There was shock, surprise, and humor in the media when Trump not only denounced wind “mills” for intermittency, lack of predictable value, property losses, and bird kills but also topped his discussion with

“They say the noise causes cancer. You tell me that one, okay?”

Is President Trump correct in his five critical points? Even the last one? Or is it possible, as Trevor Noah suggested, turbines might be the only things that don’t cause cancer.

1. Intermittency

Electricity must be consumed the moment it is produced. Storage to allow deviations is prohibitively expensive in all but the rarest of settings. And it has always been this way.

Trump said, “Honey I’d like to watch TV tonight: are the turbines working?” And then his quotation from the Washington Republican fundraiser:

“Is the wind blowing?…

“The Trump folks seem to believe that anything that has Obama’s fingerprints on it, no matter how sensible, they’re going to rescind, revoke and demolish, and it makes no sense at all.”

“[The climate conundrum] is scary and I’m not sure we’re gonna be able to turn it around.”

– John Holdren, December 2017.

This is Part II of a transcribed interview with John Holdren, leader of the energy/climate Malthusian school, by Climate One. Yesterday’s post critically assessed Holdren’s views on federal energy research and development, the Paris withdrawal, and China’s energy policy. Today’s post looks at his views on most other issues in the “energy sustainability” debate.

Holdren quotations are below in red, followed by my rebuttal comments indented in black (subtitles added).

Technology Boom in Renewable Energies

“… there have been huge improvement in battery technology.…

“Over the last year or so, I have tried to advise the progressive community that we should be open-minded about a carbon tax.”

– Greg Dotson, Center for American Progress

“The bottom line here is that the distributional effect of a carbon tax could really be anything you want, depending on how you use the revenues. We think it is shortsighted to only think of the direct effect of the tax.”

– Eric Toder, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center

“[Trump] … is going to be utterly decimated in November….  Then the question is, what does that do to the Tea Party? …. Is the Tea Party really something to fear now, after a decimation in November? 

– Jerry Taylor, Niskanen Center

It is rare that one gets to follow the talk and reasoning of climate/energy alarmists/activists.…

“United States withdrawal [from the Paris accord] could become a specific excuse for countries that were hesitant to join in the first place…. The second thing is withdrawal of our financial support and technical support for other countries, particularly developing countries, for both mitigation and adaptation.”

– John Holdren, May 31, 2017

John Holdren is the proverbial gift-that-keeps-on-giving. He has toned down–but not repudiated–his past of exaggerated alarms. (Remember his worry about one billion climate-related deaths by 2020?)

In the wake of President’s Trump decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, Kiley Korth of the Center for American Progress interviewed Obama’s former science advisor. The entire interview is reprinted below in light of the new story line from ThinkProgress that Trump’s decision was really not that important! So Holdren then versus ThinkProgress now.…