Category — Grassroots opposition, windpower

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 →]

Building on yesterday’s Q&A on the realities of windpower, Part II has our heroine Jane discussing energy matters with her town supervisor:

Viewers are asking good questions about why I did or didn’t do such-and-such with the initial animated video. So here’s some background on making such a video as a teaching tool for wind activists around the country.

Making a Video

There are severe software restrictions when making these seemingly simple videos. For instance: [Read more →]

[Editor note: Part II's video on Jane talking about wind energy with her town supervisor is tomorrow.]

In my thirty plus years of working on environmental issues, I’ve learned a few things. One is that our “representatives” are often anything but. Another is that government bureaucrats have little interest in taking initiative, no matter how much sense it might make.

Yet another is that “environmental” organizations are much less interested in the environment then they might lead you to believe.

Yet still another insight is that active support from a sufficient number of citizens can be enough to offset these other liabilities. Put another way, if we do not get sufficient support from fellow citizens, our campaign objective has little chance for success. Phrased differently: the success of our campaign has more to do with the support we get, than the merits of what we are trying to do. Once this reality has sunk in, it should be clear that educating the public is of paramount importance.

So how to best do that is the $64,000 question. (Remember when that was a LOT of money?)

My New Video

I’m a scientist, not a PR expert, so this is not my field of expertise. However, through trial and error I have picked up some ideas over the last thirty plus years. For one thing, I have found it best to be FOR something, rather than AGAINST something else. Taking a positive approach resonates with most people.

Another key ingredient is the KISS principle — to keep it simple stupid.

Putting things into perspective, using some humor, and employing analogies are also powerful and useful in getting a message out. Then there is the question: HOW do you get your well-expressed good ideas out to the public? Clearly using the widest variety of media would seem to be the way to go. Exactly how to do that is what I have been investigating for awhile now.

My latest forage is into animated (avatar?) videos. My first one is addressing one of the most common queries I get: Please give me a simplified overview of the industrial wind energy situation!

So here is my attempt to write a script and then produce, direct and edit a corresponding video — all within the fairly narrow constraints of the software (about 7 minutes).

I look forward to your comments.

Avian mortality is the scientific term applied in environmental assessments of windpower. But there is another term that has gained currency where industrial wind has impacted local bird activity.

This post documents the historical use of the term, which was coined by the Los Angeles representative of the Sierra Club in the late 1980s. The term came back into use when environmentalists challenged a project of Enron Wind Corporation, now a subsidiary of General Electric.

Looking back, if environmentalists and regulatory authorities had cracked down on industrial wind, this artificial government-dependent industry could have been avoided altogether or shut down.

Instead, with Big Environmentalism leading the way, and anti-energy intellectuals welcoming the high cost-low reliability of wind, this inferior power source has been allowed to grow.

And now, grass-roots environmentalists are leading the charge against industrial wind.

A Term is Born

Here is the origin of the term as told by Paul Gipe in Wind Energy Comes of Age (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995, p. 450):

At the height of the Gorman [California] hearing, an old man took the podium. Suddenly the television news crews switched on their Klieg lights. Something was afoot. They had been alerted that a suitably newsworthy ‘sound bite’ was on its way. Tension in the room mounted. The old man proceeded to lovingly describe the beauty of his racing pigeons, their speed and grace, how they had become a part of his family, and then with perfect timing and dramatic flair, pleaded with the planning commission to protect his pigeons from “the Cuisinarts of the air.” [Read more →]

The unequal contest about the implementation of utility-scale wind plants between a number of ordinary citizens, on one hand, and the system of government intransigence, environmentalist narrowness, strong industry lobby groups, and uninformed public opinion, on the other, is a difficult but necessary one.

In Europe alone, which has the most experience with the wind plants, the number of such groups is approaching 450 in 21 countries. In Ontario Canada, one of the North American extremist jurisdictions in support of wind, the number is 35.

Unfortunately, compared to the wind proponent side, the relatively small number of people fighting wind plants comes from those who are faced with the reality of the prospect of wind plants in close proximity to their communities. However, others who for various reasons have done the necessary research to see past the misconceptions to the reality of the total folly of pursuing such policies have also joined them.

We must rise above the negatively intended, and unthinking, use of the term NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) that is quickly applied to these citizens’ groups. Although, initially their opposition represents self-interest (which is not automatically to be criticized), nevertheless they progress to becoming informed on the subject to properly represent their case. In doing this, they soon discover that the associated problems and worthlessness of the whole wind agenda. They find out that the Wind Crusade is hardly noble environmentalism. Many find themselves asking: why have so many self-styled environmentalists sold out to image, to form over sustance?

My view is that utility-scale wind plants are ineffective in all respects as an electricity source and should not be part of any electricity system, rendering all the other problems that come with them needless. The ‘other problems’ are the negative impact on:

• Human health
• Local flora and fauna
• Local economies, including businesses and housing real estate values
• Natural environments, so taken for granted, but important to our society
• Relationships within communities and even families
• Our financial systems (think in terms of the recent sub-prime fiasco)

A Letter to Real Environmentalists on Windpower

The following letter from Eric Bibler to the Cape Cod Commission about planning for industrial wind turbines is noteworthy. Bibler is an environmental activist and President of Save Our Seashore, a non-profit organization based in Wellfleet, MA, that is devoted to the principle that our National Parks, including the Cape Cod National Seashore, should be preserved and protected as a natural resource and not subjected to industrialization through the installation of wind energy. [Read more →]

In yesterday’s post, Scientists versus Lobbyists: Looking for a Winning Strategy Against Big Wind, I promised to share with readers a citizens’ letter I received from Eric Bibler. Consider his piece, which has been condensed to meet format and space requirements, as Part II of my post. Mr. Bibler is focused on Massachusetts, but his experience and advice apply across the Northeast and across the nation where grassroots opposition to industrial wind turbines is growing apace.

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This post summarizes a group discussion about how to counter Massachusetts’s Wind Energy Siting Bill.

Would it be more politically pragmatic (and therefore advisable) to avoid any argument against the fundamental viability of wind energy (which continues to be an article of faith held by many legislators), and instead to focus exclusively on the flaws specific to the bill?

In other words, in order to seem “reasonable” to lawmakers, should we argue against a poor implementation of the technology, rather than to question wind energy’s fundamental value?

The argument was that doing the latter may be too steep a hill to climb, plus it might lead lawmakers to reject opponents as “extremists” whose opinions were not worthy of serious consideration.

Pragmatism or Purity?

In my view, not focusing on the fundamental question of whether wind energy actually holds any promise as a solution to our energy and environmental problems is a terrible mistake for the simple reason that adopting such a “pragmatic” course makes us co-conspirators in the process of enabling a Big Lie.

While congratulating ourselves on our political acumen, we are sacrificing our credibility and our integrity. It is one thing to forgive people who support a bad idea because they don’t know any better – and most supporters of this technology admittedly have no idea what they’re getting themselves into.  But our task is to educate and persuade any of those who are willing to keep an open mind.

But we typically reserve our deepest scorn for those who DO know better, or SHOULD know better, but who nonetheless promote wind energy, sometimes quite cynically, without regard for its bad consequences or for its ultimate futility.

We do know better. And I, for one, do not want to be in the second category of knowing better, yet pretending not to, as one of the enablers of a big lie – even if I think it may be expedient for me over the short term.

The pro-wind argument proceeds directly from a host of assumptions that are demonstrably false; all of these projects, therefore, are built upon foundations of sand.  That is the truth that needs to be the basis of citizens’ responses. [Read more →]

My hope as a physicist is that our representatives make energy and environmental policy decisions based on sound science. So far that has not been the case. The main reason for this is that we are engaged in an epic battle between scientists and lobbyists for those with financial or political agendas.

Right now the scientists–the group with the better case for sound public policy–are losing.

I used to think that trying hard and being right was enough. Foolish me! Everything today is really about public relations. The Internet has spawned the perfect storm. Within a few minutes we can now send messages that are read by millions of people. At the other end, recipients are in overload, due to a steady bombardment of these messages. It is very hard for almost everyone to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Tilting Against Big Wind

What this says is that properly phrasing the message and getting it to the right people is critical. Scientists are not good at this, while this is a lobbyists forte — which is a big reason why scientists are losing. [Read more →]

 “Are environmentalists cooling to the sun, wind, and water—energy sources they have long touted as ecologically superior to oil, coal, and nuclear power? A report by the National Audubon Society, now attracting considerable attention in Washington, warns that ‘renewable’ energy sources are far from benign.

Observes one startled environmental consultant: ‘Symbolically, it’s like someone in the nuclear industry saying nukes are dangerous. . . . ‘

Some of the side effects the study identified: air and water pollution caused by converting plant matter into energy; urban sprawl from solar collectors, which are best suited to detached, single-family houses; depleted forests from wood burning; and increased chances of earthquakes from hydropower dams.”

- Staff Article, “The Graying of the Green Lobby,” Fortune, February 7, 1983, p. 22.

What happened to environmental criticism of earth-scaring renewable energy? Such criticism emerged in the 1980s but was squashed by Big Environmentalism, as it turns out.

Never mind the growing grassroots opposition to wind on environmental grounds. Never mind that firming intermittent wind removes most or all of its emission reduction, as shown by Kent Hawkins at MasterResource. Never mind the inconvenient facts, such as Enron rescuing the U.S. wind industry or the well-document ‘avian mortality’ issue.

And never mind the hard questions that even wind-advocate Paul Gipe posed in his 1995 book, Wind Energy Comes of Age (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995).

And so there is the joke:

Q: “When is an environmentalist not an environmentalist?”

A: “When it comes to windpower.”

Think about it: industrial wind parks are noisy, intrusive, cement-and-steel intensive, require service roads in the wilds, and must be shadowed by inefficiently-run fossil-fuel generation. And did we say that wind in more expensive than other forms of electric generation that provide non-intermittent power?

Remembering Some Hard Questions

At least some mainstream environmentalists were open to the problems of wind back in the mid-1990s. Stated Chris Flavin of World Watch Institute in his foreword to Gipe’s book:

“To its credit, Wind Energy Comes of Age tackles even the most nettlesome issues plaguing the wind industry, including the problem of bird kills, often referred to euphemistically as ‘avian mortality.’ Although the magnitude of the problem is not yet fully clear, Paul raises important warning flags about the dangers of not taking it and other environmental issues seriously. Unless the industry heeds Paul’s warnings, it will lose the environmental high-ground that helped get it where it is today. . . . Even those who feel stung by his criticisms would do well to remember the fate of the nuclear power industry, and others that chose to ignore early problems.”

- Chris Flavin, “Foreword,” in Paul Gipe, Wind Energy Comes of Age (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995), pp. xiv–xv.

 Gipe: ‘Avian Mortality’ Problem

Let’s start with the so-called avian mortality problem of windpower: [Read more →]