nations, and redistribute hundreds of billions of dollars to poor countries that claim they have been harmed by emissions and warming due to rich country hydrocarbon use. Even IPCC officials now openly brag that climate policy has “almost nothing” to do with protecting the environment – and everything to do with intentionally transforming the global economy and redistributing its wealth.

5) Vicious personal attacks continue on scientists, businessmen, politicians and others who disagree publicly with the catechism of climate cataclysm. Alarmist pressure groups and Democrat members of Congress are out to destroy the studies, funding, reputations and careers of all who dare challenge climate disaster tautologies. At President Obama’s behest, even disaster aid agencies are piling on.

New FEMA rules require that any state seeking disaster preparedness funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency must first assess how climate change threatens their communities. This will mean relying on discredited, worthless alarmist models that routinely spew out predictions unrelated to reality. It likely means no federal funds will go to states that include or focus on natural causes, historical records or models that have better track records than those employed by the IPCC, EPA and President.

6) Thought control. In addition to vilifying climate chaos skeptics, alarmists are determined to control all thinking on the subject. They are terrified that people will find realist analyses and explanations far more persuasive. They refuse to debate skeptics, respond to NIPCC and other studies examining natural climate change and carbon dioxide benefits to wildlife and agriculture, or even admit there is no consensus.

They want the news media to ignore us but cannot put the internet genie back in the bottle. The White House is trying, though. It even sent picketers to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s home, to demand that he knuckle under and apply 1930s’ telephone laws to the internet, as a first step in content control States must refuse to play the climate crisis game.

Through lawsuits, hearings, investigations and other actions, governors, legislators, AGs and other officials can delay EPA diktats, educate citizens about solar and other natural forces, and explain the huge costs and trifling benefits of these draconian regulations.

Congress should hold hearings, demand an accounting of agency expenditures, require solid evidence for every climate claim and regulation, and cross-examine Administration officials on details. It should slash EPA and other agency budgets, so they cannot keep giving billions to pressure groups, propagandists and attack dogs. Honesty, transparency, accountability and a much shorter leash are long overdue.
CFACT

Wind Turbines, and Their Proponents, Ruin Lives With Impunity!

March 21, 2015 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

Eric Jelinski posted in Hydro One – Enough is Enough

Eric Jelinski

1:43pm Mar 21

Hydro One takes whatever hydro is generated and distributes the hydro plus adding their own costs. However, a major part of the high costs of Hydro is the wind turbines and the line upgrades for the wind turbines that are added to the cost of hydro.

The costs of hydro is not just in dollars but in human lives ruined becuase people have to abandon their homes due to the noise or stray voltage that impacts them and cattle on the farms. The government is ignoring the impacts even though there are many testimonials by affected people including testimonials from medical doctors and noise experts.

One of our friends who was forced to move out of her house due to wind turbine noise has composed this e-mail to the MPP’s. It is intended to share this and everybody to please also forward this to their provincial MP. Maybe the Wynne liberals can be shamed into a moratorium on wind turbines.
http://ogra.sclivelearningcenter.com/index.aspx?PID=11355&SID=206932

Date: Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 12:36 PM
Subject: Wind turbines, Ontario and Health Canada

Ontario Good Roads Association, Rural Ontario Municipal Association

http://ogra.sclivelearningcenter.com/index.aspx?PID=11355&SID=206932

I request that you to listen to the audio on the Green Energy in Ontario portion of the OGRA/ROMA Conference. February 24, 2015

Listen as Mayor Randy Hope, the first presenter, trivializes the health complaints from residents living in wind projects to a single item; growing obesity.
For your information, when Mayor Hope states he presented at the Standing Committee on Bill 150, so did multiple families who were being impacted at that time, in fact 6 of those families had to leave their homes permanently. That was in 2009 and nothing has changed.

19:30 “…I’ve dealt with the people complaining that the wind turbine has created obesity……
Even the Health Canada study….done, completed, no issue.”

Listen also to the third presenter, Ted Cowan, President of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, as he shamefully and openly mocks the families in rural Ontario who have been experiencing adverse health impacts, many who are trapped and many who have been displaced.

46:52 “….so every time you hear somebody complain about the health effects of a wind tower, cough at em ”

47:50 “ Health effects…the federal government completed their health study the middle of this past year, they found no health problems from wind, no dead people, no people in hospital, no people sick, no evidence of days off of work from wind related health problems.
They did find that it contributes to some sleep problems and irritation and there is a fix. I believe that where there are homes where there are significant problems they should either be bought or they should be substantially insulated so that the problem goes away or is greatly reduced, but, the evidence on this is in, further debate on it is a waste of time and hiring 30 or 40 incredibly good medical researchers to look at ‘this kind of problem’ is a waste of talent that we cannot afford.”

1:04:09 “ The studies, the evidence is in on health, no health impacts but some? and no general property value harm, but irritation, sleep problems no question.

This disgusting and offensive display is a direct result of the federal and provincial government’s alliance with the wind industry to systematically ignore the adverse health impacts being experienced in industrial wind turbine developments.
The damage that the Health Canada preliminary release alone has done to the citizens of this province is a disgrace.

There has been no opportunity for victims to talk with authorities or speak at these types of meetings and conferences to give evidence of and question some of these statements that audiences are receiving.
It is incredible that in Canada, in 2015, the victims continue to be blamed, ridiculed and their complaints rejected.

My comment:
To the comment on sleep problems and irritation, I don’t believe Mr. Cowan understands the health impacts of sleep disturbance and deprivation, or “irritation” for that matter. The frustration and stress alone at not being able to shut off the noise and vibration when trying to sleep is tremendous.
Trying to get by on 4 out of 7 night’s sleep is not OK. In fact, it is dangerous.
Furthermore, loud audible noise and low frequency noise and vibration penetrates walls and glass, regardless of insulation level. Mr. Cowan’s knowledge of the cause of and remedy for the impacts is minimal.

Attached is some testimony from impacted residents that needs to be reviewed and not deleted.
It represents the tip of the iceberg. Every single wind project started has resulted in more people sick.

The following 2 links have videos of impacted residents who want you to listen to them.
Please be respectful and give them your time as they gave theirs under some very trying situations and at the expense of being mocked by the likes of those above, to educate us.
Some of them are from the Chatham area.
http://windvictimsontario.com/videos—recent-videos.html
http://windvictimsontario.com/videos—page-2.html

Wind Proponents Fight To Conceal the Truth About Wind Turbines!

February 27, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

ABC’s “Ministry of Truth” – Media Watch – Cops Both Barrels from Graham Lloyd

February 27, 2015 by stopthesethings

In response to the Media Watch report about The Australian’s coverage of wind farms
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
23 February 2015

THE Media Watch report of February 16 (“Turbine torture: do wind farms make you sick?”) is littered with mistakes, omissions and misrepresentations from the opening scenes.

The program represents blatant advocacy for commercial interests over the widespread concerns of a genuine minority group who deserve thorough investigation of their complaints.

The Australian provided balanced, factual reporting of a national issue of public interest where Media Watch indulged in what amounts to littlemore than ad hominem, ideological propaganda.

The Media Watch program misrepresented the National Health and Medical Research Council position that the quality of existing research into the possible health impacts of wind turbines is poor and that it will fund more high quality research.

NHMRC chief executive Warwick Anderson said “it is important to say no consistent evidence does not necessarily mean no effect on human health.”

Media Watch selectively quoted Cape Bridgewater report author Steven Cooper to give the impression that he rejected certain things when in fact he was simply not professionally qualified to make comment on them.

Media Watch failed to acknowledge that Mr Cooper had said publicly that at all times The Australian’s reporting had been accurate and faithful to the contents of his Cape Bridgewater report. This fact has been confirmed to Media Watch by other suitably qualified acousticians.

Media Watch failed to report information it had received from US acoustics expert Dr Rob Rand that ran counter to its predetermined view.

The Australian published concerns raised by Pacific Hydro and wind industry groups about the Cooper report.

It also published praise for the robust nature of Cooper’s work and the significance of his findings from some of the most qualified and eminent acoustics experts in the world.

At no time did The Australian offer an opinion on the issue.

In contrast, Media Watch relied on wind industry advocates in academia including social scientists, political studies academics and a medical expert witness employed by wind developers to ascribe the symptoms to the now discredited “nocebo effect”.

Media Watch sought to mischievously discredit The Australian’s reporting with a series of factual inaccuracies and through sins of omission.

The Media Watch report failed to detail or report the existence of formal studies and inquiries which run counter to its pre-determined view and glossed over the peer review support the Cooper report received from some of the world’s most qualified acoustic experts..

It ignored the findings of the 2011 Federal Senate Inquiry chaired by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert, which found proper research into the impact of wind turbines on nearby residents should be undertaken as a matter of urgency.

Media Watch quoted studies that supported its case but failed to acknowledge the fact that the impact of low frequency noise generated by early model turbines had been linked to the exact same symptoms as those being reported today more than 30 years ago in research conducted for the renewable energy industry by NASA.

Media Watch failed to acknowledge any of the balancing quotes and arguments contained within The Australian’s reporting of the issue.

Media Watch did not bother to contact Channel 7.

Here is a line by line dissection of the Media Watch report.

*****************

MW transcript:

Presenter: Tonight, for the first time, hard evidence wind farms aren’t safe.

Today Tonight voiceover: They were told they were blowing in the wind, that it was all in their heads.

Interviewee: I’m not telling furphies, it’s real, we can feel it.

— Channel Seven, Today Tonight, 21st January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

His name is David Mortimer, and he is a wind turbine host at InfigenEnergy’s Lake Bonney Wind Farm in South Australia who says he become unwell with characteristic symptoms of “wind turbine syndrome” soon after getting the turbines but didn’t know until very recently what was causing the symptoms.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Yes, as TT told us recently, those wind turbines are so bad that even the chickens get flustered.

■ The Australian’s response

No, animals become physiologically stressed when exposed to wind turbine noise (eg the Taiwanese goats who died, reported by the BBC, confirmed by the goat farmer and the Taiwanese Agricultural authorities. STRESSED chickens lay yolkless eggs — an observation also made in Britain by residents living near an airfield where bombers took off from — the excessive noise had the same impact on those chickens many years ago.

———————–

MW transcript:

Today Tonight voiceover: Even the chooks appeared spooked by something.

Interviewee: “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That’s not normal.”

— Channel Seven, Today Tonight, 21st January, 2015

Paul Barry: That TT footage on a wind farm in South Australia first got a run some two and a half years ago.

So why has it just popped up again?

Well, for much the same reason that radio hosts also went into a spin late last month:

ALAN JONES: “Now, it’s a headline today and it’s been called a world first study.”

— 2GB, The Alan Jones Breakfast Show, 21st January, 2015

TIM BENNETT: “Probably the biggest story today … is this front page on The Australian.”

— ABC 639 North and West SA, Mornings with Tim Bennett (fill in presenter), 21st January, 2015

ROSS STEVENSON: “Front page of The Australian has an exclusive story that people living near wind farms face a greater risk of suffering health complaints …”

— 3AW, Breakfast with Ross and John, 21st January, 2015

Paul Barry: Back in January The Australian headed its front page with an exclusive from Environment Editor Graham Lloyd, who told us excitedly in his opening paragraph:

“PEOPLE living near wind farms face a greater risk of suffering health complaints caused by the low-frequency noise generated by turbines, a groundbreaking study has found.”

— The Australian, 21st January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

A statement issued by residents living near the Cape Bridgewater wind farm said; “Steven Cooper’s acoustic survey connects infrasound from wind turbines inside our homes with unacceptable health impacts.”

The Acoustic Group’s Principal, Mr Steven Cooper, was commissioned by wind developer Pacific Hydro to undertake an investigation into “noise” emitted from the wind farm as a result of our long unresolved complaints about the impact of Pacific Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater wind turbines on our health, on the habitability of our homes and on the quality of our lives. Symptoms we have experienced include severe nausea, headaches, ear pressure, inability to concentrate, and severe and debilitating sleep problems, which we have endured over the six years of operation of the Cape Bridgewater wind power facility.

The inclusion of complete shut-downs in the study clearly showed the wind farm generates specific infrasound frequencies that are directly related to the operation of the turbines.

Our diaries and the concurrent full spectrum acoustic measurements inside and outside our homes clearly demonstrate that it is the operation of the wind facility correlating with our symptoms.

The assertions made by others that our symptoms result from scaremongering (the nocebo effect) are untrue, and always have been. The inclusion of complete shut-down periods of the wind facility during the investigation reminded us of the general peace, serenity and wellbeing of our lives before the wind facility started operating.

The Cooper study was reviewed by well qualified acoustics experts.

Dr Bob Thorne, a psycho-acoustician who is also qualified to assess health impacts from noise and is considered an expert witness in court. Dr Thorne said in a written statement that the Cooper report was “ground breaking” and had made a “unique contribution to science”.

“At 235 pages for the report and six technical annexures (491 pages) the study cannot be matched by any previous wind farm study in Australia,” Dr Thorne said.

US acoustics expert Robert Rand said in a peer review of the Cooper Study;

“The correlation of sensation level to WTS tone level in the infrasonic and audible bands brings wind turbine acoustics right to the door of medical science. Medical tests in the homes, long overdue, can now be correlated directly to WTS.”

The study found that sensations including sleep disturbance were occurring with specific acoustic conditions. Those sensations included other symptoms such as nausea, headaches, and sensations of pressure. Sleep deprivation alone is an adverse health effect. Mr Cooper is not a medical practitioner and so cannot say it was a health study, but no medical practitioner would say that sleep deprivation or disturbance does not have adverse health effects if it is happening repeatedly …. so with the sleep deprivation alone there is going to be a greater risk of suffering health problems.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Mr Lloyd has been worried about wind farms for some time — and those yolkless eggs — so was he right to claim he’d at last found evidence that they damage your health?

■ The Australian’s response

This is a significant issue of widespread public interest involving the duty of care towards a minority group of citizens. Some residents claim they have been forced to abandon their homes. In this case, The Australian was faithfully reporting the findings of a report released publicly by Pacific Hydro and Steven Cooper and accompanying statements by residents both verbally and in writing. Steven Cooper has confirmed The Australian’s report to be accurate in all respects with regard to his report. International acoustic experts have confirmed the study demonstrates a cause and effect exists between sensations experienced by residents and the operation of the wind turbines. The Australian report included comments from Pacific Hydro that it did not accept a cause and effect relationship had been established.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Well, not according to several eminent scientists we talked to. And, remarkably, not according to Steven Cooper, the study’s author, who told Media Watch:

Steven Cooper: “No, it’s not correct … You can’t say that noise affects health from this study.”

— Steven Cooper, Acoustic Engineer, 28th January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

Cooper can’t say that, but the residents had already said it as had their treating doctors — all of the residents have been told by treating health practitioners to leave their homes in order to regain their health. Mr Cooper has said he had been quoted faithfully and his report treated fairly by The Australian in all regards.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: So what did Mr Cooper think about Today Tonight’s claims that he had provided the first hard evidence that wind farms are unsafe?

Well, no again.

Steven Cooper: “Absolutely not, that’s incorrect.”

— Steven Cooper, Acoustic Engineer, 28th January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

In fact, the first hard evidence was provided by Dr Neil Kelley and his team at NASA thirty years ago, who found that sleep disturbance and other symptoms and sensations were directly caused by wind turbine generated impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise. His finding led to a change in wind turbine design. More recently, British Acoustician and National Health and Medical Research Council Expert Reviewer for the 2011 NHMRC Rapid Review Professor Geoffrey Leventhall told the NHMRC workshop in 2011 that “annoyance symptoms’’ or “noise annoyance” symptoms were identical to “wind turbine syndrome” symptoms described by US Paediatric Specialist and researcher Dr Nina Pierpont. Media Watch’s academic commentator Simon Chapman was in the room when he said it.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: The company that commissioned the study, Pacific Hydro says it was not a scientific study, and not a health study, and does not show that wind farms are causing health complaints.

And asked on ABC Radio about this, Mr Cooper agreed.

Steven Cooper: “Pacific Hydro are correct that we don’t have a correlation in terms of medical and I agree with that 100 per cent.”

— ABC Ballarat, Mornings with Anne-Marie Middlemast, 21st January, 2015

Paul Barry: So how come The Australian and Today Tonight got it so wrong.

The head of medicine at Adelaide University, Professor Gary Wittert, told Media Watch:

Professor Gary Wittert: “The way The Australian reported this study was really the antithesis of good science reporting. I think a newspaper like The Australian should know better.”

— Professor Gary Wittert, Head of Medicine, The University of Adelaide, 6th February, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

Mr Cooper has said that Lloyd’s reporting was accurate. The residents were reporting sensations including sleep deprivation, nausea and headaches. Does Professor Wittert consider that these sensations are not adverse health effects? And that chronic sleep deprivation does not itself cause long term health problems? Has he actually read the acoustic investigation and does he understand what was found?

———————–

MW transcript:

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: So what exactly is wrong with the study and why should it not have been headline news? Well, first, it was not published in an academic journal* or peer reviewed by independent experts**.

■ The Australian’s response

*Oh, if something is not published in a journal it is not good science? Well what about PhD’s??? They are not published in journals? Are they not “science”?

■ The Australian’s response

ABC experts are conflicted, Wittert and Chapman have a history of working closely with the wind industry to protect its commercial interests, either as expert witness in court cases or to push the now disproved nocebo effect as the cause for the resident’s “sensations” which in Cooper’s study correlated with specific acoustic emissions — powering up and powering down.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Indeed, in Professor Chapman’s view:

Simon Chapman: “The media should have treated this with absolute contempt.”

— Professor Simon Chapman, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, 23rd January, 2015

Paul Barry: Now there’s no doubt that some people living close to wind farms have health problems.

And they believe that the wind farms are the cause.

But as The Conversation reminded us … a recent study in the British Medical Journal found they are not alone in having these health complaints.

“… almost 90% of the general population experienced many of the common symptoms associated with wind turbine syndrome within a given week.”

— The Conversation, 22nd January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

The BMJ article and Grant and Hoepner and Chapman and others ignore the cross over effect — when residents are exposed, they have symptoms and when they are not exposed, they do not have those symptoms and sensations. The Australian has written advice from a professor of epidemiology that the study could be classified as a small cross over trial.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Much of the debate turns on whether there’s something special about the noise from wind farms that makes them harmful to health … even if the noise is below health limits.

■ The Australian’s response

Just what do Media Watch mean by “below health limits”? The Australian has been advised that Kelley established those health limits thirty years ago in the NASA trials and Cooper’s results were almost identical. Above 50 dB at 4 Hz people who are sensitised to the sound energy experience and report unpleasant sensations.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: The study’s author Steven Cooper has long believed there is … and that it’s called infrasound.

■ The Australian’s response

Cooper is not the only one. Broner, the only acoustic expert on the NHMRC committee also believed it on the basis of empirical evidence in a paper delivered to the 2007 International Acoustics Congress in Madrid, “The missing 16 Hz, Can We Live With It?”

Abstract:

“As the need for power increases, power utilities are resorting to the use of peaking plants incorporating Open Cycle Gas Turbines. OCGT manufacturers generally supply noise data for these down to the 31.5 Hz octave band. However, most of these units also generate significant energy in the 16 Hz octave band. Both of these bands need to be considered when assessing potential noise impact on neighbouring residential communities.”

———————–

MW transcript:

Steven Cooper: “Infrasound is energy that appears in the spectrum below what the human ear can normally hear.”

— Channel Seven, Today Tonight, 4th June, 2012

Paul Barry: Infrasound, says Cooper, interferes with our sleep and our brain patterns.

And he says his latest study suggests … sensations people feel near wind farms … may be caused by the infrasound the turbines produce.

THIS IS NOT TRUE. Many of the reviews Chapman cites state that there is not a lot of scientific evidence. NONE of them say they are SAFE. The National Health and Medical Research Council recently reviewed 4000 pieces of literature and found only 13 were suitable for evaluation and none could be considered high quality. As a result it said the impact of wind turbines on health remained an open scientific question and that it would call for targeted, high quality research. A priority area is low frequency and infrasound.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Indeed, last week, the government’s National Health and Medical Research Council published the results of its review of seven studies of wind farms and health.

And the NHMRC came to the conclusion that:

“There is no consistent* evidence that noise from wind turbines … is associated with self-reported human health effects.”**

— National Health and Medical Research Council, Systematic review of the human health effects of wind farms, 11 February, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

*The NHMRC cannot and did not say there is NO evidence of adverse health effects, because they know that is untrue. In other words, Professor Chapman’s assertions that wind turbines are safe is not supported by the NHMRC’s statement, or by the existing scientific evidence.

“Given the poor quality of current direct evidence and the concern expressed by some members of the community, high quality research into possible health effects of wind farm, particularly within 1500 metres is warranted,” the NHMRC statement said.

NHMRC chief executive Warwick Anderson said “It is important to say no consistent evidence does not necessarily mean no effect on human health.’’

“From a scientific perspective I see the question as still open,” he said.

Professor Bruce Armstrong, chair of the NHMRC’s wind farm committee said “to not investigate would be negligent from a public health point of view.” Dr Armstrong said research into low frequency and infrasound was an important priority “because it is what people who are concerned about health impacts focus on and it is not something that has been done particularly well to date.”

— The Weekend Australian, 14-15 February, 2015

Paul Barry: That so-called groundbreaking research was the Cooper study … again.

The one that Professor Chapman* describes as an atrocious piece of research and other experts** assure us is bad science.

■ The Australian’s response

*Chapman, the Tobacco Advertising Propaganda Expert, sociologist, and wind industry advocate.

**No, not EXPERTS. Hand selected advocates for the wind industry carefully chosen by the ABC, for the wind industry who do not have any research qualifications or experience in directly investigating the circumstances of the sick people. ANU PhD candidate and journalist, Jacqui Hoepner, and her supervisor, Will Grant, who describes himself as “a talker, writer, thinker and reader, based primarily at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at ANU. His talking / writing / thinking / reading has focused mostly on the intersection of science, politics and society, and how this is changing in response to new technologies.”

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: And the expert quoted in this ‘peer’ review was an American scientist who has long agreed with Mr Cooper’s theories.

■ The Australian’s response

No, “the scientist” was two very eminent acousticians, one of whom has spent most of his life consulting to and for the WIND INDUSTRY (Hessler) and the other is the leading environmental acoustics researcher in the world — and DIRECTOR of ACOUSTICS Standards and chair of the American delegation to the International Standards Committee. Dr Schomer has not “long agreed with Mr Cooper’s theories” — he and four other acousticians including three who work almost exclusively for the wind industry (Bruce Walker, George and David Hessler) conducted the research at the Shirley Wind Farm reported in December 2012 which measured the full spectrum of sound inside and outside homes and came to the conclusion that infrasound and low frequency noise were an issue and that they could affect the future of the wind industry.

Peer reviewers Schomer and Hessler both completely understood the value of what Cooper had done and came out strongly because it is indeed Cause and Effect. People did NOT get the symptoms when the turbines were not turning but did get symptoms when they were turning. There was an exception for one resident who is extremely sensitised AND there were wind gusts which shook the towers, induced vibrations which she could feel, even though she could not see the towers.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: But let’s go back to what Cooper himself told the ABC about how groundbreaking this research is.

Asked about whether he has found a correlation between infrasound and headaches or other sensations of which people were complaining he said:

Steven Cooper: “I don’t have enough data to say a correlation. The study is limited, it’s a pilot study and there’s a trend line that’s very clear. Correlation needs a lot more scientific rigour with a larger population to come up with the answer.”

— ABC Ballarat, Mornings with Anne-Marie Middlemast, 21st January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

Cooper was being deliberately very conservative. In a written response to The Australian, prior to the Media Watch episode Mr Cooper said “The study does show a link between the operation of the wind farm and the disturbances reported by the residents. There is a trend not a correlation (because there is not enough data and that wasn’t the brief) However, one can take the reports of the residents who form the view there is a link to their health impacts.”

Lloyd has met and interviewed residents who have explained the “disturbances” they have experienced and are in no doubt that they consider them to be health impacts, some have even been advised by their medical practitioners to leave their homes as a result. Their concerns about health impacts and understanding of what Cooper had found were expressed in a media statement of which Media Watch was or should have been fully aware.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Now … The Australian has sent us a long statement defending its original coverage which we’d encourage you to read on our website. But its key point is:

“… The Australian believes this is clearly an issue of significant public interest, worthy of presentation on page one and of extensive investigation and further reporting.”

— Clive Mathieson, Editor, The Australian, 8th February, 2015

Paul Barry: Well, we’d certainly agree that more work needs to be done.

But we believe The Australian needs to get its facts right, and to approach it in a more scientific and objective fashion.

■ The Australian’s response

No, the ABC needs to follow its own advice and “get its facts right, and approach it in a more scientific and objective fashion”. It Is also about time the ABC started accurately identifying conflicts of interest in its “experts” and stopped putting pre-recorded programs to air which refer to vulnerable and sick rural residents as “DICK BRAINS” — Annabel Crabb on the science show, aired by Robin Williams in January 2015.
The Australian

Interest in Wind Projects Wanes, and Prices Dropping Fast!

January 29, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind auction sees low interest

Only two of four offshore MA wind areas get bids; sale prices much lower than prior sales off other states

By Mike Lawrence

Only two of four wind energy lease areas in federal waters south of Martha’s Vineyard received bids in an auction today and the sale prices were millions of dollars lower than previous auctions for leases of smaller sizes off other coastal states, according to statements by federal energy officials.

Leaders of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) expressed a sunny outlook, though, in a conference call to media following the sales.

BOEM put four lease areas up for auction this morning. The areas are collectively known as the Massachusetts Wind Energy Area and cover more than 742,000 acres in federal waters about 12 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.

BOEM Deputy Director Walter Cruickshank said the 187,523-acre lease area closest to shore sold for $281,285 to Renewable Energy Systems (RES) Americas, and the adjacent 166,886-acre lease area sold for $166,886 to Offshore MW. The other two lease areas, farther from shore, were not bid on, he said.

U.S. Wind paid $8.7 million in August for leases on two areas totaling 79,707 acres off the Maryland coast, according to BOEM data. In September 2013, Dominion Resources paid $1.6 million for a lease on 112,799 acres off the coast of Virginia.

Deepwater Wind paid $3.8 million for two lease areas totaling 164,749 acres in the Rhode Island/Massachusetts Wind Area – adjacent to, and closer to shore than, the areas auctioned today – in BOEM’s first competitive auction of offshore wind development leases, in July 2013.

BOEM Director Abby Ross Hopper said the bureau was “happy with the results of (today’s) auction” and set the minimum bids lower than in previous auctions because of water depth and other factors.

“The Massachusetts Wind Energy Area is located in deeper water than some of our other wind energy areas in other states,” Hopper said. “We knew that developing…in this area was going to be more expensive.”

Hopper said another factor was that, unlike Massachusetts, other states had offered offshore wind credits and other financial incentives to renewable energy developers.

“That obviously has value,” Hopper said, adding that legislation has been introduced in Massachusetts to add incentives for offshore wind, but has not yet been approved.

Cheap oil and gas prices this month also may have deflated interest in wind power ahead of today’s auction. Additionally, the regional wind industry recently took a separate hit to the jaw, when utility giants NStar and Northeast Utilities announced the termination of their contracts to buy wind power generated by Cape Wind in Nantucket Sound, saying Cape Wind failed to meet critical financing milestones.

Hopper denied a connection between Cape Wind and the lack of bids on two lease areas today.

“I think the recent activity at Cape Wind shouldn’t be read as any sort of indicator of what happened in today’s auction,” she said. “I am very encouraged by the fact that two experienced wind developers have won provisional leases in the state of Massachusetts.”

The provisional leases bought today represent less than half of the 742,000 acres that were up for auction.

Cruickshank said the two areas that did not receive bids “are still part of the Massachusetts Wind Energy Area” and the bureau will discuss future options for their use with state agencies.

He said RES Americas and Offshore MW were the only companies that placed bids in today’s auction.

Follow Mike Lawrence on Twitter: @MikeLawrenceSCT

Climate Change is a Natural Phenomenon. Humans are NOT to Blame!

October 28, 2014 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

Climate Is Changing, And Some Parks Are Endangered, But Humans Aren’t The Cause

Submitted by Daniel Botkin on October 26, 2014 – 1:19am

Editor’s note: The climate is changing, but is it humankind’s fault? Daniel B. Botkin, professor Emeritus in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at University of California Santa Barbara, doesn’t believe so. In the following column, he dissects the conclusions reached by the Union of Concerned Scientists in its report,National Landmarks at Risk, How Rising Seas, Floods, and Wildfires Are Threatening the United States’ Most Cherished Historic Sites.

Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge The only wildlife refuge in the National Park System lies within New York City, and is not on the Union of Concerned Scientists List. The refuge is the largest bird migration stop in the Northeast, and serves as a buffer protecting urban development from major storms. Its well-developed paths among birds and flowering plants and along inland wetlands and waterways are available by public transportation to the 8.6 million residents of New York City. (Photo by the author)

For those of us who love our national parks and are confronted daily with media, politicians, and pundits warning us of a coming global-warming disaster, it’s only natural to ask what that warming will mean for our national parks. This is exactly what the well-known Union of Concerned Scientists discuss in their recent report, National Landmarks at Risk: How Rising Seas, Floods, and Wildfires Are Threatening the United States’ Most Cherished Historic Sites.

I’ve done research since 1968 on the possibility of human-caused global warming and its possible ecological effects, and have published widely on this topic, discussing possible effects on biodiversity and on specific endangered species as well as on forests, cities, and historical evidence of Arctic sea ice change. I’ve also been involved in the development of some aspects of some climate models, and having developed a computer model of forests that is one of the principal methods used to forecast global warming effects on vegetation, I sought out the UCS report with great interest.

The approach the Union has taken is to have the report written by four staff members: Debra Holtz, a journalist; Kate Cell, a fund-raiser for the organization; Adam Markham, with a B.S. in zoology, who was the founder of Clean Air-Cool Planet, a nonprofit organization “to promote innovative community-based solutions to climate change in the Northeast”; and Brenda Ekwurzel, the Union’s Senior Climate Scientist. She is the only author with research experience on the subject, has a Ph.D. in isotope geochemistry from the Department of Earth Sciences at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and has been on the faculty of the University of Arizona Department of Hydrology and Water Resources.

These four authors took the standard reports from such organizations as the United National Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, treating them as accurate and true, and then discussed the implications for 16 American historic sites. As shown in the accompanying table, they write that 11 of the sites are threatened by rising sea levels and their consequences (coastal erosion and flooding); two by inland flooding; two by wildfires; and one by “extreme heat and drought” (table 1).

The report opens with a bold assertion: “Many of the United States’ iconic landmarks and heritage sites are at risk as never before. Sea level rise, coastal erosion, increased flooding, heavy rains, and more frequent large wildfires are damaging archaeological resources, historic buildings, and cultural landscapes across the nation.” The report later goes on to add, “All of the case studies in this report draw on observations of impacts that are either consistent with, or attributable to, human-induced climate change based on multiple lines of scientific evidence.” To which the authors add, “This report sounds a wake-up call: as the impacts of climate change continue, we must protect these sites and reduce the risks.”

The point of the report, its opening theme and its major conclusion, is that these historic places are in trouble and it’s our fault, we have been the bad guys interfering with nature and therefore damaging places we value. This is consistent with the IPCC 2014 report and the 2014 White House Climate Change Assessment, for both of which I acted as an expert reviewer and testified before the House and Senate about.

TABLE 1. HISTORIC SITES AND CLAIMED THREATS TO THEM

Threatened by Sea Level Rise and Accompanying Flooding

Boston’s Faneuil Hall and surroundings
Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
Harriet Tubman National Monument Monument
Historic Jamestown, VA
NASA’s coastal facilities
Annapolis, MD
Fort Monroe National Monument
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
Bering Land Bridge National Monument & Shishmaref; Cape Krusenstern National Monument, including Kivalina Native Villages and Ancestral Lands
Pu’uhonua O Honaunau & Kaloko-Honokhau National Historical Parks
Prehistoric Florida shell structures

Threatened by Future Floods

Charleston, SC; Historic St. Augustine, Fl and Castillo De San Marcos

Threatened by Wildfires (and perhaps also flooding)

Mesa Verde National Park and Bandelier National Monument & Santa Clara Pueblo
Groveland, CA and other California Gold Rush era towns

Threatened by Extreme Heat and Drought

Cesar Chavez National Monument, California

Back Bay Fens Park and Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge

Reading the dire forecasts of the UCS report, I thought immediately about two seaside places familiar to me: Back Bay Fens Park in Boston and Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge in New York City. Back Bay Fens park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the famous landscape architect known especially for designing New York City’s Central Park. Back Bay was a problem because it was a landfill on Boston’s shore that flooded frequently, which caused various problems.

To understand what Olmsted did in designing Back Bay, one has to step back and consider Boston’s original site, which had certain advantages for a major city: a narrow peninsula with several hills that could be easily defended, a good harbor, and a good water supply. But as the city grew, demand increased for more land for buildings, a larger area for docking ships, and a better water supply. The need to control ocean floods and to dispose of solid and liquid wastes grew as well. Much of the original tidal flats area, which had been too wet to build on and too shallow to navigate, had been converted, before Olmsted got involved, to flat land — hills cut away and the marshes filled with their soil. The filling of Back Bay began in 1858 and continued for decades.

Olmsted’s solution to the flooding and sewage pollution was a water-control project he called the “fens.” His goal was to “abate existing nuisances” by keeping sewage out of the streams and ponds and building artificial banks for the streams to prevent flooding—and to do this in a natural-looking way. His solution included creating artificial watercourses by digging shallow depressions in the tidal flats, following meandering patterns like natural streams; setting aside other artificial depressions as holding ponds for tidal flooding; restoring a natural salt marsh planted with vegetation tolerant of brackish water; and planting the entire area to serve as a recreational park when not in flood. He put a tidal gate on the Charles River—Boston’s major river—and had two major streams diverted directly through culverts into the Charles so that they flooded the fens only during flood periods. He reconstructed the Muddy River primarily to create new, accessible landscape.

Professor Botkin’s two most recent books are The Moon in the Nautilus Shell and Powering the Future: A Scientist’s Guide To Energy Independence.

The result of Olmsted’s vision was that control of water became an aesthetic addition to the city. The blending of several goals made the development of the fens a landmark in city planning. Although to the casual stroller it appears to be simply a park for recreation, the area serves an important environmental function in flood and sewage control. Confronted with the combined problems of ocean surges and flooding from river runoff inland, Olmsted did not waste his time complaining about whether or not people have caused the problem. He just set out and solved it.

Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge, although not directly planned to solve flooding problems, does so in much the same way that the Boston Back Bay Fens does. The Refuge has become one of my favorite places in New York City. It is the largest migratory bird sanctuary in the northeastern United States. It is the only wildlife sanctuary that is part of the National Park System, and it lies within the city of New York, in view of the Empire State Building, as my accompanying photograph shows. New York City residents wanting contact with nature can get there by public transportation.

The Refuge faces onto Long Island Sound and includes inlets and wetlands directly connected to the Sound. The refuge was damaged during tropical storm Sandy, but it served the same multiple functions that Back Bay does in Boston — it acted as a buffer between that major ocean storm and city structures inland.

As I read the UCS report, Back Bay Fens and Jamaica Bay Refuge were in mind as what to do about coastal flooding along cities. Then I went to the scientific evidence that should be forming the basis for the UCS report, and which I will turn to now.

The Scientific Evidence

What is the evidence that sea level is rising, that wildfires, drought, and episodes of very high temperatures are increasing, and what is the evidence that such changes are our fault? Let’s take them one by one.

As is well-known, we are blamed for causing a global warming mainly because our burning of fossil fuels is increasing the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the atmosphere. Since this is a greenhouse gas, we must be warming the climate.

Yes, carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that gets so much attention, has increased greatly and rapidly, from 280 parts per million to 400, and as this graph shows, it is continuing that rapid rise.

Has Earth been warming?

Climate has always changed and is always changing. The last Ice Age, which covered places like what is now New York City with ice two miles deep, ended between 17,000 and 12,500 years ago, with overall but highly variable warming since then. Among the variations during the last thousand or so years, there was a warming period lasting approximately 300 years, from A.D. 950 to 1250, known as the Medieval Warm Period (warming compared to what climatologists today call “normal,” taken in general by today’s climatologists to mean the average surface temperature during the past century between 1960-1980 or between 1960–1990). This is the time when Vikings settled Greenland and reached North America, and when in the southern Pacific the Polynesians did a lot of their expansion among far-flung Pacific islands.

The Medieval Warming was followed by the “Little Ice Age,” which lasted from approximately mid-1400 to 1700 A.D and somewhat later. Crop failures occurred in western Europe, and some mountain glaciers in the Swiss Alps advanced to the extent that they filled valleys and destroyed villages. Areas to the north that had enjoyed abundant crop production were under ice. This was the time when the human population was devastated by the Black Plague, whose effects may have been exacerbated by poor nutrition as a result of crop failures, and by the damp and cold that reached out across Europe and even to Iceland by about 1400. It was also the time of the early European settlement of the United States. As I have written elsewhere, when the Pilgrims said it was a cold winter, it was a very cold winter.

A warming trend started in the mid-nineteenth century. This was interrupted from about 1940 to 1960 by a cooling, and then the temperature rose until about 20 years ago. An important scientific paper published September 1 this year states that Earth’s surface temperature has not changed for the past 19 years, and 16-26 years for the lower atmosphere. That’s the conclusion of University of Guelph statistician and Professor of Economics Ross R. McKitrick, who used a novel kind of statistical analysis. He points out that this lack of warming is of “particular note because climate models project continuing warming over the period. Since 1990, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose from 354 ppm to just under 400 ppm, a 13% increase.”

Carbon dioxide is definitely continuing to increase in the atmosphere, but Earth’s surface and atmospheric temperatures aren’t tracking it. Even though our activities are adding carbon dioxide rapidly to the atmosphere, it seems to be having no effect right now on Earth’s average surface and lower atmosphere temperature.

However, the UCS report blithely comments, “Climate models show that if our emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases remain high, Bakersfield could have almost 50 days of extreme heat, with temperatures reaching 104°F or more, by 2050—up from four days a year on average between 1961 and 1990.”

But if the temperature has not changed in 19 to 26 years, then how much credence can we give to this assertion? We must ask whether the climate models have been accurate predictors of recent climate change.

John Christy, the climatologist who is said to be the primary person responsible for the development of satellites that measure Earth’s temperature, compared the combined forecasts of major global climate models with observed temperature change since 1980. As you can see in his graph, there is no correspondence. The climate models do not even come close to forecasting actual temperature change; they forecast a huge, steady increase. In contrast, as you can see in the graph, the temperature has varied a little, as it always does, but as the new paper that I mentioned earlier asserts, it has not changed.

John Christy’s Comparison of Global Warming Model Forecasts

Actual Temperature Change since 1980 (Courtesy of John Christy, Alabama State Climatologist)

Thus the climate models cannot be considered reliable bases for forecasting the future. Indeed, other experts on model validation say that the climate models have never been sufficiently validated in any other ways as well, and therefore are not an accurate representation of the real world we live in. Conclusion: our addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere does not appear to be increasing Earth’s temperature.

Whatever is happening to Earth’s climate does not seem to be our fault.

Sea Level Rise

What about the claim that sea level rise is another factor “damaging archaeological resources, historic buildings, and cultural landscapes across the nation? Well, the sea level has been rising since the end of the last Ice Age, starting about 14,000 years ago as the continental and mountain glaciers have melted and sea water has expanded with the overall warming. The average rate has been about a foot or two a century (about 23-46 cm per century). Data suggest that the rate was much greater until about 8,000 years ago.

Yes, sea-level rise is definitely a problem, but it is not a problem simply because it is our fault. It is a problem that we just haven’t bothered to face up to in any serious way until the global warming issue captured our attention. Whether or not we are adding to the rate of sea level rise, this is causing problems and will continue to cause problems. It would be a mistake to focus on it only if we were convinced it was our fault. For many years past, we should have been planning for sea level rise, and we need to make this an important environmental priority.

Frequency of Severe Storms

The main concern often expressed about sea levels is that severe ocean storms do greater damage than indicated by the simple rise in the water level. Therefore, it is necessary for us to look at how the frequency of severe storms has changed over time. Underlying the claim by the UCS report that 12 of the 16 sites are in danger of flooding is the assumption that the frequency of severe storms has increased, as have their landfalls. But the graphs below of severe storm frequency, show variation over time but no overall increase. Therefore, during the recent past the claim by the UCS report is contradicted. And since the climate models don’t even come close to forecasting temperature change, we cannot trust them to forecast changes in storm frequency.

Number of Severe Storms affecting the United States since 1970

(Courtesy of Roger Pielke Jr., Professor in the Environmental Studies Program, University of Colorado, from his House of Representatives Testimony 11 December 2013)

Frequency of Extremely Hot Days

This is controversial, because it is difficult to get information that summarizes these trends for the entire United States, and there are a variety of opinions and discussions about these data, so I put this into the article with some caution to the reader. But several graphs indicate that there has not been an increase in the average number of very hot days. For example, this graph shows days with temperatures above 95° F. This graph is based on the summary from all United States Historical Climatology Network weather stations that have been in operation since 1930.

Wildfire Frequency in the U.S. Has Not Increased

The UCS report claims that two historic sites within the National Park System are being, and will be, damaged by increases in wildfire frequency. But once again, a graph from the U.S. government agencies involved, of number of wildfires, shows no increase.

Furthermore, it is well-established that most major wildfires that occur these days are from the failure to allow much more frequent, and therefore light fires, to burn. The 20th century policy dominated by Smokey Bear — “only you can prevent forest fires” — and the belief, ill-founded, that all forest and grassland fires are bad and must be prevented — have had a damaging effect.

Wildfire Frequency

(Source EPA http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/)

As I wrote in my latest book, The Moon in the Nautilus Shell, this Smokey Bear policy also caused the extinction of Kirtland’s warbler, which nests in young jack pine, a tree species that regenerates only after fire. It was only when ornithologists realized the population had dropped in half in a decade and that fire suppression was the cause that the Audubon Society, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the state of Michigan began prescribed burning programs.

As I also discuss in that book, excellent work by Professor Wallace Covington of Northern Arizona University, involving careful historical analysis of the pre-European ponderosa pine forests of that state, followed by careful removal of excess fuel and trees, followed by prescribed burns every 3 to 5 years, as was the natural rate—restored some of these forests to their beautiful and natural condition: large pines widely spaced with grasses filling the land between. In contrast, next door to his experimental forests is one of The Nature Conservancy ponderosa pine protected, no-touch areas, which does not resemble the pre-European ponderosa pine forests at all, but instead forms a very dense stand of young, small trees and a lot of fuel on the ground, just waiting for a wildfire.

Carefully managed Ponderosa Pine Forest, with excess fuel built up over more than a century removed and light fires every 3 to 5 years (Photo by the author)

Next to the strongly managed forest is a Nature Conservancy no-touch Ponderosa Pine Preserve. (Photo by the author)

Alternate Text

What Should be Done About Sea Level Rise and Wildfires and Our National Parks?

As I have shown, observations do not support the claim that our activities are currently warming the globe. Does this mean that we should stop worrying about climate change? Of course not. Because sea level has been rising for thousands of years, the encroachment of ocean waters and damage from ocean storms have been problems for coastal structures, which we have just ignored. We have to face up to these. But arguing about whether this is our fault or not is beside the point and detracts us away from doing anything useful, as we focus instead of what can best be called a fairy-tale debate. The same must be said about wildfires. For decades, experts on wildfires have been calling for improved management of America’s forests, and the need remains important. We must remember Frederick Law Olmsted’s approach to designing the Back Bay Fens— solve the problem, do not waste your time arguing if we are to blame.

However, global warming has become the sole focus of so much environmental discussion that it risks eclipsing much more pressing and demonstrable environmental problems. The major damage that we as a species are doing here and now to the environment is not getting the attention it deserves.

We need to keep in mind the reality of Nature, which I have portrayed in a replacement for Smokey Bear: Morph the Moose (Copyright and trademarked by the author).

Alternate Text

Comments

Submitted by Jim Burnett on October 26, 2014 – 7:45am.

Interesting article. These points caught my eye:

On topics such as climate change and sea level rise, he notes, “….arguing about whether this is our fault or not is beside the point and detracts us away from doing anything useful.”

“…global warming has become the sole focus of so much environmental discussion that it risks eclipsing much more pressing and demonstrable environmental problems. The major damage that we as a species are doing here and now to the environment is not getting the attention it deserves.”

He makes some valid comments about wildfire policy, but his summary of recent wildfire statistics needs a little closer look. While he notes that “Wildfire Frequency in the U.S. Has Not Increased” since 1980, statistics from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) offers some other key data.

For example, the number of acres burned has been considerably larger since the year 2000. Between 1969 through 2013 (23 years) a total of 6 million acres or more were burned in only 3 years; between 2000 and 2013, that threshold was reached 8 times.

Federal costs for wildfire suppression? Prior to 2000, that total never reached $1 billion; since 2000, those costs have exceeded $1 billion for 12 of the 14 years.

NIFC has compiled a table summarizing Historically Significant Wildland Fires(between 1803 and Aug 2013). That table lists 78 wildfires over a 210 year span; 25 of those listed (nearly 1/3 have occurred since the year 2000).

Whether or not wildfire policy or climate change are the cause, the fact is we’ve had a significant increase in the impacts of wildfires, based on several measures, in the past decade or so.

Why People who Support Wind Farms are Either Deluded, Criminals, or Insane!!!

October 10, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

James Delingpole: Ten Reasons why People who Support Wind Farms Are Deluded, Criminal or Insane

October 10, 2014 by stopthesethings

Ten Reasons why People who Support Wind Farms Are Deluded, Criminal or Insane.
Which One Are You, Vince Cable?
Breitbart.com
James Delingpole
8 October 2014

Opposing wind farms is “irrational”, claimed Liberal Democrat MP Vince Cable at his party conference yesterday.

Actually, no. Here are some reasons why anyone who doesn’t oppose wind farms is most probably either deluded, criminal or insane.

1. Wind turbines kill bats on an industrial scale – nearly 30 million a year in the US alone, according to some estimates. This is somewhat ironic since most of those pushing for more wind are ardent greenies, who presumably understand that the reason bats are such a heavily protected species is that their breeding cycle is so slow and their life cycle so long – making them especially vulnerable when a breeding pair is killed.

2. Wind turbines kill birds on an industrial scale. Between 110 and 330 birds per turbine per year, according to the Spanish conservation charity SEO/Birdlife – though other research puts the mortality rate as high as 895. In the US, they have killed tens of thousands of raptors including golden eagles and America’s national bird, the bald eagle. In Spain, they threaten the Egyptian and Griffon vulture. In Australia, they have driven the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle close to extinction. Yet bizarrely wind farms are supported by bird charities including the RSPB, because their ideological commitment to “clean energy” trumps the interests of birds, apparently.

3. Wind turbines produce Low Frequency Noise and infrasound, which can cause those who live nearby a range of health problems including insomnia, raised cortisol levels, headaches, panic attacks, tachycardia, nausea, mood swings, palpitations, depression. The corrupt wind industry has known about this for years – with the complicity of certain tame acousticians – contrived to cover up the problem, recognising that if ever the word gets into the public domain the lawsuits are going to be immense.

4. Wind turbines have terrible impacts on animals besides birds and bats. They have caused stillbirth and deformations in livestock; they can turn healthy, responsive dogs into nervous wrecks. In Denmark they caused the premature births of 1600 mink at a fur farm. In Canada they caused the closure of an emu farm popular with tourists, because the turbines made the docile birds (which cost $3,000 a pair) aggressive.

5. Wind turbines kill jobs. According to research by Gabriel Calzada Alvarez of the Rey Carlos university in Madrid, they destroy 2.2 jobs in the real economy for every Potemkin job (“green job”) created by government malinvestment. Separate research suggests that the damage in the UK may be even higher: 3.7 real jobs lost for every fake green one created.

6. Wind turbines are like a reverse Robin Hood, lining the pockets of the rent-seeking rich – such as Prime Minister David Cameron’s father-in-law,Sir Reginald Sheffield, Bt, who makes a £1000 a day just for sitting on his arse while the eight turbines on his Leicestershire estate turn idly in the breeze – at the expense of the ordinary energy user. If this were free market capitalism, fine. But it’s not: it’s the exact opposite – crony capitalism in which economic favours are handed out not by the market but by government fiat. This is the kind of state-endorsed social injustice of which bloody revolutions are made.

7. Wind turbines – as any rural community which has tried fighting the heavily-rigged planning system will know – are disruptive, divisive and unjust. They turn neighbour against neighbour. They force country folk who really would have preferred to do other things with their lives to expend vast quantities of money, time and energy trying desperately to preserve the character and charm of their neighbourhood by fighting wind projects with all their might. Often – that rigged planning system – they fail. So one local person gets rich, earning perhaps £30,000 a year per turbine on his land. But everyone else suffers in the form of blighted views, reduced property values, noise disturbance etc.

8. Wind turbines are economically pointless. Because the “energy” they produce is unreliable, unpredictable and intermittent (sometimes the wind blows; sometimes it doesn’t; sometimes it blows so hard that the turbines have to be switched off) it has no genuine market value. Electricity users want electricity as and when they need it, not when the wind deigns to blow. That’s why it has to be so heavily subsidised by the taxpayer – because without bribes no developer would risk the capital outlay on something so unproductive. And it’s why wind energy has constantly to be backed up by more conventional power like coal, gas and oil. One 25 hectare fracking site and one medium sized fossil fuel power station can produce the same amount of energy as ALL the wind turbines in Britain.

9. Wind farms are partly responsible for the thousands of people who die every year of fuel poverty. (Plus, of course, all those people who’ve been fatally injured in turbine fires, air crashes, or by flying blades – for full details see here.) This is because, being so disproportionately expensive – between roughly twice and three times the cost of conventional fossil fuel power, depending on whether we’re talking onshore or offshore wind – and being, by government order, a compulsory part of our “energy mix”, they drive up energy to artificially high levels. The carbon saving benefits of wind farms are largely imaginary; the effects on “global warming” marginal to illusory; but the people who actually die each year, unable to afford their rising fuel bills, are very, very real.

10. Wind farms are a blot on the landscape. They just are. And don’t give me any of that “Well I think they’re rather handsome actually” crap. Your warped personal aesthetics ought not to be anyone’s problem but your own.
Breitbart.com

Not a bad start there, James. STT is sure our followers can easily tack a few more to your solid little list.

Governments the World Over, Try to Evade Responsibility for Harming Citizens with Wind Turbines!

August 21, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

From Scotland: Turbines and the health risk

by ashbee2

The Herald Scotland — 13 August 2014
I WAS interested in the Scottish Government’s response to the Winds for Justice concerns about the health implications of wind turbines on those living in close proximity to them (“Protesters fight wind farms on grounds of health”, The Herald, August 11) when it said there was “no clear evidence of a causal link between the operation of wind turbines and adverse health effects”.

I WAS interested in the Scottish Government’s response to the Winds for Justice concerns about the health implications of wind turbines on those living in close proximity to them (\”Protesters fight wind farms on grounds of health\”, The Herald, August 11) when it said there was \”no clear evidence of a causal link between the operation of wind turbines and adverse health effects\”.
Sorry, you must sign in before you can print full articles.

In April, 2012, The British Medical Journal reviewed the consequences of wind turbine noise and available evidence and concluded at that stage that “wind turbine noise seems to affect health adversely and an independent review of evidence is needed”.

With the thousands of wind turbines already in operation in Scotland and many thousands more planned, the health implications should be of concern to the Scottish Government and at least until further studies and review of the evidence, as suggested by the British Medical Journal, no more should be constructed within two kilometres of homes.

The Scottish Government was made aware at the time of the BMJ article but chose not to take it on board.

Dr James Weir,

Glenlora Cottage,

Lochwinnoch.

Faux-Green Renewable Energy is NOT Good In Any Way! It’s a nightmare!

August 19, 2014August 19, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Green Energy Threatens All Flying Creatures

Posted on August 19, 2014by stevengoddard

On July 4, President Obama gave permission for wind farms to kill the national bird.

Solar is just as bad, or worse

Emerging solar plants scorch birds in mid-air – The Washington Post

Environmental organizations have permitted their mindless fear about CO2, to completely corrupt their core principles.

	How The Climate Grif… on There is NO Global Warming…
	Bob Bateman on Government-Induced Climaphobia…
	William Hooi on Germany’s Renewable Energy Dis…
	Jessica on Issues for Landowners to Consi…
	Raymond on Poorest Families Left Powerles…

Australia PM adviser says climate change is ‘UN-led ruse to establish new world order’

Tony Abbott’s business adviser says global warming a fallacy supported by United Nations to ‘create a new authoritarian world order under its control’

The Great Wind Power Fraud: Just the Tip of the Climate Change Hysteria Spending Iceberg

ABC’s “Ministry of Truth” – Media Watch – Cops Both Barrels from Graham Lloyd

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Wind auction sees low interest

Climate Is Changing, And Some Parks Are Endangered, But Humans Aren’t The Cause

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James Delingpole: Ten Reasons why People who Support Wind Farms Are Deluded, Criminal or Insane