out of Kirby Mountain out of

Joe Bageant writes from Etowah, Tennessee, one-time "rubberized hair capitol of the world," in praise of holy madness -- giving crazed inspired voice to the divine monster . . . a so-called "must read."

"Elevating carnage to cultural protocol is very dangerous. And official rationalization of it is disastrous. Why isn't someone talking about these things?" We have no examples. We have no ideals. We have only corruption and self-justifying silliness in service of capitalism as it runs further and more terribly amok.

categories:  animal rights, human rights, anarchism

Deutsche Welle reports today that NABU (Naturschutzbund Deutschland) has given industrial wind parks a thumbs up. Although a recent worldwide study by NABU estimates that 60 birds and 50 bats per year collide with the average turbine, and that this particularly puts birds of prey and some bat species at risk, German wind facilities are claimed to be miraculously exempt from these problems.

Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin says NABU's findings refute the "horror story" that industrial wind turbines kill birds. Excuse me, Herr Trittin, but the evidence appears to do the opposite.

The NABU report is available in German as a 644-KB PDF file. It includes a 3-page summary in English, which points out, as has Paul Kerlinger at a recent American Wind Energy Association workshop, that habitat displacement, degradation, and fragmentation also are serious threats to birds. They also note, "Wind farms had significantly negative effects on local populations of geese, Wigeons, Golden Plovers and Lapwings." And, "There was no evidence that birds generally 'habituated' to wind farms in the years after their construction." And, "In Germany the relatively high numbers of killed White-tailed Eagles and Red Kites give reason for concern. Germany hosts about half of the world population of breeding Red Kites and has a particular responsibility for this species."

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, animal rights, birds, conservation

An article in Monday's New York Times examines (as if it's a new development!) Dear Leader W's blithe disregard for reality and his blatant insensitivity and ignorance. They call it "flirty" and "impish." I think they meant "asshole." Anyway, it is reported that Dear Leader receives a shoulder massage most Sundays "to relieve tension and muscle aches from exercise." Lest one think that his exercise regime is more strenuous than the job of running the country into the toilet and the planet into chaos -- and keeping these facts well away from conscious awareness -- it's probably not the exercise at all causing the strain. It's the continuous shrugging off of responsibility.

Free association corner: imp, chimp, shrimp. flirt, pervert, dirt.

((((((( )))))))
Meanwhile, on Counterpunch yesterday, Stew Albert wrote:

'What we of the original and most honest pro life movement should be saying to those who have stolen our words, is that we are going to take back the life force. You guys are hypocrites who forget about the care and welfare of human beings once they are born and can actually think and feel and ask questions about the meaning of life. You lose interest in them because they are no longer "pure" and "innocent" but let one of them experience a major trauma to their brain and lose any capacity to think and act. Ah, then the "purity" returns and those who want to end their misery and the artificial maintenance of a breathing brainless heart, become anti-life crucifying mean spirited absolutely evil Nazis. You guys must hate the fact that human beings have free will, that's why you don't care about executions, people living out on the streets, napalmed cities and back alley abortions. People with free will might commit sins, so let them live in hell.

'Let us progressive, liberals, humanists and reasonable thinkers reclaim the banner of life culture by saying, we are about stopping wars, providing health care, protecting social security, letting women decide about what should happen in and to, their own body, saving the environment, making sure everyone gets three square and nutritionally worthy meals a day and gets to think for themselves and speak for themselves and let people know that maybe they don't ever want to live on as a brainless vegetable, and let's reclaim life by making sure every homeless person is offered a home that isn't a prison.'

categories:  politics, prolife, exercise, yippies

Canada is resuming the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of baby seals, because seals eat fish. Humans eat fish, too, but the seals are the ones who get killed for it. The Canadians think it's their fish that the seals are eating and have come up with this effective means of managing the competition. (South Korea and Japan are having a similar dispute over fishing grounds -- one hopes neither of them looks to Canada for guidance!)

Bad as eating fish already is -- for them as well as for us -- the destruction of a whole generation of seals can now be added to the gumbo.

categories:  animal rights, vegetarianism

To the editor, New York Times Magazine:

Kate Hirson, featured in "Kitchen Voyeur," March 20, complains about the depressing repetition of "the vegetarian menu." I immediately wondered why she picks on her vegetarian friends, since most non-vegetarians also -- perhaps more so -- tend towards repetition and predictability.

As Hirson prepared yet another hunk of flesh from yet another dead animal, I also wondered why so few people notice that what makes the meal interesting (not to mention palatable) is the vegetarian component. The animal part could easily be replaced with some of the beautiful root vegetables described a week before in the same space.

category:  vegetarianism, animal rights

Naomi Klein recently met with Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena and was interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. The U.S. has refused to allow Italian police to examine the car in which she was fired upon. Here are some excerpts.

But when I met with her, she was clearly very, very ill, and that's why she's not on the show this morning. She was fired on by a gun at the top of a tank, which means that the artillery was very, very large. It was a four-inch bullet that entered her body and broke apart. And it didn't just injure her shoulder, it punctured her lung. And her lung continues to fill with fluid, and there continues to be complications stemming from that fairly serious injury. ...

... Giuliana is not saying that she's certain in any way that the attack on the car was intentional. She is simply saying that she has many, many unanswered questions, and there are many parts of her direct experience that simply don't coincide with the official U.S. version of the story. One of the things that we keep hearing is that she was fired on on the road to the airport, which is a notoriously dangerous road. ... What Giuliana told me that I had not realized before is that she wasn't on that road at all. She was on a completely different road that I actually didn't know existed. It's a secured road that you can only enter through the Green Zone and is reserved exclusively for ambassadors and top military officials. So, when Calipari, the Italian security intelligence officer, released her from captivity, they drove directly to the Green Zone, went through the elaborate checkpoint process which everyone must go through to enter the Green Zone, which involves checking in obviously with U.S. forces, and then they drove onto this secured road. And the other thing that Giuliana told me that she's quite frustrated about is the description of the vehicle that fired on her as being part of a checkpoint. She says it wasn't a checkpoint at all. It was simply a tank that was parked on the side of the road that opened fire on them. There was no process of trying to stop the car, she said, or any signals. From her perspective, they were just -- it was just opening fire by a tank. The other thing she told me that was surprising to me was that they were fired on from behind.

A couple of excerpts from "A Problem With Wind Power," by Eric Rosenbloom:

'The DOE says there are 18,000 square miles of good wind sites in the U.S., which with current technology could produce 20% of the country's electricity. This rosy plan, based on the wind industry's sales brochures, as well as on a claim of electricity use that is only three-quarters of the actual use in 2002, would require "only" 142,060 1.5-MW towers. They also explain, "If the wind resource is well matched to peak loads, wind energy can effectively contribute to system capacity." That's a big if -- counting on the wind to blow exactly when demand rises -- especially if you expect the wind to cover 20% (or even 5%) of that demand. As in Denmark and Germany, you would quickly learn that the prudent thing to do is to look elsewhere first in meeting the load demand. And we'd be stuck with a lot of generally unhelpful hardware covering every windy spot in the U.S., while the developers would be looking to put up yet more to make up for and deny their failings.'


'We are reminded that there are trade-offs necessary to living in a technologically advanced industrial society, that fossil fuels will run out, that global warming must be slowed, and that the procurement and transport of fossil and nuclear fuels is environmentally, politically, and socially destructive. Sooner or later the realities of this modern life will have to reach into our own back yards, the commons must be developed for our economic survival, and it would be elitist in the extreme to believe we deserve better. So wilderness areas are sacrificed, rural communities are bribed into becoming live-in (but ineffective) power plants, our governments boast that they are looking beyond fossil fuels (while doing nothing to actually reduce their use), and our electric bills go up to support "investment in a greener future." And at the other end of this trade-off, multinational energy companies reap greater profits and fossil and nuclear fuel use continues to grow.'

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

Ecofeminists and many anarchists see vegetarianism as an essential response against exploitation of other beings. Many religious people see vegetarianism as consistent with a message of peace.

Unfortunately, most people who call themselves progressive (let alone liberal) do not see the defense of all animals as relevant to their concerns about human society.

Yet the way that humans treat other animals is one of the most indicators of how we treat the environment and each other. Eating, hunting, wearing, poisoning, abusing animals is one way everyone participates in a social organization based on exploitation and jealous protection of power.

Besides hunting and fishing and fur farming and beings tortured and killed in labs, in the U.S. one third of what is spent for raw materials and half of all our water are used just to produce food for the animals of the "meat" industry -- 26 billion individuals killed and eaten every year.

Like the reality of our invasion of Iraq, the reality of the meat and other animal-exploitation industries are hidden behind euphemistic doublespeak and outright lies. To speak the truth is considered treasonous, a threat to traditional values and the cohesion of society. People would rather not hear it. Yet the pursuit both of meat and of war is ridiculously wasteful, counterproductive, and self-destructive.

If there is to be an anti-war movement, vegetarians, those who understand the intersection of all violence against another, should join it openly as vegetarians.


categories:  animal rights, vegetarianism, anarchism, ecofeminism, peace

Kenneth Deffeyes, a geologist and author of Beyond Oil, writes in today's New York Times that the desire to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a distraction from the real issue of oil's decline. He points out that even the very productive Prudhoe Bay fields did not add much to our supply of oil, and that nobody knows if oil will be found at all in the Refuge, much less save us in our continuing thirst for an ever-dwindling supply.

A paragraph at the end suggests what can be done as oil production declines, notably more efficient transport and conservation. But he also calls for a greater reliance on wind and nuclear power. Surely he knows that these are sources off electricity, of which less than 2.5% is generated by burning oil. The issue of wind and nuclear power is irrelevant to the issue of oil.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, energy, environment

A report from Australia describes the foundation for a 2-MW Enercon E-70 wind turbine (85-m tower + 35-m blades):

The Mount Millar Wind Farm between Cowell and Cleve moved into its next phase on Tuesday when the first foundation for a turbine tower was poured.

About 325 cubic metres of concrete was poured into the foundation, which represents about 65 truck loads.

The first foundation to be poured was in a hole about 2.5 metres deep with a diameter of 17 metres.

Just over 40 tonnes of reinforcing rod was used in the hole as strengthening for the foundation. The reinforcing rod forms a cage in the hole, which gives the base its strength.

That's 425 cubic yards of concrete and 44 tons of steel in an 8-ft-deep 56-ft-diameter hole.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

There is an excellent letter in today's local paper about the everyday atrocities that humans commit against other animals. The writer includes a quote that "Hunting is a variant of mental illness." [Click the title of this post to read it.]

category:  animal rights

A letter in the March 22 [Burlington, Vt.] Free Press asks if "selfish" worries about aesthetics, safety, and threats to wildlife are all (!) that opponents to industrial wind power have to weigh against the promise of a clean energy source. The writer makes a couple of errors, however, in his enthusiasm for that as yet unproven (despite decades of experience) promise.

First, he raises the specter of terrorists supported by our purchases of oil. Only 3% of our oil use is for generating electricity. Transportation uses 88%, and we export 7%. Windmills, even if they performed as well as the sales brochures promise, would have pretty much no effect at all on our use of oil.

Second, he is mistaken that the turbines and towers can just be torn down when no longer needed and the trees can grown back. Unfortunately, the wide straight strong roads that are necessary for installing the facilities will have already permanently altered the landscape, including water flow. And each tower is set in a 2,000-square-foot foundation containing hundreds, even thousands, of yards of concrete and tons of steel. On most mountaintops in Vermont, the bedrock will have been blasted to make that huge hole. Removal of these facilities will not be easy (or cheap), and it would certainly not leave the site anywhere near as it was before.

It's true that our current energy use threatens the mountains as well. But that does not excuse industrializing them instead, particularly with a technology that does little, if anything, towards actually changing our energy use.

-- letter published in the Burlington Free Press, March 29, 2005

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

Here is an excerpt from Emma Goldman's 1911 still dismayingly relevant essay, available at the Emma Goldman Reference Archive.

The powers that have for centuries been engaged in enslaving the masses have made a thorough study of their psychology. They know that the people at large are like children whose despair, sorrow, and tears can be turned into joy with a little toy. And the more gorgeously the toy is dressed, the louder the colors, the more it will appeal to the million-headed child.

An army and navy represents the people's toys. To make them more attractive and acceptable, hundreds and thousands of dollars are being spent for the display of these toys. That was the purpose of the American government in equipping a fleet and sending it along the Pacific coast, that every American citizen should be made to feel the pride and glory of the United States. The city of San Francisco spent one hundred thousand dollars for the entertainment of the fleet; Los Angeles, sixty thousand; Seattle and Tacoma, about one hundred thousand. To entertain the fleet, did I say? To dine and wine a few superior officers, while the "brave boys" had to mutiny to get sufficient food. Yes, two hundred and sixty thousand dollars were spent on fireworks, theatre parties, and revelries, at a time when men, women, and child}en through the breadth and length of the country were starving in the streets; when thousands of unemployed were ready to sell their labor at any price.

Two hundred and sixty thousand dollars! What could not have been accomplished with such an enormous sum ? But instead of bread and shelter, the children of those cities were taken to see the fleet, that it may remain, as one of the newspapers said, "a lasting memory for the child."

A wonderful thing to remember, is it not? The implements of civilized slaughter. If the mind of the child is to be poisoned with such memories, what hope is there for a true realization of human brotherhood?

We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that it will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations.

Such is the logic of patriotism.

category:  anarchism

The New York Times notes today that "[a] spate of takeovers in the wind-energy business this year shows that large energy companies and investment banks are seeking to increase their holdings in wind power."

Scottish Power's American subsidiary, PPM Energy, has been buying up developers, most recently Atlantic Renewable Energy. As has AES Corporation (most recently Sea West Holdings). Today's news was that Goldman Sachs (yes, an investment banker, not an energy company) is buying Zilkha Renewable Energy. Another outfit, Noble Environmental Power, is owned by another banker, J.P. Morgan Chase. Britain's Airtricity is also getting active in the U.S., following France's Enxco, a subsidiary of nuclear powerhouse EDF.

According to Citizens for Tax Justice (340-KB PDF), FPL [Florida Power & Light] Group, parent of FPL Energy, the largest owner of wind energy in the U.S., paid no federal income taxes for 2002 and 2003 profits of $2.243 billion. In fact, they got tax refunds totaling $252 million. They were able to claim $1.276 billion just in accelerated depreciation.

Thar's gold in thim thar hills!

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms

I must comment on a couple of recent pieces about industrial wind power, one by Doug Hufnagel of Maine and one by the editorial staff of the Boston Globe.

While the writer's heart is in the right place, he exaggerates wind power's potential contribution towards more sustainable energy use. The 11,000 wind turbines of Altamont and Tehachapi in California produce only 1% of the state's electricity use. At that rate, Maine would need almost 38,000 turbines to produce the amount of electricity people in the state use (not just in their homes). Most of the California turbines are smaller than the ones now proposed, but new ones require the same space, 30-60 acres per megawatt. At a capacity factor of 20%-25% (the record of facilities in similar areas), Maine's electricity use would require 132,000-330,000 acres of wind plant, 100-260 square miles.

But the wind doesn't blow at a constant rate, much less in response to actual demand for electricity. In fact, the wind turbines would produce at or above their average level only one third of the time. So Maine will have turned hundreds of square miles over to industrial development and still need the old sources of electricity most of the time.

The Boston Globe editorial not only exaggerates Cape Wind's possible contribution but also downplays the significant impact so many giant turbines, along with the necessary substations and cables, would obviously have. I just want to address the uncritically repeated claim from the developer that the project will provide 3/4 of the electricity used by Cape Cod and the Islands. First, that represents a 40% capacity factor, which is quite exaggerated -- it should be 20%-30% (in theory, off-shore wind is more steady, but 20%-30% is the record of existing facilities), so the figure should be revised to less than half. But, as above, average or more output of a wind plant is seen only one third of the time. Most of the time, the Cape Wind facility will not be providing much electricity at all, making a mockery of the huge investment and desecration of the seascape.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

No, they aren't, of course. That would be absurd -- an environmental group promoting the industrial development of wild places. Oh, wait, but they do. Just call it green and urgently necessary, and formerly inaccessible ridgelines and prairies are yours to exploit.

While I completely share Greenpeace's concerns and the goals of their "Clean Energy Now" campaign, they say that wind could supply 10% of the world's electricity by 2025. To supply 10% the world's use in 2001 (13,934 TW-h) would have required an average output of 159,064 MW, representing an installed wind capacity of 636,256 (25% capacity factor) to 795,320 (20% c.f.) MW, or 424,171-530,213 1.5-MW turbines. Greenpeace urges aggressive use of off-shore sites, which can use larger-capacity turbines and might initially show better capacity factors, but the number required is still outrageous. In 2025, projected electricity demand will require 1.75 times more than the numbers just calculated: 750,000-1,000,000 turbine towers to provide just 10% of our electricity.

Besides being so much and doing so little, it does nothing at all about other energy use besides that for generating electricity. Ten percent reduction in all energy use could more easily, more cheaply, and -- most significantly for environmentalists -- without adding more industry to our already so diminished landscapes be achieved by implementing simple conservation and efficiency measures.

categories:  energy, environment, wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

There's still 3 feet of snow on the ground, but the road's a treacherous mudslick and sugaring is expected to begin at any day now. Most dramatically on this feast of St Patrick was when we went outside this morning for taking the wee one to what they euphemistically call a school and the sun was already above the ridge and shining down on us.

As noted in the previous post, there has been some confusion about electricity demand in Massachusetts (actually, at issue was the whole New England grid, but also at issue are wind turbines proposed in the Berkshires of Massachusetts). According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, 52,410 GW-h of electricity were sold in Massachusetts in 2002. The annual output of a 1.5-MW wind turbine can be expected to be (granting a generous 25% capacity factor) not quite 3.3 GW-h. Therefore, each turbine might produce electricity equivalent to six one-thousandths of a percent of the state's electricity needs. In other words, almost 16,000 of them would be required to provide only 1% of the state's needs.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

A couple recent letters in the the North Adams (Mass.) Transcript are illustrative of the diversion (i.e., evasion) and misrepresentation typically seen in response to critics of industrial wind power.

Christopher Vadnais criticizes an earlier piece by Clark Billings for ignoring the many problems and inefficiencies of oil and coal use. The issue, of course, is not oil and coal but wind power, and Vadnais neglects to show how it would move us away from, much less improve the efficient use of, oil and coal. Particularly as he simply ignores Billings' point that only 3% of our oil goes to electricity production, generating less than 2.5% of it.

(Vadnais does correctly note an error in Billings' piece, in which he confuses grid capacity with actual production or demand.)

There is an assumption among many pro-wind people that to point out the shortcomings of industrial wind power is to ignore the problems of coal burning and nuclear fission. In fact, it is sincere concern about pollution and sustainability that compels one to make sure the expensive and disruptive construction of thousands of giant wind turbines on formerly nonindustrial, even wild, sites will actually be worth it. To find that it's not is not to express satisfaction with things as they are, it is simply to conclude that industrial wind power is not a solution.

To insist in response that at least wind power is a sign that we're doing something is just infantile and absurd.

Simon Zelazo starts with a personal note about how much he enjoys visiting the Searsburg (Vt.) facility and recently "had the pleasure" of visiting the turbine in Hull (Mass.) and experiencing its mesmerizing "whomp, whomp." He describes the sad interruption of his revery by an airplane, apparently meaning thus to dramatize the need for large-scale wind power. Unfortunately, the airplane -- representing one of the biggest sources of man-made greenhouse gases and one that would be totally unaffected by a small alternative source of electricity -- only illustrates the futility of such windmills as the one at Hull or the dozens proposed for