July 20, 2004
Merits of Cape Wind project
This letter (click the title of this post) in response to my earlier letter comes straight from the wind industry's sales brochure: Compare the (generously estimated) total annual output to the consumption of a small region (75% of the Cape's needs!). Equate that output with the carbon emissions of the dirtiest coal plant to claim what it is replacing. And ignore the intermittency of that output, which makes it useless for meeting actual minute-by-minute demand and either ensures that the dirtiest coal plant (because it is most easily switched quickly on and off) must be relied on even more than before or requires the large interstate grid to absorb the effect of its erratic peaks and dips, negating most of its supposed contribution.
July 19, 2004
To the Black Caucus
Donna Warren, who ran for Lieutenant Government of California for the Green Party in 2002, criticizes the Congressional Black Caucus for going along with the racist Democratic agenda and telling Ralph Nader to withdraw from the race.
'What are you afraid of? That Nader and Camejo may "mess up your little party" because they advocate for Black Americans and you don't.'
July 18, 2004
Vote for Nader
Click the title of this post for an excellent article in The Nation by Barbara Ehrenreich in support of Ralph Nader for President. It's from 2000 but every word (substituting "Kerry" for "Gore") still applies today.
It's over, Barbara
Barbara Ehrenreich was apparently required to get a lobotomy before taking over Thomas Friedman's space in the New York Times while he pens another Pulitzer prize winner. Today's column is a witless diatribe against Ralph Nader for not giving up his ideals as she has.
She shows a surprising superficiality in her politics, saying she supported Nader in 2000 because she thought Bush was a harmless buffoon. She, like many others, calls that Nader's first run; many of us, however, remember voting for him in 1996. She also, again like many others, has adopted the presumption that Nader can only be a "spoiler," that he "steals" votes from the "legitimate" candidate.
She says Nader has compromised himself in his efforts to get on the ballot in some states. Does she criticize the sham of democracy when so many diverse barriers prevent a prominent candidate from appearing on the ballot? Does she criticize the electoral system that counts votes in small states as more than those in large states? The winner-takes-all system that effectively causes half of the voters to not be represented in their government? Nader is a veteran campaigner and a national political figure. She should be defending his right to be on every ballot automatically. If she believes in democracy, she should be crying out for proportional representation.
Instead, she defends the status quo of the corporatist party system. She says that Sharpton, Dean, Moseley-Braun, and Kucinich show that Nader's issues have been taken up by Democrats, forgetting to mention how Kucinich was forced last week to bow to the Democrats' pro–Israeli apartheid and pro–bloated military budget platform. Kerry is her candidate, and he has no plans for an Iraq pull-out, universal health care, workers' rights, progressive taxes, restoration of civil liberties, etc. There's abortion rights, of course -- except that Kerry is less supportive of reproductive rights than Clinton and Reno were, and during that fabled administration real access to abortion declined precipitously. A Democratic Senate approved Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court. Democrats had voted unanimously to confirm Antonin Scalia. More recently, Democrats, including Kerry and Edwards, supported Bush's tax cuts, the "Patriot" Act, the perverse "No Child Left Behind" education laws, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. They are active contributors to the massive corporate tax give-aways currently working through our houses of government. Ehrenreich nonetheless insists that Kucinich is a force in the party and coyly states that only if he doesn't get the nomination will she have to consider an alternative.
Cute, Barbara. You can't admit that you are actively opposing what you have in the past pretended to stand for and are now campaigning for the imperialist plutocrat John Kerry to replace the imperialist plutocrat George Bush. There is good reason to worry about another four years of Bush, particularly since there is no real opposition to his policies from the Democrats (including Kerry). But you sound like an idiot arguing that voting Democrat is anything more than a temporary necessity. It is not Ralph Nader who has lost his moorings, but you.
She shows a surprising superficiality in her politics, saying she supported Nader in 2000 because she thought Bush was a harmless buffoon. She, like many others, calls that Nader's first run; many of us, however, remember voting for him in 1996. She also, again like many others, has adopted the presumption that Nader can only be a "spoiler," that he "steals" votes from the "legitimate" candidate.
She says Nader has compromised himself in his efforts to get on the ballot in some states. Does she criticize the sham of democracy when so many diverse barriers prevent a prominent candidate from appearing on the ballot? Does she criticize the electoral system that counts votes in small states as more than those in large states? The winner-takes-all system that effectively causes half of the voters to not be represented in their government? Nader is a veteran campaigner and a national political figure. She should be defending his right to be on every ballot automatically. If she believes in democracy, she should be crying out for proportional representation.
Instead, she defends the status quo of the corporatist party system. She says that Sharpton, Dean, Moseley-Braun, and Kucinich show that Nader's issues have been taken up by Democrats, forgetting to mention how Kucinich was forced last week to bow to the Democrats' pro–Israeli apartheid and pro–bloated military budget platform. Kerry is her candidate, and he has no plans for an Iraq pull-out, universal health care, workers' rights, progressive taxes, restoration of civil liberties, etc. There's abortion rights, of course -- except that Kerry is less supportive of reproductive rights than Clinton and Reno were, and during that fabled administration real access to abortion declined precipitously. A Democratic Senate approved Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court. Democrats had voted unanimously to confirm Antonin Scalia. More recently, Democrats, including Kerry and Edwards, supported Bush's tax cuts, the "Patriot" Act, the perverse "No Child Left Behind" education laws, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. They are active contributors to the massive corporate tax give-aways currently working through our houses of government. Ehrenreich nonetheless insists that Kucinich is a force in the party and coyly states that only if he doesn't get the nomination will she have to consider an alternative.
Cute, Barbara. You can't admit that you are actively opposing what you have in the past pretended to stand for and are now campaigning for the imperialist plutocrat John Kerry to replace the imperialist plutocrat George Bush. There is good reason to worry about another four years of Bush, particularly since there is no real opposition to his policies from the Democrats (including Kerry). But you sound like an idiot arguing that voting Democrat is anything more than a temporary necessity. It is not Ralph Nader who has lost his moorings, but you.
July 16, 2004
A chill wind
Peter Simple wrote in the 16 July "End column" of the Daily Telegraph (registration required) about the U.K. plan to 'cover the most attractive parts of the country still remaining with hundreds, if not thousands, of huge, ugly, noisy wind turbines.
'This vile scheme is supported by an unholy alliance of environmentalists and entrepreneurs of the new wind power industry. The motive of the wind industrialists is the same as with any other industry: to make money. As for the environmentalists, they believe that "clean, renewable energy" from wind power will help to diminish "global warming" from conventional methods of electric power generation on which the progress of the economy depends.
'So all our treasured landscapes and our holy and historic places must be sacrificed for the sake of the economy. What is the economy? It is the endless manufacture of more and more objects, some useful but most unnecessary and the proliferation of agencies like television on which they depend, agencies of mental and moral corruption.
'From the sight of wind turbines which, if their supporters have their way, will be inescapable everywhere, we shall be forced to learn the lesson that material convenience and comfort are everything, that our society is based on nothing but gross materialism, and that the few remaining places where people eccentric enough to value natural beauty, quietness and solitude can still experience such things will be spared only under official control, in "national parks" or "areas of outstanding natural beauty", which are merely permitted parts of the industrial system, dependent on the "tourist industry", itself an important part of the economy.
'Thus everything without exception will be organised for the sake of industrial progress as an end in itself, in a world where there is no other end. Wherever we look, in case we have momentarily forgotten, wind turbines will remind us that we are helpless slaves of the industrial system, with no refuge anywhere except in an imaginary "countryside". The real countryside will have been industrialised.
'What shall we do when the wind turbines are everywhere on cliffs and hilltops and the attitude of mind they signify have become compulsory? What kind of a desolate country will be left for us to live in?'
'This vile scheme is supported by an unholy alliance of environmentalists and entrepreneurs of the new wind power industry. The motive of the wind industrialists is the same as with any other industry: to make money. As for the environmentalists, they believe that "clean, renewable energy" from wind power will help to diminish "global warming" from conventional methods of electric power generation on which the progress of the economy depends.
'So all our treasured landscapes and our holy and historic places must be sacrificed for the sake of the economy. What is the economy? It is the endless manufacture of more and more objects, some useful but most unnecessary and the proliferation of agencies like television on which they depend, agencies of mental and moral corruption.
'From the sight of wind turbines which, if their supporters have their way, will be inescapable everywhere, we shall be forced to learn the lesson that material convenience and comfort are everything, that our society is based on nothing but gross materialism, and that the few remaining places where people eccentric enough to value natural beauty, quietness and solitude can still experience such things will be spared only under official control, in "national parks" or "areas of outstanding natural beauty", which are merely permitted parts of the industrial system, dependent on the "tourist industry", itself an important part of the economy.
'Thus everything without exception will be organised for the sake of industrial progress as an end in itself, in a world where there is no other end. Wherever we look, in case we have momentarily forgotten, wind turbines will remind us that we are helpless slaves of the industrial system, with no refuge anywhere except in an imaginary "countryside". The real countryside will have been industrialised.
'What shall we do when the wind turbines are everywhere on cliffs and hilltops and the attitude of mind they signify have become compulsory? What kind of a desolate country will be left for us to live in?'
July 12, 2004
Waiting for Cape Wind
[To the Editor, Boston Globe]
The editorial of July 11, calling for Governor Romney to support the Cape Wind project, concisely describes the urgent need to solve current energy issues. It fails to show, however, how the Cape Wind project would be part of that solution.
It is estimated that the 24-square-mile project of 420-ft-high towers will produce about 2.5% of Massachusetts' electricity. But because their output responds to the wind rather than actual consumer demand, much of it would not be needed and would have to be absorbed by the larger New England grid. Even when demand is high, more steady sources will already be providing the electricity, so again, should the wind happen to blow in the ideal range of speed, its output would not be needed.
Such a dubious contribution is not worth the cost nor the environmental destruction.
The editorial of July 11, calling for Governor Romney to support the Cape Wind project, concisely describes the urgent need to solve current energy issues. It fails to show, however, how the Cape Wind project would be part of that solution.
It is estimated that the 24-square-mile project of 420-ft-high towers will produce about 2.5% of Massachusetts' electricity. But because their output responds to the wind rather than actual consumer demand, much of it would not be needed and would have to be absorbed by the larger New England grid. Even when demand is high, more steady sources will already be providing the electricity, so again, should the wind happen to blow in the ideal range of speed, its output would not be needed.
Such a dubious contribution is not worth the cost nor the environmental destruction.
The wind on Lewis
[To the Editor, New York Times Travel -- published July 25]
Susan Allen Toth describes both the relentless wind and the consuming silence on the Hebrides island of Lewis ("A Remote, Ancient Isle," July 11). Renewable energy developers also have noted the wind and are threatening the island's serenity with a proposed 45-square-mile wind "farm" using the largest turbines and towers currently available.
The British and Scottish governments fully support the project, which will be the biggest in the world and will provide at most only 0.5% of the U.K.'s electricity. A 400-mile undersea power cable is being planned to connect the Hebrides to the north coast of Wales, so this is likely but the first in a long series of such projects for the western isles.
Lewis as described by Toth may not be around much longer.
Susan Allen Toth describes both the relentless wind and the consuming silence on the Hebrides island of Lewis ("A Remote, Ancient Isle," July 11). Renewable energy developers also have noted the wind and are threatening the island's serenity with a proposed 45-square-mile wind "farm" using the largest turbines and towers currently available.
The British and Scottish governments fully support the project, which will be the biggest in the world and will provide at most only 0.5% of the U.K.'s electricity. A 400-mile undersea power cable is being planned to connect the Hebrides to the north coast of Wales, so this is likely but the first in a long series of such projects for the western isles.
Lewis as described by Toth may not be around much longer.
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