[Click here for part 1]
Excerpts, part 2, "The Enemy Within," by Mike Roselle, Lowbagger:
What really irks me is not just that it has become fashionable among consultants to argue against using boycotts, legislation, litigation and other confrontational and coercive approaches to going after polluter and despoilers. But that you must also differentiate yourself from those who do. This is accomplished by demeaning the efforts of those very environmental activists who have been out there on the front lines doing the heavy lifting over the last few decades. And we can't just be wrong in our approach; we are also selfish, ignorant, irrational, rich, elite or even worse, we are radical.
There are two problems with this thinking, and the first is that the only reason those corporations are sitting down with Breakthrough or any environmental groups is because they don't want to see those sign-waving hippie scum on their doorsteps. Would The Home Depot be talking to any of us if the Rainforest Action Network hadn't picketed hundreds of their most profitable outlets?
And the second problem is that this attitude by the well heeled, well paid professional environmental consultants serves to de-legitimize those very front line soldiers that we are going to need when the going gets rough. What happens when a company refuses to work with the new compliant environmental movement? We have the carrot, but where is the stick? The public may not identify with environmental or animal rights activists, but companies live in fear of being the target of a well coordinated campaign. It is very easy to make fun of the activists, but without them where would we be? ...
I think it should be quite clear by now that Nordhaus and Shellenberger are not, and never were, environmental activists. They have cast their lot with the promoters, developers and opportunists who have taken up residence under the banner of the environment. It is far easier to sit down with big business and cut deals and to give away more wildlife habitat than it is to stick to your guns on principle. You don't have to fight anybody. You don't have to go out into the community to organize the opposition; you don't have to risk being portrayed by these same corporations as unreasonable and confrontational. Indeed, you look out from your conference room table and agree with these bastards, that yes, these scruffy activists are a well-meaning bunch, but they are not realistic. They don't represent anybody, and we represent the voice of reason.
This is horseshit. The conservation movement is a modern, global, political force with historic roots and a clearly defined mission to protect nature. We understand that the survival of humanity depends on the survival of wilderness and natural diversity. We recognize that far too much of the Earth has been sacrificed for industrial and agricultural development, and this has led us to the brink of a mass extinction event and the onslaught of global warming. Without challenging the dominate paradigm of growth for the sake of growth, and getting serious about protecting habitat, a few more windmills and a new $30,000 car with double the gas mileage is not going to make much difference. By rejecting a government role in addressing the global warming crisis with stronger laws in favor of playing patty-cake with developers and alternative energy hucksters, they are abandoning the most powerful tools for achieving corporate responsibility -- the courthouse and the jailhouse. ...
If we cannot get coal mining and oil drilling under control soon, no amount of wind energy is going to affect global warming. We need to continue to question the rapid growth of the human population, and the loss of bio-diversity. If the Breakthrough Institute were doing more to address these problems rather than just play cheerleader for private sector voluntary acts of environmental sanity, maybe I would believe them. But: I don't.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism, animal rights
May 24, 2006
Nordhaus and Shellenberger are not environmentalists (1)
Excerpts, part 1, "The Enemy Within," by Mike Roselle, Lowbagger:
The Death of Environmentalism [by Ted Nordhaus and Steve Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute] was a broadside at the conservation movement disguised as friendly criticism from veteran strategists. Our tactics, which were indeed coercive and confrontational, were ultimately successful. We wanted to forge a new conservation movement that would fight, not roll over, to defend the natural world from industrial development. ...
Breakthrough wants to define a new environmental movement, broader in scope and more willing to come up with solutions and work with businesses to implement them. They suggest we abandon our efforts to get new laws or to use the courts to enforce existing laws, arguing that saving nature is for elitists who don't care for the plight of the poor and the oppressed. ...
According to Breakthrough we need new ones. And so they are going after that well known elitist, demon, plutocrat, Yankee, robber-baron, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. They’re mad because he wrote a widely published op-ed opposing the Cape Wind project, a group of 130 windmills to be built in Nantucket Sound. Kennedy's opposition was for environmental reasons, which he laid out in his article. This large-scale industrial wind farm is being supported by the Breakthrough Institute and, for some unexplained reason, by other environmental organizations like Greenpeace. It is planned for a popular recreation area, an important fishery and wildlife preserve, not to mention near a busy ship channel. We could certainly disagree about whether or not this was the only possible location for a project that would help stop global warming, or about its environmental impacts, but in his response Shellenberger goes further, and suggests any opposition to the project is from rich and famous celebrities on Martha's Vineyard, similar NIMBY's, or environmental extremists.
I had previously read Kennedy's editorial and found it very convincing. It was written in the language of conservation. He mentions the importance of wilderness and wildlife habitat. [H]e described what he thought were the negative impacts of the proposed project. [T]here were no personal attacks and it was a simple appeal to find a better location. It was a passionate argument against an industrial development ...
The response from the Breakthrough Institute and from a Greenpeace "Energy Campaigner” was swift and personal. Not to mention highly technical and legalistic. Some of the arguments in favor of wind derricks are strikingly similar to Ted Stevens's arguments in favor of derricks in the Arctic. They also avoided the central points of Kennedy's arguments by casting aspersions against his integrity. They never mentioned wilderness or wildlife as a value to be cherished. They state flat out that this project won't affect wildlife or the solitude of the area, and would even be an improvement. They accuse Kennedy of "threatening what is arguably the most important clean energy development in the world while encouraging the already substantial public perception that environmentalists are elitists who only care about protecting their own private playgrounds." ...
I don't have as much money as Bobby Kennedy, but I too have been called an elitist and a NIMBY. So now we have something in common other that our rugged good looks and love for running wild rivers. As far as being an elitist goes, if you are a Kennedy living on Martha's Vineyard, you pretty much have to prepare yourself for that one. But was he really a self-interested, vicious liar who couldn't give a rat's ass for the Earth and who doesn't care about global warming at all? ...
If I were going to award points on poise and style, Robert F. Kennedy would win this one hands down. But I will flat out say it is hypocritical of the Breakthrough Institute for criticizing the environmental movement for demonizing our opponents on one day and then to come back and personally attack Robert Kennedy and other environmentalist the next day and accuse them of being elitists, liars and a threat to the movement.
[F]rom an environmentalist's perspective, large-scale industrial development is not the solution, but is the problem itself. Windmills, although better than oil wells, are no panacea for the energy crisis. We are brushing up against the limits of what the natural resources of this planet will support, and a headlong rush into alternative energy production will not affect global warming unless some aggressive steps are also taken soon to address our overall growth and energy consumption in the so-called developed world. Otherwise, we will have wind farms and solar collectors all over the countryside trying to replace energy consumption that in the beginning was subsidized by burning copious amounts of forests and fossil fuel.
... [I]f we are to settle for large-scale industrial wind and solar projects, the threat of global warming should not be used as an excuse to trample the last good places for recreation or wildlife. It is hard to believe that suddenly the only place suitable for wind generators is also a place that has been considered for a wildlife refuge for endangered whales.
[Click here for part 2]
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism, animal rights
The Death of Environmentalism [by Ted Nordhaus and Steve Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute] was a broadside at the conservation movement disguised as friendly criticism from veteran strategists. Our tactics, which were indeed coercive and confrontational, were ultimately successful. We wanted to forge a new conservation movement that would fight, not roll over, to defend the natural world from industrial development. ...
Breakthrough wants to define a new environmental movement, broader in scope and more willing to come up with solutions and work with businesses to implement them. They suggest we abandon our efforts to get new laws or to use the courts to enforce existing laws, arguing that saving nature is for elitists who don't care for the plight of the poor and the oppressed. ...
According to Breakthrough we need new ones. And so they are going after that well known elitist, demon, plutocrat, Yankee, robber-baron, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. They’re mad because he wrote a widely published op-ed opposing the Cape Wind project, a group of 130 windmills to be built in Nantucket Sound. Kennedy's opposition was for environmental reasons, which he laid out in his article. This large-scale industrial wind farm is being supported by the Breakthrough Institute and, for some unexplained reason, by other environmental organizations like Greenpeace. It is planned for a popular recreation area, an important fishery and wildlife preserve, not to mention near a busy ship channel. We could certainly disagree about whether or not this was the only possible location for a project that would help stop global warming, or about its environmental impacts, but in his response Shellenberger goes further, and suggests any opposition to the project is from rich and famous celebrities on Martha's Vineyard, similar NIMBY's, or environmental extremists.
I had previously read Kennedy's editorial and found it very convincing. It was written in the language of conservation. He mentions the importance of wilderness and wildlife habitat. [H]e described what he thought were the negative impacts of the proposed project. [T]here were no personal attacks and it was a simple appeal to find a better location. It was a passionate argument against an industrial development ...
The response from the Breakthrough Institute and from a Greenpeace "Energy Campaigner” was swift and personal. Not to mention highly technical and legalistic. Some of the arguments in favor of wind derricks are strikingly similar to Ted Stevens's arguments in favor of derricks in the Arctic. They also avoided the central points of Kennedy's arguments by casting aspersions against his integrity. They never mentioned wilderness or wildlife as a value to be cherished. They state flat out that this project won't affect wildlife or the solitude of the area, and would even be an improvement. They accuse Kennedy of "threatening what is arguably the most important clean energy development in the world while encouraging the already substantial public perception that environmentalists are elitists who only care about protecting their own private playgrounds." ...
I don't have as much money as Bobby Kennedy, but I too have been called an elitist and a NIMBY. So now we have something in common other that our rugged good looks and love for running wild rivers. As far as being an elitist goes, if you are a Kennedy living on Martha's Vineyard, you pretty much have to prepare yourself for that one. But was he really a self-interested, vicious liar who couldn't give a rat's ass for the Earth and who doesn't care about global warming at all? ...
If I were going to award points on poise and style, Robert F. Kennedy would win this one hands down. But I will flat out say it is hypocritical of the Breakthrough Institute for criticizing the environmental movement for demonizing our opponents on one day and then to come back and personally attack Robert Kennedy and other environmentalist the next day and accuse them of being elitists, liars and a threat to the movement.
[F]rom an environmentalist's perspective, large-scale industrial development is not the solution, but is the problem itself. Windmills, although better than oil wells, are no panacea for the energy crisis. We are brushing up against the limits of what the natural resources of this planet will support, and a headlong rush into alternative energy production will not affect global warming unless some aggressive steps are also taken soon to address our overall growth and energy consumption in the so-called developed world. Otherwise, we will have wind farms and solar collectors all over the countryside trying to replace energy consumption that in the beginning was subsidized by burning copious amounts of forests and fossil fuel.
... [I]f we are to settle for large-scale industrial wind and solar projects, the threat of global warming should not be used as an excuse to trample the last good places for recreation or wildlife. It is hard to believe that suddenly the only place suitable for wind generators is also a place that has been considered for a wildlife refuge for endangered whales.
[Click here for part 2]
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism, animal rights
Derelict wind derricks
From a lawsuit in Abilene, Texas:
South Point, Hawaii
The primary plaintiff in the Texas case has noted in correspondence that there is a gaping loophole in the lease that FPL Energy had landowners sign. It is normal to include a "decommissioning" fund to remove the turbines, towers, and the top part of their foundations and restore the land (except for the bulk of the foundations). This is to comfort the landowner that the company is serious about meeting the obligation to remove everything. Anything three feet or so below the surface, however, including the miles of transmission cable, is usually to be left. Nor are the roads that fragment the land required to be removed. If the Tug Hill lease from PPM (Scottish Power) is typical, the amount deposited in the fund is determined by an "independent" expert chosen by the company, and potential scrap value is deducted. In other words, when the company is long gone, the money in that fund will be meager indeed.
Back to FPL's loophole, Dale Rankin noted that if the turbines are mortgaged and later foreclosed on, then the mortgagee is not bound to remove them. Considering that a third of the federal tax benefits are used up in six years and the other two-thirds last ten years, but the leases are for 25-30 years and wind turbines are very expensive to maintain, this situation is very likely.
That leaves the landowner with exactly what paragraph 61 in the suit asserts is likely and the derelict turbines at South Point on Hawaii stand testament to.
wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
Dale Rankin et al. vs. FPL Energy et al.
Filed Feb 24, 2006, District Court of Taylor County, Texas
IV. Background Facts
61. The huge wind turbines in this project will produce very little electricity, and that electricity is of less value than electricity produced by reliable coal and gas fired generating plants. This means that when the government subsidies ... run out, Plaintiffs and others similarly situated in Taylor County are likely to be confronted by a poorly maintained and deteriorating wind energy facility that may one day become derelict because ... the provision in the lease agreements for the dismantling of non-operational turbines is not absolute.
South Point, Hawaii
The primary plaintiff in the Texas case has noted in correspondence that there is a gaping loophole in the lease that FPL Energy had landowners sign. It is normal to include a "decommissioning" fund to remove the turbines, towers, and the top part of their foundations and restore the land (except for the bulk of the foundations). This is to comfort the landowner that the company is serious about meeting the obligation to remove everything. Anything three feet or so below the surface, however, including the miles of transmission cable, is usually to be left. Nor are the roads that fragment the land required to be removed. If the Tug Hill lease from PPM (Scottish Power) is typical, the amount deposited in the fund is determined by an "independent" expert chosen by the company, and potential scrap value is deducted. In other words, when the company is long gone, the money in that fund will be meager indeed.
Back to FPL's loophole, Dale Rankin noted that if the turbines are mortgaged and later foreclosed on, then the mortgagee is not bound to remove them. Considering that a third of the federal tax benefits are used up in six years and the other two-thirds last ten years, but the leases are for 25-30 years and wind turbines are very expensive to maintain, this situation is very likely.
That leaves the landowner with exactly what paragraph 61 in the suit asserts is likely and the derelict turbines at South Point on Hawaii stand testament to.
wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
May 23, 2006
May 22, 2006
East Haven survey suspect
George Willy, proprietor of East Burke's Village Inn, wrote in Friday's Caledonian Record about the unreliable survey showing that a majority of the people (or at least property owners, if not residents) of East Haven support four giant turbines on East Mountain (if not 46 more planned for ridges closer to the village). The survey was made quite some time ago, but people still cite it as valid.
Willy described his efforts to get information about the survey. The town select board presented it as theirs, but he learned that it was created, conducted, and tallied by the developer. The town clerk had no record of the select board's involvement and no information about the survey's creation and methodology. Willy also discovered that not all property owners and residents received the survey, known opponents having been apparently left out.
This is certainly no surprise. The wind developers are adept deniers of reality. Just as they insist there are no negative impacts from industrial wind, they insist there is no opposition by both ignoring and insulting it. That's their business, however cognitively dissonant their approach, but it most definitely should not be the method for politicians and environmentalists who promote wind. The job of these individuals is to protect the people and the environment from those with power (i.e., money), not the other way around.
The other way around is fascism, or corporatism, as Mussolini proudly characterized it.
wind power, wind energy, Vermont, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism, animal rights
Willy described his efforts to get information about the survey. The town select board presented it as theirs, but he learned that it was created, conducted, and tallied by the developer. The town clerk had no record of the select board's involvement and no information about the survey's creation and methodology. Willy also discovered that not all property owners and residents received the survey, known opponents having been apparently left out.
This is certainly no surprise. The wind developers are adept deniers of reality. Just as they insist there are no negative impacts from industrial wind, they insist there is no opposition by both ignoring and insulting it. That's their business, however cognitively dissonant their approach, but it most definitely should not be the method for politicians and environmentalists who promote wind. The job of these individuals is to protect the people and the environment from those with power (i.e., money), not the other way around.
The other way around is fascism, or corporatism, as Mussolini proudly characterized it.
wind power, wind energy, Vermont, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism, animal rights
It's not easy being green and supporting industrial wind, too
To the editor, Rutland (Vt.) Herald:
It is good to read that the Rutland Herald recognizes that, like any energy producer, industrial-scale wind power has serious environmental and social costs (editorial, May 20). The task, then, is to weigh those costs along with the financial expense against the actual contribution such a source can practically make.
As the Rutland Herald also recognizes, "even the industrial wind farms [Gov. James Douglas] opposes barely cut into the state's demand for electricity."
Yet, ignoring this information that they themselves have placed before their own and our eyes, the Herald criticizes Douglas's opposition to industrial wind in Vermont as "a short-term argument."
Look again: high costs, low benefit. If you're serious about our long-term energy plans, it's time to stop talking about industrial wind as anything more than a predatory boondoggle.
wind power, wind energy, Vermont, environment, environmentalism
It is good to read that the Rutland Herald recognizes that, like any energy producer, industrial-scale wind power has serious environmental and social costs (editorial, May 20). The task, then, is to weigh those costs along with the financial expense against the actual contribution such a source can practically make.
As the Rutland Herald also recognizes, "even the industrial wind farms [Gov. James Douglas] opposes barely cut into the state's demand for electricity."
Yet, ignoring this information that they themselves have placed before their own and our eyes, the Herald criticizes Douglas's opposition to industrial wind in Vermont as "a short-term argument."
Look again: high costs, low benefit. If you're serious about our long-term energy plans, it's time to stop talking about industrial wind as anything more than a predatory boondoggle.
wind power, wind energy, Vermont, environment, environmentalism
May 19, 2006
Tilting at turbine foes in Vermont
To the Editor, Vermont Guardian:
So the Free Press thinks clean coal and nuclear power are better options than wind for providing Vermont's electricity in the future. Yet they are accused of burying their head in the sand about energy issues. True, they have not published editorials about clean coal and nuclear power. That is because those are not currently being debated throughout the state, with ten large projects newly threatening dozens of towns. It is clear that the wind power industry considers the Free Press to be ignoring energy issues only for writing off wind power as an obvious boondoggle.
As David Blittersdorf himself is quoted as saying, there is no silver bullet. It is not an either/or question, yet Vermont Guardian implies exactly that in connecting the Free Press's rejection of wind power with their reported interest in clean coal and support for nuclear.
Industrial-scale wind power can be debated on its own costs and benefits. It is irrelevant and dishonest to change the subject to nuclear power (one can oppose both) or, for another common example, to the number of birds killed by cars. Even in the larger debate about electricity (let alone the four-fifths of Vermont's energy use that is not electric), there are, as Blittersdorf mentions, peaking and base load plants. Nuclear and coal plants make up the latter, and wind power would have nothing to do with their level of use, even if hundreds of redundant wind facilities are built in the hope that somewhere the wind is blowing.
Proponents of industrial-scale wind power want to bury everyone's head in the sand.
If you reject the idea of 400-ft-high machines flashing on prominent ridges, producing no power at all a third of the time, a trickle another third of the time, and at or above their 25% average output only the remaining third of the time, you are accused of ignoring energy issues.
If you reject badly worded surveys in the conviction as well that the people who actually have to live with the noise and vibration and ecological degradation from the machines are the only ones whose opinion might be informed and relevant, then you are denying reality.
If you note that the intermittency (see above) is defended as unproblematic because the fluctuating contribution from wind would be inconsequential to the larger grid, and therefore you wonder how anyone could justify building on vigorously protected sites for such an inconsequential power source, then you are ignorant of the facts.
A debate based on facts is exactly what promoters of the wind industry do not want. Blinded in their lust to develop what remains of our wild places, to take for profit what belongs to all of us, they lash out at all who question them. That is to be expected. That the Vermont Guardian joins them in that endeavor is sad, even disgusting.
wind power, wind energy, Vermont, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism
So the Free Press thinks clean coal and nuclear power are better options than wind for providing Vermont's electricity in the future. Yet they are accused of burying their head in the sand about energy issues. True, they have not published editorials about clean coal and nuclear power. That is because those are not currently being debated throughout the state, with ten large projects newly threatening dozens of towns. It is clear that the wind power industry considers the Free Press to be ignoring energy issues only for writing off wind power as an obvious boondoggle.
As David Blittersdorf himself is quoted as saying, there is no silver bullet. It is not an either/or question, yet Vermont Guardian implies exactly that in connecting the Free Press's rejection of wind power with their reported interest in clean coal and support for nuclear.
Industrial-scale wind power can be debated on its own costs and benefits. It is irrelevant and dishonest to change the subject to nuclear power (one can oppose both) or, for another common example, to the number of birds killed by cars. Even in the larger debate about electricity (let alone the four-fifths of Vermont's energy use that is not electric), there are, as Blittersdorf mentions, peaking and base load plants. Nuclear and coal plants make up the latter, and wind power would have nothing to do with their level of use, even if hundreds of redundant wind facilities are built in the hope that somewhere the wind is blowing.
Proponents of industrial-scale wind power want to bury everyone's head in the sand.
If you reject the idea of 400-ft-high machines flashing on prominent ridges, producing no power at all a third of the time, a trickle another third of the time, and at or above their 25% average output only the remaining third of the time, you are accused of ignoring energy issues.
If you reject badly worded surveys in the conviction as well that the people who actually have to live with the noise and vibration and ecological degradation from the machines are the only ones whose opinion might be informed and relevant, then you are denying reality.
If you note that the intermittency (see above) is defended as unproblematic because the fluctuating contribution from wind would be inconsequential to the larger grid, and therefore you wonder how anyone could justify building on vigorously protected sites for such an inconsequential power source, then you are ignorant of the facts.
A debate based on facts is exactly what promoters of the wind industry do not want. Blinded in their lust to develop what remains of our wild places, to take for profit what belongs to all of us, they lash out at all who question them. That is to be expected. That the Vermont Guardian joins them in that endeavor is sad, even disgusting.
wind power, wind energy, Vermont, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism
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