liberal fail!

We are Wasting Precious Time and Money on Faux-Green Renewables!

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June 27, 2014

Photovoltaic Energy Is Not Renewable Energy

By David Archibald

Photovoltaic (PV) power is created from a burst of coal-sourced energy priced at 4 cents/kWh, which you get back as an intermittent and declining dribble over the following 20 years at 15 cents/kWh.  The numbers vary with location, but the basic relationship remains the same – at best, the energy produced by PV panels is at least four times the cost of the power consumed in making them.

That is one thing.  The main thing is that over their lifetimes, PV panels now produce slightly more energy than what it took to make them.

So a civilization that relies upon PV power is just getting its energy back, but at four times the cost.  If PV power were used only to make PV panels, and even assuming no energy losses in the process, then PV power at 15 cents/kWh would produce panels that made power at 60 cents per kWh, and so on to infinity.  So there is nothing renewable about PV power.

There are some applications in PV power is very useful, such as pumping irrigation water, in which the requirement is too small to justify a diesel pump or the cost of extending grid power to the site.  In fact, PV power is well under the cost of power from diesel – you just can’t access it at a time of your choosing.  It also has a role where high-priced grid power and reticulation costs make it competitive.  But it can’t pretend to be renewable or sustainable.  Apart from those niche applications, it bleeds energy and treasure from our civilisation.

The economics of wind power might be a net positive, but a wind-powered economy would have a standard of living similar to that of 17th-century Holland.  One rule of thumb is that each megawatt of wind power used in the grid requires half a megawatt of gas turbine backup.  That is why some of the major oil companies have been so much in favor of renewable energy.  It tricks us into burning a higher-cost fossil fuel.

Making cheap energy from a process requires that the energy produced from that process be at least five times the amount of energy that went into making it.  Anything less than that, and civilization will go backward very rapidly.  Instead of mandating renewable energy and installing PV panels, we should be concentrating on developing the technology that will sustain civilization in the post-fossil fuel eternity.

In that regard, we have a choice: either plutonium breeder reactors or thorium breeder reactors.  We should make the choice and get on with it.

David Archibald, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., is the author of Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short (Regnery, 2014).

We’ve all Had to Deal With These Kind of People, from Time to Time!

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Fifteen Things You Probably Do Not Know about Psychopaths

By James G. Long

Have you ever worked for someone who you seriously thought might be crazy?  About half of all workers have such an experience within a lifetime.  The other half misses out on one of life’s most perplexing and educational opportunities.

The subject is psychopathy.  Knowledge and understanding of psychopathy is now advancing, and at an accelerating rate, after a decades-long period of no growth and slow growth.  Good thing!  Psychopathy is the very worst mental disorder; psychopathy and related conditions have cost millions of lives lost and trillions of dollars wasted, though it is still very poorly understood by most people.  I am now speaking not as a medical or psychological professional, but as a professional project engineering manager who has been faced with numerous severe personnel and management problems not addressed in engineering or business school.

Psychopathy is without a doubt the most destructive, the most deadly, and the least comprehensible of mental disorders.  So, to promote understanding of psychopathy, the following points are offered:

  1. Briefly – A psychopath is a person with a very nasty personality who builds a more attractive and very fake personality to cover his frauds, transgressions, and, sometimes, murders.  A representative sample of people psychologically assessed as psychopaths includes Casey Anthony, who allegedly killed her daughter; John Wayne Gacy, who murdered and sodomized thirty-three young men and who was executed; and Jeff Skilling, who was CEO of Enron when it was destroyed in the largest corporate fraud case in history, and who is now in prison.  Andrew Lobaczewski was a psychologist in Poland during the Cold War who identified Stalin as a psychopath.
  1. Rational – Psychopaths are quite rational.  Psychopaths’ minds work no better and no worse than yours, except that psychopaths have a big void where most people have a conscience and moral values.  In a family setting, a psychopath typically abuses the spouse and children and is respected and is even well thought of by outsiders.  In a working environment, psychopaths choose their victims from lower-ranking individuals and take care to act properly around higher-ranking individuals.  In national and international relations, psychopaths create and exploit divisions based on ethnic, religious, national, or class differences.\

    On first being exposed to a psychopath, a person may be quite favorably impressed.Odd things then begin to happen.Subordinates soon observe incomprehensible behaviors, including pathological dishonesty, and begin to think that the psychopath is “crazy” – or, more technically, he is psychotic.But a psychopath is not psychotic.Psychopathy is a personality disorder, and psychopaths at their worst may start wars or create worldwide financial disasters.Psychopaths are substantially or totally devoid of human feelings: no sympathy, no empathy, no guilt, no remorse, no conscience, and no sense of humor.

    Psychopaths are quite predatory.Not only are psychopaths without human feelings, but they are, deep down, contemptuous of all with whom they deal: superiors, subordinates, supporters, opponents, associates, and family alike.Psychopaths genuinely think that they are better and smarter than everyone else, an impression that psychopath enablers fully endorse (think Chris Matthews or the German General Staff during WWII).

  1. Mental Disorders – The primary indicators for psychopathy are anti-social personality disorder and malignant narcissism personality disorder, plus tendencies toward criminal behaviors and an inability to establish mature sexual relationships.  These mental disorders are recognized in theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), though the DSM and the criteria for these mental disorders have been through many revisions as knowledge develops and fashions change.
  1. Measurement – Formal measurement of psychopathy is performed by a trained professional using Dr. Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Check List – Revised (PCL-R), consisting of twenty-one items such as pathological dishonesty, parasitic lifestyle, and irresponsibility.  Not all of the items are required to assess a psychopathic condition.  Neurological exams may be used to confirm damage or defect in the brain.  Electroencephalograms (EEGs), functional Magnetic Resonant Imaging (fMRI), and Computerized Axial Tomography scans (CAT scans) are highly effective in confirming neurological abnormalities; Dr. Hare has done much original research in this area to confirm diagnoses of psychopathy.  On a macro scale, psychopaths are inefficient, incompetent, and corrupt, much like the Soviet Union.  Psychopathy is thought to be incurable at this time.
  1. Control – Psychopaths want to control you – physically, emotionally, sexually, financially, and politically.  Psychopaths want to control your soft drinks, your ability to defend yourself, your health care, and your life.
  1. Occurrence – Psychopaths are thought to be about one percent of the population.  Dr. Hare has noted that the occurrence of corporate psychopaths ranges up to four percent of corporate executives; psychopaths with the proper schooling and qualifications are attracted to positions of wealth and power, and they manipulate themselves into positions of responsibility and authority.
  1. Masks – There are few overt characteristics to distinguish a psychopath from the general population, within which the psychopath can easily blend.  Dr. Cleckley’s 1941 book, which first described clinical psychopathy, was entitled The Mask of Sanity.  The “mask” to which Dr. Cleckley referred takes different forms.  Ted Bundy wore fake bandages and fake arm and leg casts to attract sympathetic young women, whom he subsequently murdered.  Corporate psychopaths typically collect and ostentatiously display degrees, certifications, and awards as proof of their abilities while committing their often subtle frauds.  Jeff Skilling at Enron in particular had a rock-solid resume, including an MBA from Harvard and a partnership in McKinsey and Company, a premier business consultancy company.  Skilling is now in prison for the greatest case of corporate fraud in history, with thousands of careers disrupted and billions of dollars of corporate value lost.
  1. Causes – Neurological defect or injury is often associated with psychopathy, though some cases have no known causative factors.  Cases have been reported of identical twins, one psychopathic, the other not.  Stalin, Hitler, and Saddam Hussein exhibited traits common to psychopaths, and each had been subject to abusive or neglectful parenting, possibly resulting in psychological damage.  There is another possible factor relating to an outsider status.  Napoleon was not French, but Corsican.  Lenin was not Russian, but Kalmyk and Turkic.  Stalin was not Russian, but Georgian.  And Hitler was not German, but Austrian.
  1. Flavors – By far, most psychopaths operate on a family and community level, destroying family relationships, committing crimes and misdemeanors, and rotating in and out of mental hospitals, jails, and prisons, and then back into the community.  But many psychopaths tend to come in other distinct flavors depending on their personalities.  Serial-murder psychopaths and corporate psychopaths were previously mentioned.  Other flavors include military, religious, financial, and political psychopaths.  Dr. Clive Boddy made a convincing argument that the 2008 financial meltdown was the product of financial and political psychopaths.

    The rarest of psychopathic types is the intellectual psychopath.Karl Marx, Saul Alinsky, and Cloward-Piven come to mind.   Both Marx and Alinsky displayed psychopathic traits and inspired other psychopaths to infiltrate and sometimes forcibly seize governments, followed by characteristic psychopathic inefficiency, incompetence, and corruption in the administration of the state.

  1. Psychopath Enablers and Supporters – Family and local psychopath enablers are well-identified and can be researched on the internet.  Political psychopath enablers were institutionalized by Antonio Gramsci in his concept of “Corporate Communism,” wherein Marxists were to infiltrate and take over cultural institutions: academia, media, legal, courts, and political parties.
  1. Creativity – Creative psychopaths are often audacious and leave people surprised and off balance, as when Hitler invaded the Sudetenland or when Putin invaded Crimea.  Corporate psychopaths are often credited with being creative even as their organizations suffer massive personnel turnover and financial loss.
  1. Tough Reputation – Beyond the items on Dr. Hare’s PCL-R, psychopaths cultivate a reputation for toughness, but that does not mean that they get good results.  In reality, they are just very nasty personalities who abuse subordinates and may commit crimes.  Rahm Emanuel (now failing as mayor of Chicago) and Rod Blagojevich (now in prison) fall in this category.
  1. Recognizing Psychopathy – Many psychologists have different interpretations of conditions similar to psychopathy.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are virtually the only institutions that unequivocally accept and utilize Dr. Hare’s findings on psychopathy in solving crimes and profiling criminals and criminal psychopaths.  The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) specifically recognizes the “bully boss” but ignores the “psychopathic boss.”  By whatever label, the two designations are indistinguishable for personnel turnover, financial losses, and criminal behaviors.
  1. Failure – In practical terms, psychopaths always fail, and psychopathic failure creates misery for families, communities, and nations.  Political psychopaths and their systems fail in the manner that the Soviet Union failed, leaving massive social and economic costs for their supporters and for their opponents.  This is exactly what one might expect from the world’s most severe mental disorder.  Long-running psychopathic systems such as militant Islam and Marxism typically endure periods of success alternating with failure, during which massive social and economic losses are endured by everyone, supporters and opponents alike.
  1. Ending Psychopathic Expression – Dr. Hare and associates are increasingly capable of identifying a psychopath at an early age.  Many conditions are medically or legally sanctioned (eyeglasses may be required for a driver’s license), and psychopathy should be in this category, with psychopaths limited in their opportunities to control others.  The Tyee had a novel but quite workable approach to corporate psychopathy: require all corporate executives to have performance insurance, with denial of insurance to those who cannot pass a psychopathy screening exam.  Internationally, the best strategy appears to be to contain psychopathic states and let them die of their own corruption, as the Soviet Union did.

Psychopathy is a common and extremely destructive mental disorder that afflicts not only the psychopath, but whole communities, nations, and the world.  We now have the tools to identify and mitigate psychopathy, if we can develop the will to do so.

James G. Long has been an army captain, a professional engineer, an author, and a blogger, with a lifelong interest in organizational management problems.  

Excellent Open Letter to B.M.A., by Christine Metcalfe.

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Open letter to President of BMA

Credit:  Christine Metcalfe, 21.06.14. ~~

 

Dear Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran,

Although a very short time has elapsed since receipt of the last BMA reply on behalf of Mr. Bourne, it has been spent in serious thought and deep discussion with colleagues. Revisiting all reports and past research has made it possible here to give only a ‘tip of the iceberg/snapshot’ overview of these rapidly burgeoning problems. Please be aware that this final request is therefore made not only on behalf of the rising numbers of people suffering harm, but the many destined to join them should nothing be done to avert this. Health professionals, technical expects, engineers and others strive to have the implications of their valid findings fully understood by more of their peers and most importantly, the public.

This is why the decision was made to write to you as President of the BMA, to ensure your organisation’s attention is focused on an increasingly important health subject – namely the adverse health effects from exposure to operating wind turbines. I am referring specifically to wind turbine noise which includes infrasound and low frequency noise, which are not currently measured by the current noise pollution guidelines and regulations in the UK, (ETSU 97) despite wind industry knowledge since the 1980’s resulting from the NASA/Kelley research in the USA that wind turbine impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise directly caused a range of “annoyance” symptoms including sleep disturbance.

Responses received from your organisation’s Public Affairs Officer, reportedly from your CEO, appear to be using various pretexts to avoid both addressing this issue, and answering my specific questions. It will hopefully be understood that no offence to staff who have replied as instructed, is intended. With respect, it remains the case that, to my knowledge, neither your CEO nor your public affairs officer have medical degrees, and therefore are not bound by the medical codes of ethics which include the proviso to “first do no harm”.

The current widespread practice in the UK of continuing to ignore this issue is doing immense harm to the health of an increasing number of rural residents. Urban areas will become involved if current separation distances (only advised)remain and developments are installed near larger populations.

Despite the fact that no motions are currently on the table for your ARM, deliberately ignoring the issues I am raising demonstrates an alarming attempt by your organisation’s paid employees to evade a responsibility incumbent upon your organisation’s stated remit to inform members. It is clear that the BMA have a duty midway between resistance to political agendas which could interfere with their remit, and the clear requirements set out in their constitution.

No organisation with total inflexibility within rules when an obvious need for relaxation arises, can avoid working against the best interests of its members and ultimately in this case, the public they serve. So to avoid the BMA becoming part of the problem instead of actively participating in finding a solution, it is hoped that a route will be found to allow this subject to be raised at the coming meeting.

Given that your particular field of speciality is Obstetrics & Gynaecology, the reported effects from wind turbine noise of severe physiological stress and sleep deprivation should be of concern, as the consequences of both severe chronic stress and severe chronic sleep deprivation are well known to adversely affect both human fertility, and the health of women and babies during pregnancy and therefore foetal birth and health outcomes.

The recent report of miscarriages, stillbirths and birth deformities in mink in Denmark correlating directly with the start up of operation of four large VESTAS V 112 wind turbines in close proximity, provides clear evidence of adverse animal health impacts from wind turbine noise which have direct relevance for human populations. This information was included in material previously forwarded to the BMA and adds weight to the warnings given relating to human groups’ vulnerability from being forced to live in proximity to wind turbines.

In addition there are reports of disturbed fertility and menstrual cycles in women living near wind turbines in Denmark, Canada and Australia from both residents and health professionals.

Just some of the health professionals, including particularly medical practitioners, and acoustic experts and researchers who have firsthand knowledge of the severity of the reported health problems who are calling for urgent multidisciplinary research in this area include:

Professor Bob McMurtry, Dr Roy Jeffery, Associate Professor Jeff Aramini, Carmen Krogh and Mr William Palmer from Canada; Dr Alan Watts, Dr Wayne Spring, Dr David Iser, Dr Gary Hopkins, Dr Andja Mitric Andjic, Dr Sarah Laurie, Mr Les Huson, Mr Steven Cooper, Emeritus Professor Colin Hansen and Dr Bob Thorne from Australia; and Associate Professor Rick James, Mr Rob Rand, Mr Stephen Ambrose, Emeritus Professor Jerry Punch, Dr Jay Tibbetts, Dr Sandy Reider, Dr Nina Pierpont, Dr David Lawrence, Dr Paul Schomer, Mr George Hessler, and Dr Bruce Walker from the USA. There are others from Europe who are also becoming increasingly vocal on this issue as wind turbines increase in size and are being placed close to larger human populations.

I therefore ask that the UK BMA publicly resolve to support multidisciplinary independent research, such as the government in Australia has committed to do, and which other jurisdictions have commenced and which in some instances have completed, confirming wind turbine noise associated sleep deprivation, and inner ear problems, including the Ministry for the Environment in Ontario. These are issues which have been shamefully ignored by many UK authorities and medical practitioners to date.

As your Constitution confirms, human rights issues are a BMA concern, this being so, I refer you to pages 22–26 of the document “Leave no Marks” by the Physicians for Human Rights, where the clinical consequences and the legal precedents relating to torture from sleep deprivation and sensory bombardment from noise and light are clearly elucidated. Torture is clearly a human rights issue, so too sleep deprivation and sensory bombardment. This is precisely what many rural residents living near wind turbines in the UK are experiencing and have been reporting since Dr Amanda Harry’s survey, conducted in 2003.

I refer you specifically to Part 1 and Article 1 of the UN Convention against torture …

Article 1.

1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as … or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

So, it could be successfully argued that a form of torture is being intentionally inflicted, because public officials have been told about it repeatedly and yet they are doing absolutely nothing to address the situation or prevent the known and established harm to human health. Should the defence be that this is not intentional, then it is at the very least gross negligence and dereliction of their statutory duty of care, or perhaps “wilful blindness”.

This distressing situation has resulted from the failure of many government public officials including those working in the respective government departments, e.g. DEFRA, DECC, local health environmental health officers, and medical practitioners working for the NHS to deal properly with this issue, despite being made well aware of the severity of the health problems, and the chronic sleep deprivation from wind turbine noise. Despite its resultant serious, known and predictable adverse health effects, these public officials have done nothing to address the root cause of the problems – wind turbine noise pollution – or to stop the cause of the sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation alone is itself acknowledged to be a form of torture and is described as such by the rural residents who are so badly affected.

The Adverse Health Impacts from IWT’s attachment included in past exchanges included direct reports from those citizens affected and this is again included for your attention. The Davis case is referenced. That made it clear that noise nuisance was occurring for that UK family, and the fact that the developer settled rather than having the case heard to completion in the UK High Court confirms that view. Unfortunately the Davis family are unable to speak of their experiences – they have been silenced with a broad non disclosure clause. Use of such clauses has been reported in the UK, Canada, the USA, New Zealand and Australia and indicates the wind industry has much to hide.

The BMJ editorial in 2012 (over 2 years ago) raised wind turbine noise related sleep disturbance as an issue requiring attention. It is an entirely reasonable request that the BMA itself addresses the issue via its most senior officer bearers, and does not choose to continue to ignore it.

To add further to the ground base of information possibly not yet seen I have attached the Salt and Lichtenhan article describing how wind turbine noise affects people. The advice to acousticians extract below (my emphasis) is particularly relevant.

The primary role of acousticians should be to protect and serve society from negative influences of noise exposure. In the case of wind turbine noise, it appears that many have been failing in that role. For years, they have sheltered behind the mantra, now shown to be false, that has been presented repeatedly in many forms such as: “What you can’t hear, can’t affect you.”; “If you cannot hear a sound you cannot perceive it in other ways and it does not affect you.”; “Infrasound from wind turbines is below the audible threshold and of no consequence.”; “Infrasound is negligible from this type of turbine.”; “I can state categorically that there is no significant infrasound from current designs of wind turbines.” All of these statements assume that hearing, derived from low-frequency-insensitive IHC responses, is the only mechanism by which low frequency sound can affect the body.We know this assumption is false and blame its origin on a lack of detailed understanding of the physiology of the ear.

The WHO 2009 Night Noise Guidelines for Europe about the effects of chronic severe sleep disturbance are a particularly important and relevant source of information, e.g.

2.1.2 DEFINITIONS OF DISTURBED SLEEP.

Sleep disorders are described and classified in the International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD) (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2005).

When sleep is permanently disturbed and becomes a sleep disorder, it is classified in the ICSD 2005 as “environmental sleep disorder”. Environmental sleep disorder (of which noise-induced sleep disturbance is an example) is a sleep disturbance due to a disturbing environmental factor that causes a complaint of either insomnia or daytime fatigue and somnolence. Secondary deficits may result, including deficits in concentration, attention and cognitive performance, reduced vigilance, daytime fatigue, malaise, depressed mood and irritability.

The attached letter to the AMA from Bruce Rapley BSc, MPhil, PhD, Principal Consultant, Acoustics and Human Health, relates audibility and infrasound effects from turbines and clearly summarises the known science and the consequences of ignoring what is known.

I am asking you personally to consider that by their example, those members of the United Kingdom medical fraternity who have acted according to their Hippocratic oaths – to name but a few, Dr Bridgit Osborne, Dr Amanda Harry, Dr Christopher Hanning, Mr A Farboud, Mr R Crunkhorn and Mr A Trinidade, together with Professor Alun Evans and Dr Colette Bonner from Ireland, have blazed a trail of which the UK Medical Profession can be rightly proud.

However, there is now an ethical responsibility for the current BMA office bearers to support much broader discussion of the subject regardless of current and past government policy, in order to prevent further “irreparable harm to physical and psychological health” as described in theFalmouth USA case where in December 2013 Justice Muse ordered an immediate injunction for wind turbines to be turned off at night, so people whose health had already been badly damaged on the basis of evidence presented to him, could sleep.

There is also an urgent need for the BMA to openly support multidisciplinary research together with the development and enforcement of health protective wind turbine noise pollution regulations and planning regulations in the UK. The current planning regulations and wind turbine noise guidelines in the UK are operating as a “licence to harm” UK rural residents. I am sure you will agree that this is unacceptable.

Finally, I am again presenting below for your attention and response, the questions which I request that your organisation answers.

Apologies are due for the length of this letter, but the importance and breadth of the subject matter defied my best attempts to reduce contents.

With thanks for your kind attention.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. V.C.K. Metcalfe.

Questions.

1. Do you accept the evidence that sleep deprivation from wind turbine noise is occurring, and that sleep deprivation is extremely serious and health damaging? You will have presumably have seen Prof Alun Evan’s recent review and also the Arra and Lynn review, by two public health physicians in Canada which supported the concerns expressed in 2012 about wind turbine noise by Dr Chris Hanning and Professor Alun Evans published in the BMJ – your own journal.

2. Would you support turning wind turbines off at night if there are noise complaints, so that people can sleep?

3. Would you support conducting urgent multidisciplinary research involving full spectrum acoustic monitoring inside homes, and concurrent physiological monitoring of EEG, heart rate, blood pressure and sequential cortisol in those people who are reporting adverse health effects?

4. Has the BMA or any of its members ever received any money or gifts, either directly or indirectly from the wind industry? There are reports that some surgeries have been refurbished via “community grants” from wind developers.

5. As has been previously requested, what is your complaints procedure?

[Click here to read follow-up letter.]

The Left-wing Government of Ontario, is Destroying our Economy.

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Government stifles business in Ontario and Quebec, report says

BARRIE MCKENNA

OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Jun. 25 2014, 12:00 AM EDT

Canada is becoming a country of two solitudes when it comes to business investment.

Provinces are increasingly falling into one of two camps, according to a report being released Wednesday by the C.D. Howe Institute. In the West, business spending powers the economy. In much of the rest of the country, government spending is swallowing an ever greater share of economic activity, most notably in Ontario and Quebec.

The report puts a new spin on the “dead money” debate and why Canadian companies have been running up growing cash reserves since the recession.

The C.D. Howe report theorizes that governments in parts of the country may be crowding out and dissuading private investment.

Canada’s corporate cash holdings have continued to grow in recent months, according to Statistics Canada. Non-financial companies had cash holdings of $630-billion in the first quarter, up from $621-billion in the final three months of last year.

Part of the reason is that some provinces are creating a more business-friendly environment, while others are scaring away investment, argued the report’s author, Philip Cross, the former chief economic analyst at Statistics Canada and member of the C.D. Howe Institute’s Business Cycle Council.

“It’s not a case of dead money and companies not willing to invest,” he said in an interview. “You can see that in certain provinces, they are willing to invest like mad men.”

It’s more than just about the Alberta oil sands and other resources projects, Mr. Cross said. “The West has had resources for a long time. What unlocked them were good policies,” he said.

Mr. Cross said the blockage lies in Quebec, Ontario and much of Atlantic Canada, where high deficits and the prospect of higher taxes are crowding out access to capital and discouraging business investment, according to Mr. Cross.

And efforts to kickstart business investment with government money clearly are not working, he explained. “If I was a firm in Ontario, what I’m planning for next year is a hike in minimum wages, higher income taxes and the introduction of a new pension plan,” he said. “I’m dealing with all these things and I’m not planning on the future of my firm.”

Private-sector investment has grown rapidly in all four western provinces, particularly since the resource boom took off in 2003. In Alberta, business investment as a share of GDP reached 25.5 per cent in 2012, the highest of any province. Public-sector investment has stabilized at less than 3 per cent.

In much of the rest of the country, there has been a “marked shift” the other way. In Quebec and Ontario, for example, private-sector investment slumped to 7 per cent of GDP in 2012 from 10 per cent in the 1990s. Government spending in Quebec is now the highest in the country at 5.7 per cent of GDP. In Ontario, it’s roughly 4 per cent, up from 3 per cent in the mid-2000s.

A separate report released Tuesday by Toronto-Dominion Bank presents a much rosier picture of the investment environment. Senior economist Randall Bartlett is predicting that business investment is poised to “rev up” in Canada over the next two years after a long slump.

He says six things will drive investment – the strengthening U.S. economy, a rebound in corporate profits, stronger corporate balance sheets, shrinking spare capacity, low interest rates and growing business optimism.

Business investment will lead GDP growth over the next couple of years, expanding at an annual rate of 4 to 5 per cent through the rest of 2014 and in 2015, the report said. “As investment increases, so does productivity, and ultimately wages and incomes in the long term,” Mr. Bartlett said.

Follow BARRIE McKENNA on Twitter: @barriemckenna

Can Noise Make You Sick?….You Bet It Can!

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June 26 2014
By JEROME BURNE

plane taking off afp

AFP

A similar study last year by the School of Public Health at Imperial College London found that being exposed to higher levels of aircraft noise around Heathrow raised the risk of admission to hospital for heart disease by 20 percent

London – We are surrounded by the sounds of the machinery that make our lives comfortable and convenient. The constant thrum of traffic, the thunder of jet engines overhead.

But when we have to listen to these noises for too long or at the wrong time, they can inflict silent and stealthy damage. Increasing evidence shows this damage isn’t just to our ears, but to our blood vessels and hearts.

Nor is this just a problem for people who live near busy roads or under flight paths. New research suggests noise pollution also causes harm in places such as hospitals.

Recently the world’s experts gathered in Japan to discuss the latest findings about noise and health. Perhaps most eye-catching was the study that linked noise pollution to your waist size.

In a four-year project published last year, researchers from Karolinska University in Sweden found that the louder the traffic noise to which people in different parts of Stockholm were exposed, the greater the increase in their waist size – there was nearly a centimetre increase for every ten-decibel rise in the noise levels. This is like the difference between a whispered conversation and the noise level in an average house or personal office.

Last month, scientists from Karolinska University found an even more dramatic effect from plane noise. After tracking more than 5 000 people for ten years, they reported that the waistlines of those most exposed to plane noise increased on average by 6cm.

A similar study last year by the School of Public Health at Imperial College London found that being exposed to higher levels of aircraft noise around Heathrow raised the risk of admission to hospital for heart disease by 20 percent.

The effects of noise pollution are even felt by babies in the womb.

In another of the studies presented at the conference, researchers from Utrecht University in the Netherlands examined data from more than 68 000 births and found that for every six-decibel increase in traffic noise there was a drop of 15g to 23g in birth weight.

Low birth weight is linked to a range of long-term health problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.

Of course, the most common response to noise exposure is annoyance. But while this may be limited to making you feel angry or exhausted, a major review of research published in the Lancet last October showed it can also disturb sleep and increase the risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

It also affects schoolchildren’s academic performance.

“We are gathering more and more evidence that noise in the environment can have a direct effect on health,” says Professor Adrian Davis, one of the authors of the Lancet review and director of population health science for Public Health England.

Sound affects you even in sleep

What is unsettling is that noise pollution can affect you without you even consciously hearing it.

At night, heavy traffic is a major cause of insomnia, with all the knock-on effects of missing out on the restorative phase of sleep, such as depression, weight gain, raised blood sugar levels as well as daytime sleepiness.

The result can be an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

But the noise doesn’t even have to keep you awake to have an impact. When the Imperial College researchers monitored sleepers’ blood pressure, they found it went up in response to a quite low sound, such as a passing car – even though this might register only 50 decibels, and even though the sleeper didn’t wake.

“It seems as if the subconscious never stops monitoring what is going on around you,” says Professor Paul Elliott, an epidemiologist (expert in the incidence of disease) at Imperial College.

Noise pollution makes you fat

So, what’s going on here? How can the sound of traffic make you put on weight or raise you risk of heart disease? “The connection comes from stress,” says Professor Elliott.

It dates back to our Stone Age ancestors, he says, explaining that back then, being alert to new sounds around you could mean the difference between life and death.

“In the wild, sounds are often a sign that something dangerous might be about to happen,” he says.

“When they catch our attention because they are new or annoying, our bodies produce stress hormones, such as adrenalin and cortisol, to make us ready to fight or flee.”

These hormones raise energy and make blood more ready to clot.

That’s good for a short-term emergency when you may be injured, but long term it’s one of the factors pushing up heart attack risk – which might explain the link between noise pollution and heart disease.

One of the chemicals from this cocktail, cortisol, is a hormone that makes it more likely you will pack on the pounds around the middle. This is the so-called visceral fat that also pushes up heart attack risk.

Noise can also increase blood pressure, another risk factor. When we’re stressed, the endothelium – the fine lining of the arteries – contracts, raising blood pressure.

The effect of noise stress isn’t limited to making us physically ill, it can also make it harder to concentrate, especially for children.

The background noise in the classroom shouldn’t be more than 35 decibels, but that can be doubled by cars passing by or planes overhead.

Research shows heavy traffic or being under a flight path is linked with learning more slowly. The children pay less attention or become more annoyed.

Hospital din can harm patients

Around 20 percent of people in the EU have to put up with traffic noise greater than 65 decibels in the day, while nearly a third have noise measurements greater than 55 decibels outside their houses at night – the level that can trigger problems, says the World Health Organisation.

A level of 45 decibels and below is considered ideal.

The problem isn’t limited to towns and cities. Aircraft fly over the countryside and agricultural machinery can be intrusive.

And as Anna Hansell, a doctor at Public Health England, explains: “If aircraft noise has an effect on the heart, then so might other sorts of noise that people find stressful – such as building works or constant loud music from neighbours.”

One of the big shocks of the Lancet report was the harm caused by noise in hospitals.

The review found that noise levels in hospitals have increased and are typically 15 to 20 decibels higher than the recommended 40 decibels – that’s the difference between the hum of a fridge and someone practising the piano.

Intensive care units, which look after some of the most vulnerable patients whose systems are already stressed, can be full of “irregular” sounds such as alarms sounding, phone ringtones and pagers going off, staff chatting and doors banging open and shut.

These are just the sort of sounds that can trigger the damaging stress “startle” response to noise.

The result is patients take longer to heal, need higher doses of painkillers and are likely to be readmitted to hospital, according to the Lancet review.

The review also found that staff, too, are affected by this constant noise, making them tired and suffer headaches. As Professor Davis points out: “Many of these noise sources can be dealt with simply with sound- absorbing ceilings and cutting the volume of ring tones – that would lower the rate of cardiovascular disease.”

Crying babies aren’t a risk

The decibel levels linked to health problems such as cardiovascular disease don’t seem too high – just 50 to 60 decibels for traffic noise.

That’s not very different from having a conversation (60 decibels), let alone a crying baby (100 decibels) or a rock concert (120 and up). So, why is traffic noise harmful and a screaming baby not? “There are several reasons why you can’t compare them directly,” says Dr Hansell.

“The rating for aircraft noise, for instance, is usually the average over 24 hours. So, you would have quiet moments and times when the level might reach 90 decibels. This sort of intermittent noise is much more annoying than a steady background noise.”

The sound of a screaming baby may be intermittent and stressful, but even the most distressed baby doesn’t keep going 24/7 for four or more years – the length of time of the studies that found health damage.

The key difference is that plane noise counts as “nuisance noise” – you don’t seek it out or enjoy it.

“Nuisance noise is harder to ignore and its effect is in addition to background noise,” says Dr Hansell.

And decibels aren’t the only feature that decides how a sound is going to affect us. Some types of noise are more stressful than others, possibly because they are less regular or are high or low-pitched – this varies with the individual.

There is a significant subjective element to the way people respond to sound, says Geoff Leventhall, an independent noise consultant, author and expert on the noise from wind turbines. “The actual level of sound as objectively measured in decibels makes up only about 30 percent of how it is perceived. People’s attitude can play a big part.

“Something that might be stressful viewed in one way, such as a thumping beat from a nearby club at 2am when you’ve got an early start, can be enjoyable if you are out for the weekend.”

Researchers such as Professor Elliott are well aware it’s hard to be sure it’s noise alone causing a problem.

“We found a connection between noise and heart disease in 3.6 million people living around Heathrow,” he says.

‘But that population includes a large number of people from South-East Asia who have a higher risk of heart disease anyway. That could have contributed to the result.’

However, with the growing body of evidence that noise is harmful, Professor Davis insists action is needed to tackle it.

“We need programmes to cut levels of stressful noise and enforce standards,” he says.

“The results could include improved learning in schools, better sleep for millions, a drop in heart disease, and hospitals that were far more pleasant.”

How to protect yourself

There are things we can all do to reduce the effects of noise, says Dr Hansell

Earplugs: “I use them in the cinema, at rock concerts and for sleeping, especially in noisy hotels,” says Dr Hansell.

Complain: “If we don’t all let people know when we’re being affected, nothing will change. So if a cinema film is too loud, ask the staff to turn it down. I’ve even written in about the announcements on the Northern line Tube being too loud.”

Relax: “If you can’t change it, try not to become annoyed or stressed by the noise, as that will increase your blood pressure!”

In decibels, how much noise are you exposed to?

10: Falling leaves

20: A whisper in a quiet library

30: Quiet conversation

40: The noise level in an average house or the hum of a fridge

50: Normal office noise or rainfall

60-70: Piano practice or the noise of a normal conversation at 3ft apart

70: Level at which most people play their radio

80: Noisy office or an alarm clock, loud singing, average sound of traffic

100: Bass drum, passing truck or a car horn

110: Screaming child

120: Rock concert

180: Plane taking off. – Daily Mail

Some facts Behind Wind Turbine Noise, and Why it is So Harmful!

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Before the Wind Turbine was installed we asked about noise. No professional Wind Turbine Noise studies were presented to the Village Board. The Wind Turbine Company sales rep stated it would sound like a refrigerator. If we are forced to select an indoor appliance for comparison, we say it sounds like a washing machine. A 60 decibel noise limit was adopted by the Village. No standards were specified for how, when and where to measure Wind Turbine Noise.

How, When & Where to Measure Wind Turbine Noise is critical.

Wind Turbine Noise varies based on location. Standing at the base of the Wind Turbine might sound like a refrigerator. However, noise travels in a cone emanating from the top of the 120 foot tall Wind Turbine. The noise travels over treetops into our backyards and open windows. It travels over rooftops and reverberates between buildings. Now it sounds like a washing machine spinning out of balance! Move from your back yard to your front yard, and you can hear it bouncing off the homes across the street. Inside your home, the noise varies based on how it bounces between the walls. Moreover, low frequency Wind Turbine noise caused by three 23.7′ long, 330 pound wind trubine blades rotating at 114 miles per hour can’t be heard, but wreaks havoc in the inner ear.

Wind Turbine Noise varies based on Wind Direction. Behind the rotor and with the wind direction is noisier than in front of the rotor and against the wind direction.

Wind Turbine Noise varies based on Wind Speed & Turbulence. More wind speed/turbulence – more noise. Less wind speed/turbulence – less noise.

Wind Turbine Noise varies based on the make, model, type and quality of the Wind Turbine. All Wind Turbines sound alike is like all vehicles get the same gas mileage. If you’ve heard a quiet Wind Turbine, you may have been standing too close or too far away, you may have been in an empty field, you may have been in a wind lull, or you may have been listening to the Prius of Wind Turbines. Trust us, the Entegrity Wind Systems, Inc. EW50 is the Hummer of Wind Turbine NOISE makers!

The Never-Endingness of Wind Turbine Noise is critical.

Sure, we hear things every day that are louder than Wind Turbines: planes, trains & automobiles. Please understand that living and sleeping with continuous 24/7 Wind Turbine Noise is different. Unlike the leaf blower that eventually goes away, Wind Turbine Noise never goes away. It’s always there and even when it’s not, you think it is, you anticipate it. It’s weird. And its quite disturbing. Imagine listening 24/7 to this.

Hummer vs. Prius
Wind Turbine’s are not all created equal regarding noise.
From the U.S.Department of Energy

Wind Turbine Components

What Causes Wind Turbine Noise?

A: Mechanical/moving parts + wind/turbulence/vibration = noise.

Rotor: The rotor diameter is 49 feet comprising three 23.7 ft. long blades that weigh 330 pounds each. The ends of the blades go around at 114 miles per hour. This creates a noise called SWOOSH that sounds like this.

Gear Box: Gears connect the low-speed shaft to the high-speed shaft and increase the rotational speeds from about 30 to 60 rotations per minute (rpm) to about 1000 to 1800 rpm, the rotational speed required by most generators to produce electricity. The gear box is a heavy part of the wind turbine and engineers are exploring “direct-drive” generators that operate at lower rotational speeds and don’t need gear boxes.

Generator: An induction generator that produces 60-cycle AC electricity.

High Speed Shaft: Drives the generator.

Low Speed Shaft: The rotor turns the low-speed shaft at about 30 to 60 rotations per minute.

Yaw Drive: Upwind turbines face into the wind; the yaw drive is used to keep the rotor facing into the wind as the wind direction changes.

Yaw Motors: Power the Yaw drive.

Pitch: Blades are turned, or pitched, out of the wind to control the rotor speed and keep the rotor from turning in winds that are too high or too low to produce electricity.

Brake: A disc brake, which can be applied mechanically, electrically, or hydraulically to stop the rotor in emergencies. BTW, what emergencies are they referring to?

A Wind Turbine creates an oscillation of sound that is like a washing machine, a washing machine that:

  • rumbles constantly and is very noisy on spin cycle from bad drum bearings due to bearing seal failure.
  • sends out a loud noise with each revolution of a split drum or a drum where the spider at the back of the drum has come away from the drum, is corroded or broken.
  • makes a horrendous noise as coins or other obstructions trapped inside the tub under the drum get tossed about on spin cycle.
  • clanks with coins and other obstructions inside the water pump. This noise only occurs when the washing machine is emptying the water.
  • emits a light scraping or ratchety noise caused by a bra wire trapped between the tub and drum.
  • generates a high pitched squealing or harsh noise from motor bearing wear.
  • produces a knocking noise from loose or unbalanced tub weight caused when the tub (or outer drum) shakes about on spin.
  • creates surprising noises like those coming from a badly worn washing machine drive belt.
 Noisy Washing Machine

Wind Turbine Noise Syndrome

There are other problems from living too close to a Wind Turbine. Researcher Dr. Nina Pierpont of Malone, N.Y., coined the phrase “wind turbine syndrome” for sleep problems, headaches, dizziness and other maladies experienced by some people who live near wind energy farms. Her research says wind turbines should never be built closer than 2km (1.24 miles) from homes! See: http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/

Lack of Cost-Benefit Analysis for Green Projects is More Evidence that it is a SCAM!

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Auditors probe £16bn green energy contracts

Matt McGrathBy Matt McGrathEnvironment correspondent, BBC News

wind
Five offshore wind farms have been selected for early contracts

The government may have failed to protect the interests of bill payers when awarding green energy contracts, says the National Audit Office (NAO).

Eight long-term deals worth £16.6bn were signed earlier this year to secure projects said to be at risk of cancellation.

The NAO says too much money was awarded to these renewable sources “without price competition”.

It is concerned that this could ultimately increase costs to consumers.

Under an EU directive, the UK government is committed to producing 30% of electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020.

To drive investment in this area, the government has long operated a system of subsidising generators.

“We are not convinced that they needed to do this amount this early”

Jill GoldsmithNational Audit Office

In an effort to improve efficiency and value for money, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) embarked on a series of reforms to the electricity market over the past two years.

The major change has been the introduction of Contracts for Difference.

This is a two-way system where the government sets an agreed price for electricity and the generators either receive a subsidy or have to pay money back depending on the state of the market.

Ultimately, the idea is that generators would bid for these contracts, guaranteeing that consumers would get green energy at the most competitive price.

But with the system not fully up and running until April next year, DECC was faced with the tricky problem of how to fund enough renewables to meet 2020 targets.

Limiting opportunities

Its solution was to award early contracts to five offshore wind farms, two coal plant conversions to biomass and one biomass combined heat and power plant.

However the NAO is not satisfied that the way these contracts have been awarded is good for consumers and the long-term health of the renewables industry.

“Our view is that awarding £16.6bn of contracts has limited the opportunities to secure better value for money through competition under the contracts for difference regime, due to start this year,” said Jill Goldsmith from the NAO.

The NAO highlights the fact that the money will generate just 5% of the renewable electricity required by 2020.

It is also concerned that the department made its decision to commit consumer funding, not on the basis of price competition but with a weighting for the likely impact on the project of any delay or “hiatus”.

Willow Willow can be chipped and burned for energy in a biomass plant

“The qualification rule around hiatus required confirmation that the project would be put back if they didn’t get funding,” said Jill Goldsmith.

“It was a kind of yes/no qualification criteria which was largely based on confirmation from the project’s board that this was the case.”

The government watchdog is concerned that the prices that have been agreed for energy under these contracts “may provide higher returns than needed to secure the investment”.

The report suggests that the projects were likely to make money but the government did not ask for any information on projected costs and profits in the bidding process.

ERT’s Are Set Up, To Protect The Rich Wind Corporations, NOT Taxpaying Citizens!

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County and community members fighting Jericho Wind farm

at Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal

By Megan Stacey, The London Free Press

Thursday, June 26, 2014

(QMI Agency)

 

Emotions are running high at the opening day of an Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal hearing to determine the fate of a wind turbine project by NextEra Energy in Lambton and Middlesex Counties.

Community members and the County of Lambton are facing off against the Ontario Environment Ministry and NextEra Energy over the Jericho Wind Energy Project, which would bring 92 turbines to the region.

An opening statement by resident Muriel Allingham, who is appealing the provincial ministry’s approval of the Jericho project alongside several other community members, attacked NextEra as greedy.

In order to overturn the province’s approval of the Jericho Wind Project, Allingham and the County of Lambton must prove it will cause severe harm to humans or the environment.

The first presenter of the day, Elizabeth Bellavance, a local community and social justice advocate, urged the tribunal to consider the injustice of the requirement.

In any project other than renewable energy where products like wind and vibration are released into the environment, showing “adverse effects” is enough to halt their use.

The community’s case against NextEra is virtually non-existent without the testimony of Sarah Hornblower, a local woman and mother who would have been a key witness in the hearing. The tribunal denied a summons for Hornblower late Wednesday afternoon.

Hornblower has several autistic children who she says will be severely impacted by the new wind turbines, several of which would fall on her family’s farm.

She has entered into agreements with NextEra Energy which community leaders say are because she has evidence of severe physical harm arising from turbines.

The resistance of rural communities to wind turbine projects is nothing new. Many argue the turbines destroy quality of life due to noise, vibration, stray voltage, turbine placement on parks and soccer fields, and their impact on those with sensory disorders like Hornblower’s children, among other concerns.

At a break in the hearing, Marcelle Brooks, another community member who is part of the team appealing the NextEra Energy project approval, said they expect this case to be the same as many others they’ve seen in the past few years.

“Our vision here today is how it has been for the last four years for us in this battle, and that is to expose the corruption, to expose the injustice,” Brooks said.

megan.stacey@sunmedia.ca

 

The Climate Change Scam….It has always been, “About the Money!!”

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‘Climate Reparations’ an idea that seems to be all about money

Posted on June 26, 2014

Climate Reparations—A New Demand

Guest opinion by Peter Wood

At the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009, leaders from more than a hundred nations gathered to consider an agenda that included a massive transfer of money from developed countries to the Third World.  The developed states were tagged to provide $130 billion by 2020 to help developing nations deal with the consequences of global warming.  The proposed transfer was widely discussed as “reparations” for the damage caused by use of fossil fuels in the developed world.

 

The Copenhagen proposal went down in ignominious defeat.  A motley collection of Third World countries brought the idea up again in 2013 in the run-up to the UN’s climate conference in Warsaw, but by then whatever impetus the idea had had was gone.  President Obama instructed the U.S. delegate to oppose it.  The State Department explained:

“It’s our sense that the longer countries look at issues like compensation and liability, the more they will realize this isn’t a productive avenue for the [UN Framework Convention on Climate Change] to go down.”

The U.S. Government may have sidled away from this climate change compensation scheme but the underlying idea hasn’t gone away.  When the broader public and the world at large dismisses a “progressive” idea, that idea is almost certain to find an enthusiastic welcome on university campuses.  The notions of “climate reparations” and more broadly “climate justice” have settled in as things that campus philosophers philosophize about and campus activists activize over.

Possibly this is something that busy people should ignore. “Climate reparations” may turn out to be like the campaign to establish Esperanto as a world language. Esperanto, invented in the 1870s, was put forward as a tool for ending ethnic conflict and fostering world peace.  It enjoyed an American vogue in the 1960s, perhaps best remembered for a 1966 horror movie, Incubus, starring William Shatner, in which the entire dialogue was spoken in Esperanto.

Those who speak to Americans right now of climate reparations might as well be lecturing in Esperanto, since few of us want this economic incubus.  But it is never wise to entirely ignore the ideas gestating in the faculty towers.  Sometimes they get translated into actual political movements.

From Race to Environment

This thought came to mind when I came across an essay by a writer for the New America Foundation.  In “The Cost of Ignoring America’s Past,” Hana Passen begins by setting forth an astonishing parallel:

“If we do not face the lasting impact of slavery, which has been abolished by law and condemned in the court of morality, how will we be able to legislate issues like climate change, which some still deny?”

Passen, it turns out, hadn’t conjured the moral equivalence of slavery and climate change out of thin air.  She was paraphrasing Atlantic editor Ta-Nehisi Coates, who sets it out even more starkly:

“What [slavery] reparations requires is a country and a citizenry that can look at itself in the mirror naked and see itself clearly,” Coates said during a recent conversation with New America President Anne-Marie Slaughter. “And that’s the same argument for climate change. What is required for reparations, that kind of citizenry, that kind of patriotism, is not just required on that front.”

Coates’ article in the Atlantic, “The Case for Reparations,” was a huge hit for the rather stodgy journal.  According to its editor James Bennett, Coates’ article “brought more visitors to the Atlantic [website] in a single day than any single piece we’ve ever published.”  It also sold out on newsstands.  But in his article Coates stuck entirely to the theme of racial reparations and did not raise the green flag of climate reparations he brought up his New America interview.

Reparations for slavery is an idea that has been churning among African-Americans for a very long time, and one that grows less and less plausible as a practical political matter with every year that passes since the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and the passages of the 13th and 14th Amendments (1865, 1868).  But slavery reparations, or reparations for racial injustice more broadly conceived, are a durable fantasy, and it isn’t wholly surprising that a fresh enunciation of the case for them has excited attention.

But that’s a topic for another day.  The relevance of racial reparations to “climate justice” is that it serves as a conceptual and moral model.  Somebody has done something bad to someone.  Somebody has to pay.

Cotton Mather’s View

Mr. Coates is an editor, not an academic.  But the academic world is astir with ideas about how to apportion responsibility for climate change.  In this realm, any debate whether global warming is occurring and to what degree it can be attributed to human actions is entirely foreclosed.  It is simply assumed or asserted that catastrophic man-made climate change is upon us, and the discussion moves directly to identifying the culprits and apportioning the costs.  In this vein, the discussion bears a certain resemblance to debate in 17th century New England on how to handle the danger posed by witches.  It is as provocative today to express doubt in anthropogenic global warming (AGW) as it would have been to argue with Cotton Mather about relying on spectral evidence.  As Mather said, “Never use but one grain of patience with any man that shall go to impose upon me a Denial of Devils, or of Witches.” In what follows, I will abide by Mather’s counsel.

What do academics argue about when it comes to climate reparations?  Simon Carey, a professor of political theory at the University of Birmingham, lays out some useful distinctions in “Cosmopolitan Justice, Responsibility, and Global Climate Change.”  There is wide agreement on the “polluter pays principle” (PPP), Carey says.  But there is disagreement whether the true polluter is the individual who pollutes or the nation that benefits from his actions.  “Many of those who adopt the PPP approach to climate change appear to treat countries as the relevant units.”  Carey, who might be described as a climate liberal, rejects this collectivist approach, which he said is founded on the “beneficiary pays principle” (BPP). Current generations have benefited from the pollution caused by their ancestors, so the current generation should be held collectively responsible.  The Copenhagen proposal—which came four years after Carey’s article—embodies BPP logic.

Carey himself, however, believes that BPP violates PPP.  The original polluter often doesn’t pay at all, because he is dead, and the payments ignore all the improvements to the standard of living that flow from past industrialization. Carey isn’t against making people pay; he just wants individuals to pay for the harm they themselves do.  Presumably he would endorse making BP (the oil company) pay for the damage caused by the 2010blowout of its well in the Gulf of Mexico.

This summary is probably enough to suggest that the debate over climate reparations is a serious matter drawing serious attention from scholars.  I won’t take the space here for a deep dive into climate reparations scholarship, but a little snorkeling around the reef is enlightening.

Backward-Looking Laws

In 2008, Daniel Farber published “Basic Compensation for Victims of Climate Change” inEnvironmental Law and Policy Annual Review.  Farber attempted to identify the injuries that deserve compensation and the “responsible parties.”  He also gave voice to the racial reparations analogy:

“The problem is somewhat analogous to the diffuse issues raised by those seeking reparations for slavery and past racial discrimination.”

Farber is a professor of law at UC Berkeley where he holds a named chair and co-directs the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment.  He is a consequential and well-published figure.  His works include, not incidentally, a law review article, “Backward-Looking Laws and Equal Protection:  The Case of Black Reparations” (2006).  His books include Disaster Law; Disaster Law and Policy; and Eco-pragmatism:  Making Sensible Environmental Decisions in an Uncertain World.  His article on black reparations is essentially a meditation on Justice Stevens’ approach to reparations, who he says, “clearly prefers forward-looking rationales for affirmative action over remedial ones” and “might vote against reparations on that basis.”

Farber’s article on compensation for victims of climate change elicited a number of responses, most interestingly from Kenneth Feinberg, the man who served as Special Master to the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund and who also ran the $20 billion BP oil spill victims’ fund.  Feinberg disagreed with Farber’s approach that distributes financial responsibility among culprits by a “market share” contribution formula.  Feinberg thinks it “more reasonable—and more politically feasible—to expect governments themselves to fund any compensation regimen.”  Feinberg also thinks it is premature to start cutting the checks.  “There is a great deal to be said for waiting until climate change litigation develops and matures…”

Why Wait?

There are many in the sustainability movement, however, who aren’t inclined to wait at all.  They act quickly, as we saw recently when an adjunct professor at American University ventured a criticism on the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal of the climate reparations movement.  Professor Caleb Rossiter noted that:

“More than 230 organizations, including Africa Action and Oxfam, want industrialized countries to pay ‘reparations’ to African governments for droughts, rising sea levels and other alleged results of what Ugandan strongman Yoweri Museveni calls ‘climate aggression.’”

Rossiter argued that the campaign extended to efforts “to deny to Africans the reliable electricity—and thus the economic development and extended years of life—that fossil fuels can bring.”  The reward to Rossiter for his airing this complaint was a prompt firingfrom his position as a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.  (Cotton Mather would approve.)

As part of the National Association of Scholars’ study of the sustainability movement, I have begun to track the “reparations” thread within the universities.  It has several aliases, including “environmental justice,” “climate compensation,” “climate change liability,” “climate debt,” and “climate reparations.”  The last in the list is the term preferred by Maxine Burkett, a law professor at the University of Hawaii, who argues that reparations put the “moral issues” appropriately at the center of the debate and offer the possibility of “galvanizing greater enthusiasm and commitment to repair from individuals, communities and nation-states.”  She thinks reparations would “foster civic trust between nations and manifest social solidarity.”

Judging from the Copenhagen and Warsaw conferences, that dream of international amity is far-fetched.  We might have a better chance by sitting ourselves down to learn Esperanto.

But lest this seem too airy a dismissal of a movement that combines heartfelt sympathy for a world imagined to be warming to disaster with cold determination to plunder the West by litigation and treaty, let me add that I take the reparations movement as a force to be reckoned with.  Hundreds of professors are honing it at law schools, environmental institutes, and schools of public policy.  Who pays?  As we say in Esperanto, Finfine, vi kaj mi. [Eventually, you and me.]

===============================================================

Originally published in Minding the Campus. Peter Wood is president of the National Association of Scholars.