Category — Grassroots opposition, windpower

“‘Windfall’ left me disheartened. I thought wind energy was something I could believe in. This film suggests it’s just another corporate flim-flam game. Of course, the documentary could be mistaken, and there are no doubt platoons of lawyers, lobbyists and publicists to say so. How many of them live on wind farms?”

- Roger Ebert (February 1, 2012) 

Three major reviews on WINDFALL–a 1 hour 22 minute exposé that I previously reviewed at MasterResource–is another important development in the growing grassroots pushback against industrial wind parks. As such, it  is a welcome advance from the photo-shopped image of wind as a benign, costless form of modern energy.

Here are excepts from each of three reviews of national import.

Roger Ebert

Here is Robert Ebert’s review of Windfall (February 1, 2012). [Read more →]

[Ed. Note: This testimonial joins Michael Morgan's last week  indicating a growing disconnect between Washington, D.C.-based BIG ENVIRONMENTALISM and in-the-pristine, grassroots, common-sense environmentalism. Mr. Cudnohufsky's bio follows this post.]

On a regular basis, friends are surprised to learn of my recently voiced concerns about industrial wind. Enlightened, perceptive and thoughtful people, they share much of my concern for our earth and human communities.

They ask me, “Isn’t wind a good thing? What concerns you and why? Wind is a large renewable resource used for centuries! We are behind the rest of the world in the use of wind power! We need to address climate change. What is your solution?”

These friends have not incorporated wind energy investigation into their busy lives. With climate change, unemployment, a stagnant economy, health care legislation and a war all screaming for attention, there is to be expected a certain complacency and acceptance of industrial wind.

Despite little time for research, there is strong emotional conviction from the dwindling proponents of wind power as well as the growing number of opponents. Once healthy, convivial communities are sometimes permanently divided by the issue.

It takes but a minute’s reflection to realize that just over two years ago, I held the same opinion of wind that some of my friends do now.  However, investigation of industrial wind has led me to this well-considered conclusion: industrial wind is a total sham! Not only is it horrendously impactful, but it also does not work in any meaningful manner. But efficacy is a subject for another discussion. [Read more →]

“I cannot abide the suggestion that we must sacrifice our environment in order to save it. This is an absurd argument enabling this energy imposter’s invasion of delicate habitat with little return. … Environmentalists must consider the possibility that industrial wind, by its failure to perform to stated goals, does not then qualify for this sacred consideration.”

The heavily funded and admittedly effective U.S. industrial wind lobby portrays its product as descending from old-world windmills. Close your eyes and you’ll surely imagine these magnificent machines gently turning in the breeze … each kilowatt arriving at your reading lamp courtesy of a rosy–cheeked Hummel child.

Existing solely to save the planet by generating clean, affordable and environmentally friendly electricity, you can be sure that any addition to the plant owner’s bank account is purely accidental.

Hogwash!

In reality, the U.S. industrial wind business was rescued by Ken Lay and Enron with quick, low-risk profit as its core goal. As Gabriel Alonso, chief executive of Horizon Wind Energy LLC – one of America’s biggest wind developers, often reminds his employees … their goal isn’t to stage a renewable-energy revolution … “This is about making money!”

Once a Believer

I was not always this cynical. I wanted to believe that industrial wind would replace fossil fueled power plants and, until two years ago, defended its arrival here. Like many West Virginians, I wanted the destruction of our mountains by those who profit from the blue diamond stopped … NOW! [Read more →]

“What will we do when the wind turbines die? Will there be a ‘deconstruction tax’ placed on fossil fuels, oil, gas, and coal taking the blame for driving wind turbines into retirement?”

Former Governor of Vermont, Jim Douglas, says that wind turbines are the “wrong choice” for the famous ridgelines and natural beauty. Annette Smith, Executive Director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment (read her op-ed below), says “it’s not too late,” to examine the facets of building mammoth turbines in one of the most beautiful natural areas of America.

These new, important voices indicate that politically correct wind energy is creating a backlash in Vermont, as elsewhere.

Lifecycle Analysis

What is actually involved in the construction of huge turbines is often not thought of, unless, as Ms. Smith suggests, you are forced by proximity and imminence to consider the “engagement.”

There is the transportation of huge parts (usually manufactured elsewhere such as in China or Denmark), parts that are often toxic (carbon fibers in the blades that cannot be recycled). Or consider the rare earth elements in the magnets, also highly dangerous, created out of and transported with oil and gas, lubricated with oil and petroleum products, mired in massive plugs of cement. Consider also how natural sites are dynamited for turbine sites, how forests are ripped up, and the social costs for those near the taxpayer-dependent activity.

Expect a short (12–15 year) life span for the turbines, not the 25 years the industry purports. Imagine when the subsidies dry up how the turbines will be left to rot in the sun, still a hazard for birds and bats.

The question must be asked: What will we do when the wind turbines die? Will there be a ‘deconstruction tax’ placed on fossil fuels, oil, gas, and coal taking the blame for driving wind turbines into retirement?

‘Turbine Sacrifice’

The incredible destructive power of Industrial Wind has been long submerged into cozy green language, and false promises. It is the result of fast and very clever social marketing for over 30 years. The fact is, that “turbine sacrifice” (those creatures and landscapes destined for destruction in a radius of some say 10 miles) is a common feature of our relationships with this industry. But now people are saying, Whoa. [Read more →]

Joke: ‘When is an environmentalist not an environmentalist? …. When it comes to windpower.’

[This press release from August 10th is reproduced in its entirety. A description of the sponsoring organizations follows.]

The North-American Platform Against Windpower (NA-PAW) objects to the passing of the “Power NY Act” on August 8th. Also known as “Article X”, this law reverses decades of democratic rights in New York State.

Municipalities no longer have the power to veto harmful projects targeting their constituencies. Albany bureaucrats will decide where energy and other industrial projects are to be built, and the people will have to bite the bullet.

Says Sherri Lange, NA-PAW’s CEO: “I believe New Yorkers won’t take it lying down. I have faith in the North American spirit: we won’t let politicians take away our freedoms.” Sherri is also founder and president of Toronto Wind Action. She has her own “article x” to fight in Ontario: the Green Energy Act, which equally tramples citizens’ rights.

Wind Favoritism

It is believed Governor Cuomo repealed the right of veto from municipalities so as to impose numerous industrial wind facilities on them. But citizens are increasingly concerned with health issues associated with these industrial installations. Recent peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that wind turbine syndrome is not imaginary. Infrasound and low-frequency noise emitted by wind turbines cause insomnia, headaches, stress, nausea, and more. This is confirmed by research from Dr Nina Pierpont, and by an epidemiology study by Professor Carl V. Phillips.

There are also concerns regarding the destruction of jobs in tourism, recreational industries, and elsewhere as subsidies increase public deficits, causing taxes to be raised. Other harmful effects include the killing of rare bird species such as eagles and falcons, of migrating birds, and of the very bats that help NY farmers save millions of dollars in pesticides. Water contamination, forest fires and reduced property values are also of concern.

Taxpayer Issue to Begin With

NA-PAW disapproves the un-democratic process which led to the vote of Article X. Citizens were not consulted, yet they will pay a high price for this. Sherri Lange said:

We will fight Article X with determination and with all our heart. North Americans have had enough of the wanton destruction of their great countryside and wilderness by monstrous machines that don’t deliver on promises. Home Rule must come back to New York State and to Ontario.

NA-PAW has received the support of the European Platform Against Windfarms (EPAW). Its CEO, Mark Duchamp, warns that the huge cost of renewable energies is in part responsible for the crisis that is shaking the Euro: “Spain, for instance, is paying €8 billion ($11.3 billion) in subsidies to renewable energy every year. This makes it difficult to contain the national debt, while unemployment won’t come down from 20%. It is truly unsustainable.” [Read more →]

MasterResource is home to a growing number of grassroot environmentalists who are challenging the Washington, D.C. establishment to reconsider industrial wind turbines. Jen Gilbert’s Dear Sierra Club (Canada): I Resign Over Your Anti-Environmental Wind Support and Jon Boone’s three-part The Sierra Club: How Support for Industrial Wind Technology Subverts Its History, Betrays Its Mission, and Erodes Commitment to the Scientific Method of what Robert Bradley has summarized in his post, Windpower: Environmentalists vs. Environmentalists (NIMBYism, precautionary principle vs. industrial wind). 

My piece for National Review (reprinted below) looks at the bigger picture of how reasoned criticism and intellectual diversity have struggled to penetrate the environmental mainstream. The result of such intolerance has been Faustian bargains such as the Sierra Club going all-in for wind power (see their response to Robert Bryce’s recent op-edin the New York Times). After all, it was the Los  Angeles director of the Sierra Club that coined the moniker, Cuisinarts of the Air.

Scholarship and reasoned dissent are essential for public trust. The faster this is recognized by mainstream environmental groups, the better the result for both the environment and economy.

                   An Environmental Reformation

by Steve Hayward

When Gregg Easterbrook’s voluminous book A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism was published in 1995, it received the predictable reaction from the environmental community: outrage. Despite– or probably because of– Easterbrook’s bona fides as a mainstream-liberal writer for The New Republic, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and Newsweek, the environmental lobby swung into full distort-and-denounce mode. The Environmental Defense Fund, for example, alleged the existence of factual errors that “substantially undermine his thesis that many environmental problems have been overstated.” [Ed.: See EDF's Part I and Part II rebuttals] [Read more →]

“The Municipality of Central Huron requests that the Province of Ontario declare a moratorium on all current and future projects for on-shore and off-shore development of wind-energy facilities until it has commissioned properly-designed independent third-party scientific research into the long-term effects, released the findings for public comment, and has incorporated those comments to enact science-based maximums for wind-facility emissions, and for electrical emission from all related electrical facilities, and can therefore guarantee to Council’s satisfaction that the health and well-being of the Municipality’s human and animal populations are protected from the direct and indirect negative effects of being in proximity to those IWT facilities.”

- Central Huron Council Resolution, adopted June 6, 2011

Two days ago, the Central Huron Council passed a resolution against wind-turbine business-as-usual, a victory for local advocacy groups such as Toronto Wind Action, Great Lakes Wind Truth (see their Facebook page), and Central Huron Against Wind Turbines.

As indicated by yesterday’s blog at MasterResource by Jen Gilbert, “Dear Sierra Club (Canada): I Resign Over Your Anti-Environmental Wind Support,” there is a growing civil war between the anti-fossil-fuel pro-windpower groups (including big business) and grassroot environmentalists who see a pound of environmental ill for an ounce of energy cure. Will the Sierra Club on both sides of the international border take note and get tough on industrial wind–and help taxpayers and federal fiscal order at the same time?

Central Huron Industrial Windpower Resolution

A RESOLUTION REQUESTING THAT THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO DECLARE A MORATORIUM ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF INDUSTRIAL WIND TURBINES (IWT’s) UNTIL SCIENCE-BASED AND PEER REVIEWED REGULATIONS THAT ENSURE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELL-BEING HAVE BEEN IMPLEMENTED AND THAT THE PROVINCE RESTORE LOCAL PLANNING POWERS TO THE MUNICIPALITY REGARDING RENEWABLE ENERGY PROJECTS [Read more →]

Editor Note: This post is indicative of growing grassroot opposition to industrial wind development from traditional left-of-center environmentalists. Note how economics and affordability is part of the argument; indeed, protecting the wallet of the little guy and gal was once a core principle of those who would otherwise call themselves traditional environmentalists.

I once believed in the Sierra Club, until the CLUB ( an insular bunch of activists who aren’t looking at the entire picture but only at their own agendas) started fully supporting the Green Energy Act (Canada).

The Green Energy Act and the PM government is placing turbines everywhere and anywhere. This includes in pristine areas, in and around fresh lakes, on mountains, on ridges, on the Niagara Escarpment, near communities. Such activity is blasting, drilling, destroying the environment, and it has stripped away the rights of municipalities and the proper consultation of the public.

Everything the environmentalists (including myself for 20 years) have worked so hard to protect, is now being destroyed or in jeopardy. Wind factories are industrial projects. Every industrial project has had strict laws put in place to protect the environment. The Green Energy Act no longer protects those laws. Wind turbine factories are no different and should get no special treatment. Especially, when big greedy companies or individuals are the only people benefiting.

John Bennett of the Ontario, Canada Sierra Club, has accused Wind Concerns Ontario (WCO) as being supported by the Progressive Conservatives (PC’s). I’m a liberal, and I support and volunteered for WCO after my town was ruined by wind turbines, the Sierra Club’s and the PM’s agenda and enforcements.

Mr. Bennett is a hypocrite in my opinion. He fought against industrial industries for imposing onto citizens and the land. However, the turbines projects are the worst projects that are having the most enforcements in Canada’s history. It wasn’t okay for other industries to do what the wind turbine industry is doing in Ontario. But it’s okay for the wind turbine industry to do what it’s doing because Mr. Bennett believes in the industry. What a shame the Sierra Club and Mr. Bennett have become.

I would like to invite the Sierra Club to visit every single city and town in Ontario facing environmental, human and economic impacts from wind turbines. Then conclude factual information based on real Ontario people’s stories and evidence about wind turbine horror stories. [Read more →]

“The [conflicts between wind turbines and residents] are more than just NIMBYISM; they are a justified reaction to intrusive technologies that would not even be polluting the landscape except for involuntary taxpayer/ratepayer subsidies enacted and enforced by government edict. Capitalists and environmentalists unite!”

Mark Twain said “a lie can travel around the world while the truth is putting its shoes on”. The falsehoods about industrial wind turbines have been marching the globe for 20+ years, but the truth is now in its shoes and making its way into the court of public opinion and into the court of law. Has the tide turned against government created industrial wind?

It’s been a fervent time since the offshore announcement in Ontario recently (see my previous post, Ontario’s Wind Moratorium: Public Discontent Sends a Global Message to Government-Dependent Energy (and energy sprawl). But while celebrating the offshore moratorium announcement, rural Ontario was justly miffed that the province announced business-as-usual with its aggressive government subsidies and permitting  of on-land industrial wind parks.

Communities, however, are waking up to the uneconomic, anti-environmental nature of wind toward a goal of extracting more moratoriums. Public-spirited groups are educating ahead of the next provincial election to get the attention of the provincial Ministers and the Premier and what has been to date government policy by public confusion . Such stubborn, bully-headed policy could sink itself come October 6, 2011.

This is a government that is being guided by a consulting company that was/is spending $300,000 to stay the course on industrial-wind subsidies/permits. As much was exposed in a leaked document in the Legislature whereby the Provincial Liberals admitted to using “consultants” to confuse taxpayers about energy. [Read more →]

There is lots going on outside of Washington, D.C. when it comes to the environment, and perhaps no issue is bigger than the grassroot revolt against industrial wind parks. Such is not a ploy or plot by Big Oil or Big Coal or big anything. It is a natural reaction by those under a lifestyle assault by a mega-instrusive energy source that is about government dependence, political capitalism, and false environmental dogma–not the common good and environmental progress.

Future historians will no doubt wonder how Big Environmentalism got so far off track to support industrial windpower. A machine in every pristine–is this what environmental elitism at its worst?

“Let’s take back our environment from Big Environmentalism” could be the rallying cry of this new environmental movement. Are such groups as the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and (you fill in the blank)  listening?

National Wind Watch

The co-founder and head of National Wind Watch (NWW) is Eric Rosenbloom, who was one of several dozen activists from ten states attending a conference in 2005 from which National Wind Watch was formed. A Vermont resident, Rosenbloom has been NWW’s president since 2006.

New Media Deflates ’Wind Farm’ Image

Here is a sampling of what the anti-wind grassroots is producing. This list is then followed by a description of National Wind Watch.

http://www.wind-watch.org/video-wisconsin.php

Videos from National Wind Watch
This video is available here via You Tube. It was made by Larry Wunsch of Byron, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, and converted by Rock County Tax-Payers for a Better Renewable Energy Plan.

Wind Turbine Noise and Shadow Flicker (Fond du Lac County, Wis.; 8 min.)

More videos are available in the Resource Library: [Read more →]