Progressive Vermont ...

People are confused. There was quite a hullabaloo created recently by John Odum, membership director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council, upset that there are secessionist movements in the world that could be characterized as racist or fascist. Second Vermont Republic is also a secessionist movement. Therefore, according to Odum -- and even his nemesis, the otherwise perceptive "Snarky Boy" -- Second Vermont Republic is racist and fascist, despite all evidence to the contrary. Snarky Boy even equates Second Vermont Republic with the homophobic "Take Back Vermont" campaign of several years ago.

Which is as absurd as the following editorial from northeastern Vermont's main newspaper, the Caledonian-Record, last Friday, a hate-filled effort to portray Cindy Sheehan as hateful for working to end the war on Iraq, the killing of both Iraqis and Americans.

On Saturday, Cindy Sheehan will appear and speak at St. Johnsbury School. Sheehan is a notoriously controversial peace activist who is so vicious and non-discriminating in her hate-filled broadsides that she once called the Islamo-fascist militants who are killing our troops, "freedom fighters."

These are the same people who killed her son, Casey. We aren't interested in Sheehan's desperate quest for a fame that diminishes every day for her. We want some answers that, so far, no one is willing to provide.

Does the school board have a policy regarding political use of its public buildings? Is the school automatically available to any group who asks to use it, regardless of their political or religious or other controversial orientation? Who asked, and how did they ask, to use our public school for this highly partisan political purpose? Is this group paying for use of the school? If so, how much? If not, why not?

Who on the St. Johnsbury School Board said "Yes" to this petition? Would the same people who approved this group OK a petition to use the facilities from the Ku Klux Klan? Or from the American Man/Boy Love Association? Or from the Aryan Brotherhood? Or from the American Nazi Party?

Or from Second Vermont Republic, one of whose advisors is Dan DeWalt of Newfane, who invited Sheehan to Vermont??

George Bush and Dick Cheney killed Cindy Sheehan's son, a victim along with the Iraqi people (not to mention the American people) of corporatist (i.e., fascist) imperialism. Continuing acquiescence to their war is killing yet more. That is a political statement and ought to be debated. Those who, like the infantile, reactionary, and just plain stupid about so much publisher of the Caledonian-Record, would silence that debate have forgotten what democracy is. It is the duty of citizens to question our government. That's what participation means.

Rather than shout this "editorial" out from his hideyhole, demanding answers, why didn't he act like a journalist and call up the school and school board? That's no fun! Where would the hate be that keeps the system going?

Similarly, John Odum on his up-to-now irrelevant blog reproduced without question the accusations of another's -- anonymous, though likely himself -- blog about Second Vermont Republic and demanded answers. Why didn't he simply call up and ask them the questions he had? Because he, too, is infantile, reactionary, and just plain stupid about so much.

The fact is, we are all shut out of our own democracy. Impeachment bills languish in statehouses because the Democratic party (and "Independent" Bernie Sanders) run from their duty to challenge a tyrant (to which power each of them obviously aspires -- any problem they have with Bush and Cheney's crimes is envy, not horror -- thus they bully state legislators to not act according to the people's clear mandate). Rightwingers can only hurl invective at those who take their responsibility as citizens seriously, who don't on the one hand fetishize power and on the other worry about the sensitivities of our military families. The "vital center" does the same. The left is famous for splintering into accusatory camps. We are as occupied a country as Iraq, turning on each other because our government gives us the finger at every turn. The crumbs are meager, but even while we fight for our share, we ought to be able to recognize the crime that only crumbs are given us -- by people whose power we pay for and is in our name!

Hating is easy, to defend your tribe's claim of crumbs. Democracy has become something to fear. Second Vermont Republic advocates a vital democracy, in which everyone's voices would be part of our self-government, whose purpose will be to serve the people, not wage war. There won't be a Democratic/Republican Party to keep us distracted from the real work of the occupying power. Most people wouldn't know what to do. Freedom is something else they fear. In Vermont as much as anywhere in this dying republic.

Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism

Impeach Bush and Cheney

Come on, already!

A state legislature can introduce articles of impeachment in the U.S. Congress. A joint resolution to do so is languishing in the Judiciary Committee of the Vermont House, because the Democratic party and so-called independent Bernie Sanders are not comfortable with the people acting against a tyrant (they might be next!).

Something like 27 towns in Vermont have an impeachment resolution on the warning. Ohttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifthers may have it raised as "other business."

Go to the post office and buy a bunch of postcards and send them to your representatives in the House and Senate, to Speaker Gaye Symington, President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, and members of the House Judiciary Committee (Lippert of Hinesburg [Chair], Grad of Moretown [Vice-Chair], Flory of Pittsford, Allard of St. Albans Town, Clarkson of Woodstock, Donaghy of Poultney, Gervais of Enosburg, Jewett of Ripton, Komline of Dorset, Marek of Newfane, Pellett of Chester, Clerk). Demand that they move to impeach Bush and Cheney. Click on the title of the post for more information.

Here's a link to the legislative directory.

Here's where you can check on the status of the resolution.

Vermont

Transnationals vs. birds and farmers in Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec

From Tierramérica (click on the title of this post), via National Wind Watch:

The Mexican government is preparing a big wind energy project, but peasant farmers and bird experts aren't too happy about it.

The government's aim is for wind-generated electricity -- which now accounts for just 0.005 percent of the energy generated in Mexico -- to reach six percent by 2030. ...

Achieving that goal involves setting up more than 3,000 turbines in Mexico's windiest zone, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the southern state of Oaxaca ...

But erecting the windmills, tall towers with a 27-metre blade span, requires negotiating with landowners, most of whom are farmers. Some have complained that they were taken advantage of when the first wind farm was created in 1994.

Meanwhile, ornithologists experts warn that many bird species are at risk of being killed by the giant blades, which could cause an environmental chain reaction across the continent, because various birds are migratory.

"Everything is bent towards facilitating the wind farms, but there is not much interest in the birds, which in the long term could bring much broader problems," Raúl Ortiz-Pulido, spokesman for the Mexican office of Birdlife International, told Tierramérica. ...

In the environmental standards for wind farms now being debated, the officials propose eliminating the environmental impact studies that other projects require. This requirement would be replaced by a "preventive report", which is of a lower category and reduced scope.

In the introduction of the new norm, which by law must be open for public discussion for 60 days (with the deadline being the end of February), it is recognised that wind turbines can have "impacts on avian fauna".

It states that the head of the project [emphasis added] should make an "inventory of species that utilise the area, detailing their relationships to determine the repercussion of the displacement of some of them, mating seasons, nesting and raising of young."

But some scientists say it would not be enough for the isthmus area. Six million birds fly through Tehuantepec each year, including 32 endangered species and nine autochthonous species. ...

In La Venta, part of the Juchitán municipality in Oaxaca state, is where most of the official plans for wind turbines are concentrated. The impoverished region is home to 150,000 people, most working in farming and livestock.

There the farmers are also upset with the official plans.

"The landowners were fooled with fixed arrangements, ridiculous payments for rent for installing the turbines and impediments to farming. We won't allow any more plans to be carried out," Alejo Girón, leader of La Venta Solidarity Group, told Tierramérica.

The first wind project, La Venta I, began operating in 1994, and in the past two years continued with La Venta II. Now the government of Felipe Calderón has announced that it will open bidding for La Venta III, and others will follow, like the Oaxaca and La Ventosa projects.

They are projects in which transnational corporations like Spain's Iberdrola and France's Electricité have shown great interest, as have local firms like Cemex cement company, which are considering wind turbines for their own energy needs, and in some cases sell their surplus to the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).

Finalising these plans means convincing the landowners, to whom CFE pays for each one of the 100 turbines already installed in La Venta less than 300 dollars a year, which is 10 to 20 times less than what their counterparts in other countries receive, says Girón.

"The wind projects created almost no new jobs and they don't benefit the residents. Here nothing changed. We remain poor despite the fact that the CFE promised that this would change," Feliciano Santiago, municipal secretary of Juchitán, told Tierramérica.

[For those with Spanish, read two recent press releases from UCIZONI (La Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Zona Norte del Istmo) about their struggle, posted at Ibérica 2000. Update: now in English!]

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism, animal rights

Second Vermont Republic

Thomas Naylor, founder of the current Vermont independence movement, writes:

The U.S. Empire is going down -- with or without Vermont. The federal government has lost its moral authority. It is owned, operated, and controlled by Corporate America. National and Congressional elections are bought and sold to the highest bidders.

Vermont is no exception to this rule.

Nationally, we have a single political party, the Republican Party, disguised as a two-party system. The Democratic Party is effectively brain dead, having had no new ideas since the 1960s.

The United States of America has become unsustainable politically, economically, agriculturally, socially, culturally, and environmentally. It is also ungovernable and, therefore, unfixable.

Go saoraid!

Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism,

Wind power opens doors for new coal plants and transmission lines

A couple of recent news items illustrate how wind energy development is being used as the frontman for new coal plants and expansion of transmission lines.

First, a letter in the Feb. 28 West Central (Minn.) Tribune notes that a large new coal plant with transmission upgrades will be a necessary part of Minnesota's new effort to get 25% of their electricity from renewables.

The law is based on the results of the Minnesota Wind Integration Study, a project undertaken by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission resulting from 2005 legislation. The study report, which was published late last year, shows that by 2020 up to 20 percent of the state’s electrical energy could economically come from wind without adverse supply or reliability impacts. The report assumed, as part of its baseline, that certain facilities already were in place. [The study also misleadingly used wind data smoothed to hourly averages.]

Included in those assumptions was that eastern North Dakota and eastern South Dakota would contribute to Minnesota’s wind energy resource and that Big Stone II with its associated transmission would be built. The [coal] plant is needed as a source of baseload generation and to help ensure voltage stability between the Dakotas and Minnesota. Big Stone transmission upgrades are needed to help deliver energy from Minnesota’s wind-rich Buffalo Ridge.

Thus, in order for Minnesota to realize the goals of the Legislature’s “25 by 25” mandate, there must be a Big Stone II. ...

And an article in the Feb. 27 Newsday reports that the developer of a giant new high-voltage transmission line in central New York is selling it as a spur to wind energy development. Interestingly, Senator Hilary Clinton is critical of the transmission project yet an active proponent of wind development. It thus appears to be purely symbolic for her as it proves to be for all.

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism

Avram Patt doesn't know what he's talking about.

To the editor, Rutland (Vt.) Herald:

Avram Patt (Perspective, Feb. 18) obviously did not read Metcalf's Feb. 11 letter past the first paragraph. Metcalf uses capacity rhetorically in the same way the industry does in leading people to believe that 1,000 megawatts of wind is indeed the same as -- and will thus replace -- 1,000 megawatts of other sources. The rest of the letter does not follow the industry in that misleading use of capacity, but instead cites, e.g., a German government study that 48,000 megawatts of wind capacity would be the same as only 2,000 megawatts of capacity from other sources.

It is Patt who is confused. He has evidently imagined the rest of the letter so he could more easily criticize it. His analogy about a car not burning gas until it's going somewhere is simple-minded. What if the car is sitting in a traffic jam or even a stop light? In city driving, because it must slow down and stop and reaccelerate so much more, the car actually burns more gas although going much smaller distances than it might on a highway. That is a more accurate analogy for much of the grid. If the wind rises, and energy from wind turbines requires other sources to stop or slow down their electricity generation, it does not mean that fuel at those other sources is no longer being burned. They have to stay "warm" to be available when the wind drops again. The few modern plants that can shut down must start up again more often, and that uses more fuel, too.

Wind energy on the grid is not like riding a bike and leaving the car in the driveway, as Patt suggests. Wind energy on the grid is more like riding a bike and having someone follow you in the car in case you get tired (lose your wind, so to speak).

But Patt's complaint (along with his attempted correction) is not only wrong, it is a red herring. After showing wind's minuscule potential contribution to our energy supply, Metcalf's letter is about the substantial noise from the giant machines. As the turbines have recently started operation in Mars Hill, Maine, for example, their noise is now undeniable, robbing people of sleep and the peaceful enjoyment of their homes and land.

He explains that sound is relative. What might be unnoticeable in a city during the day would be intolerable during a typically quiet rural night. And where unnatural noises are not the norm, especially at night, the rhythmic pumping and mechanical grinding of giant wind turbines (augmented by flashing lights) are much more intrusive than their absolute measures (as estimated by the developers) are meant to suggest.

That was the point of Metcalf's letter, and it was completely ignored by Patt. Just as the industry exaggerates the value of electricity from wind, it downplays its negative impacts. Even then, the cost-benefit balance is doubtful. When the facts are not ignored, the costs overwhelm.

Industrial wind turbine facilities are a not only a visual and auditory insult, they degrade and fragment wildlife habitat, they threaten bats and birds, they open up wild areas to sprawl with roads and transmission lines. As Vermont industry rep John Zimmerman has said, "wind turbines don't make good neighbors."

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, Vermont

Industrial wind vs. the environment

Which side are you on? (as the old union song asks) ...

Maryland is facing bills to protect industrial wind developers from environmental scrutiny as they pave roads and string transmission lines over the Appalachian ridgetops and ram in giant wind machines that serve no purpose beyond making politicians and "green" consumers feel as if they've "done something" about our energy problems.

According to the blog My Commonplace Book (click the title of this post, and thanks to National Wind Watch for the tip), "The bill would eliminate any requirement for public review or notification -- or even for informing adjacent land owners whose property values could plummet [and would suffer from the noise]. Nor would there be any environmental review of the impact on wildlife, endangered species, or forest fragmentation. All an applicant for a wind project would have to do is request a construction permit from the Public Service Commission."

For an industry that claims to be green, they sure don't like actual scrutiny. No longer able to deny the substantial negative impacts of their projects on land, animals, and people, they now hope to exempt themselves from the law. This is an industry shaped by Bush's pals at Enron, after all.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, ecoanarchism, animal rights