It is said that compared to John S. McCain, Barack Obama has no experience.
But with McCain's selection of Sarah Palin for vice president, he doesn't appear to think experience is that important anymore. And Obama has national and foreign policy experience that Palin completely lacks.
Palin has more executive experience than Obama.
She has more executive experience than McCain.
How dare you?! McCain has been tested like no one else ...
What exactly does "Country First" mean?
It means that anybody that raises the facts of the past 8 years is a narcissistic traitorous big-city elite. Anybody that questions the paranoid misinformed lies of this Republican campaign is a threat to American freedom and prosperity. It means that democracy is for pansies who can't take care of themselves. Our duty is to die at our leaders' command because freedom isn't free. As long as there's guns, gas engines, and jesus in it. This sign means you are excused of and honored for anything you've done or might do. It's for me and mine. It means submission.
[brain explodes]
September 4, 2008
September 3, 2008
"What about animal rights?"
As reported in January for the AP by Nedra Pickler, that question was posed to Barack Obama at a meeting in Henderson, Nevada.
He closed his reply with:
"I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other. And it's very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals."
human rights, animal rights
He closed his reply with:
"I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other. And it's very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals."
human rights, animal rights
August 27, 2008
Carefully listening to critics of wind energy
The Oklahoma-based industrial wind energy development company Energy For Generations has "Wind Energy Critics" as one of the topics on their links page.
But if you click on that topic, nothing happens, and scrolling down the page, no links to critics appear.
But if you look at the page source, there they are: links to organizations like National Wind Watch, Protect the Flint Hills, and Audubon of Kansas.
Along with a note:
Perhaps the critics' concerns are all in fact legitimate, and "compromise" would in fact have to be made, compromising the economic viability of these sprawling power plants in rural and wild places, and opening the door to doubting their own legitimacy.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
But if you click on that topic, nothing happens, and scrolling down the page, no links to critics appear.
But if you look at the page source, there they are: links to organizations like National Wind Watch, Protect the Flint Hills, and Audubon of Kansas.
Along with a note:
Energy development of any type inevitably has a range of impacts. Minimizing wind’s visual and environmental impact requires careful site selection and site specific development planning. Critics of wind development are numerous and while some may choose to ignore or contest them we feel careful listening is the best approach. Sorting out legitimate concerns from simple objection to any change and where appropriate reaching a common sense compromise is an important part of wind energy development.So why, one wonders, is this entire section commented out so that it doesn't appear on the page?
Perhaps the critics' concerns are all in fact legitimate, and "compromise" would in fact have to be made, compromising the economic viability of these sprawling power plants in rural and wild places, and opening the door to doubting their own legitimacy.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
August 25, 2008
As the turbine turns
Rollins Wind Project [Lincoln, Maine]: Project Summary and Potential Environmental Impacts, prepared by Stantec for Aug. 20, 2008, public information meeting:
You'd think they'd be hard to miss, yet nobody has ever actually pointed them out.
Which means the claim that giant wind turbines reduce fossil fuel use is fraudulent. It's like watching my car idle in the driveway and claiming I've been somewhere ("the time that my car sat idling on the driveway is equivalent to the approximate time it takes to drive to Montpelier and back"). It's nonsense.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms
environment, environmentalism
Wind projects create zero air or water pollution. Each local, clean megawatt produced through wind energy means less produced through costly fossil fuels. To put this into perspective, the clean energy produced last year at the nearby Mars Hill Wind project in Mars Hill, Maine, is the equivalent of burning approximately 260,000 barrels of oil or 70,000 tons of coal per year, yet has none of the associated toxicity, health, or cost issues.Has anyone seen those unused 260,000 barrels of oil or 70,000 tons of coal?
You'd think they'd be hard to miss, yet nobody has ever actually pointed them out.
Which means the claim that giant wind turbines reduce fossil fuel use is fraudulent. It's like watching my car idle in the driveway and claiming I've been somewhere ("the time that my car sat idling on the driveway is equivalent to the approximate time it takes to drive to Montpelier and back"). It's nonsense.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms
environment, environmentalism
August 17, 2008
Wind industry donors to Gaye Symington
Financial disclosure statements for the gubernatorial candidates have been posted on line by the Vermont Secretary of State. Since Gaye Symington neglected to mention it at her announcement last week at wind energy supplier NRG Systems of her plan to remove regulatory limits on ridgeline development and limit citizen participation in the permitting process for industrial wind projects (as if it would stop there), the following donors to her campaign through July 31 should be noted:
Jan Blittersdorf (NRG Systems)
David Blittersdorf (NRG Systems)
Matthew Rubin (EMDC [East Mountain Development Corp.])
Thomas Gray (American Wind Energy Association)
Linda Cleek Gray
Stephen Kimbell (Kimbell Sherman Ellis LLP -- UPC/First Wind lobbyist)
Kimbell Sherman Ellis LLP (UPC/First Wind lobbyist)
Jan Blittersdorf (NRG Systems)
David Blittersdorf (NRG Systems)
Matthew Rubin (EMDC [East Mountain Development Corp.])
Thomas Gray (American Wind Energy Association)
Linda Cleek Gray
Stephen Kimbell (Kimbell Sherman Ellis LLP -- UPC/First Wind lobbyist)
Kimbell Sherman Ellis LLP (UPC/First Wind lobbyist)
August 15, 2008
Companies face crackdown on electricity greenwash
Someone appears to have wised up to the fact that companies "buying wind power" are in fact getting exactly the same electricity as those who don't ...
From David Adam in The Guardian (U.K.), August 13 (again, thanks to National Wind Watch):
Dozens of companies face having to report embarrassing sharp increases in their carbon pollution under government plans to crack down on greenwash.
The move could undermine the environmental claims of firms such as BT, which have invested heavily in so-called green electricity tariffs to cut their carbon footprints.
Under the proposed changes, companies using such green tariffs, which are also popular with eco-friendly domestic customers, will no longer be able to claim massive carbon savings by using power coming from renewable sources.
BT, which could be forced to double its reported carbon emissions and to scrap an ambitious target to cut carbon 80% by 2020 under the plan, is lobbying heavily against the move, and says other companies back its position. Johnson and Johnson, Vodafone and several banks including HSBC also buy green electricity tariffs.
Hilary Benn, environment secretary, said the change was to make the system more transparent and to ensure that such tariffs brought genuine environmental benefits. "It is increasingly difficult to demonstrate that buying a renewable electricity tariff is offering additional carbon emissions reductions," he said. "Businesses signed up to green tariffs based on the evidence available at the time, but their choices have been producing only limited additional renewable generation capacity."
Individual consumers opting for green tariffs may also "not have been generating the environmental benefits they anticipated", he added.
Green tariffs have become a popular way for firms and individuals to cut their carbon footprints. They exploit the 5% of UK grid electricity generated from clean hydroelectric and wind sources, which suppliers claim they can effectively ringfence and sell separately.
In 2005, the government said companies buying such renewable electricity tariffs could report them as producing zero emissions. It hoped that wide take-up of green tariffs would drive investment in further renewable sources.
But environmental campaigners and energy experts have long questioned the benefits of some green tariffs. Harry Morrison of the Carbon Trust, which advises companies on climate issues, says the market in them has been "a bit cowboy" and needs clearing up. He compared the use of green tariffs to the sale of carbon offsets, with concern over transparency, double counting and additionality – ie whether they cut carbon emissions over and above what would have happened anyway.
He said: "Many companies bought these tariffs in good faith but there are no guarantees that they actually save carbon. They didn't pay much of a premium for the carbon savings they could claim in their marketing statements, so they have basically been given a free ride."
Morrison said many companies were concerned about how the government's changes would affect their green credentials and corporate image. It could also cost them money. From 2010, thousands of UK companies will be forced to calculate, publish and reduce their emissions as part of a domestic carbon trading scheme. "They're worried about being ranked badly. Nobody wants to come bottom of a table of their peers," he said.
Richard Tarboton, energy and carbon programme director at BT, said: "This is a serious problem for a number of companies who have followed the government's guidelines and gone out and purchased green electricity, and are now being told that green source is no longer valid."
BT, one of the country's largest users of electricity, has used the zero-carbon rating given to green tariffs to claim it has reduced its emissions 58% over the last decade. Tarboton said the new rules would see its reported emissions double, and that the increase would pose "communication" problems for the firm.
He agreed that the existing scheme was flawed but said the suggested solution put too much responsibility on energy suppliers and let customers off the hook. BT says the answer is better labelling, with different tariffs given a carbon rating similar to electrical appliances such as dishwashers. It held a meeting of 30 companies this week to discuss the idea.
Defra, the environment department, which announced the changes to the company reporting guidelines in June, now says it will launch a consultation on the proposal. A spokesman denied this was down to corporate pressure and said the department had always planned to consult.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
From David Adam in The Guardian (U.K.), August 13 (again, thanks to National Wind Watch):
Dozens of companies face having to report embarrassing sharp increases in their carbon pollution under government plans to crack down on greenwash.
The move could undermine the environmental claims of firms such as BT, which have invested heavily in so-called green electricity tariffs to cut their carbon footprints.
Under the proposed changes, companies using such green tariffs, which are also popular with eco-friendly domestic customers, will no longer be able to claim massive carbon savings by using power coming from renewable sources.
BT, which could be forced to double its reported carbon emissions and to scrap an ambitious target to cut carbon 80% by 2020 under the plan, is lobbying heavily against the move, and says other companies back its position. Johnson and Johnson, Vodafone and several banks including HSBC also buy green electricity tariffs.
Hilary Benn, environment secretary, said the change was to make the system more transparent and to ensure that such tariffs brought genuine environmental benefits. "It is increasingly difficult to demonstrate that buying a renewable electricity tariff is offering additional carbon emissions reductions," he said. "Businesses signed up to green tariffs based on the evidence available at the time, but their choices have been producing only limited additional renewable generation capacity."
Individual consumers opting for green tariffs may also "not have been generating the environmental benefits they anticipated", he added.
Green tariffs have become a popular way for firms and individuals to cut their carbon footprints. They exploit the 5% of UK grid electricity generated from clean hydroelectric and wind sources, which suppliers claim they can effectively ringfence and sell separately.
In 2005, the government said companies buying such renewable electricity tariffs could report them as producing zero emissions. It hoped that wide take-up of green tariffs would drive investment in further renewable sources.
But environmental campaigners and energy experts have long questioned the benefits of some green tariffs. Harry Morrison of the Carbon Trust, which advises companies on climate issues, says the market in them has been "a bit cowboy" and needs clearing up. He compared the use of green tariffs to the sale of carbon offsets, with concern over transparency, double counting and additionality – ie whether they cut carbon emissions over and above what would have happened anyway.
He said: "Many companies bought these tariffs in good faith but there are no guarantees that they actually save carbon. They didn't pay much of a premium for the carbon savings they could claim in their marketing statements, so they have basically been given a free ride."
Morrison said many companies were concerned about how the government's changes would affect their green credentials and corporate image. It could also cost them money. From 2010, thousands of UK companies will be forced to calculate, publish and reduce their emissions as part of a domestic carbon trading scheme. "They're worried about being ranked badly. Nobody wants to come bottom of a table of their peers," he said.
Richard Tarboton, energy and carbon programme director at BT, said: "This is a serious problem for a number of companies who have followed the government's guidelines and gone out and purchased green electricity, and are now being told that green source is no longer valid."
BT, one of the country's largest users of electricity, has used the zero-carbon rating given to green tariffs to claim it has reduced its emissions 58% over the last decade. Tarboton said the new rules would see its reported emissions double, and that the increase would pose "communication" problems for the firm.
He agreed that the existing scheme was flawed but said the suggested solution put too much responsibility on energy suppliers and let customers off the hook. BT says the answer is better labelling, with different tariffs given a carbon rating similar to electrical appliances such as dishwashers. It held a meeting of 30 companies this week to discuss the idea.
Defra, the environment department, which announced the changes to the company reporting guidelines in June, now says it will launch a consultation on the proposal. A spokesman denied this was down to corporate pressure and said the department had always planned to consult.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
Indigenous farmers in Oaxaca duped out of land by wind companies
Karen Trejo writes in Latinamerica Press, August 14 (also published at National Wind Watch):
A wind power project on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southeastern Mexico has stripped massive amounts of land and natural resources from hundreds of indigenous campesinos in Oaxaca. Those affected are mostly from non-Spanish speaking indigenous communities.
Members were manipulated into giving up their lands in up to 60-year tenancy contracts through misinformation.
Faustina López Martínez, originally from the village of Juchitán, complained that the companies promised agriculture aid without ever following through. On the lands where she used to plant corn to sell, the Spanish company Union FENOSA plans to install windmills to generate wind energy for the next 30 years, and possibly extending to double the term. In exchange, López will receive 150 pesos (less than US$15) each year for the rent of each of her 3 hectares (7.4 acres) of land.
Javier Balderas, director of the Tepeyac Human Rights Center located in Tehuantepec, signaled that the project to build wind parks on the Isthmus, which has been imposed on the native peoples by displacing them from their lands, is part of the Plan Puebla Panama (PPP) strategy — an ambitious integration and development project launched in 2001 whose objective is to link nine Mexican states to Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua y Panama.
Indigenous rights violated
According to Balderas, the Mexican government violates International Labor Organization’s Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples by denying them the right to consultation to determine whether they will be jeopardized before pursuing any program to exploit their lands’ resources. The state further impedes their right to participate in utilizing, administrating and conserving their natural resources.
Based on these arguments, a team of lawyers from human rights organizations in Oaxaca and Mexico City have filed a lawsuit to annul at least 185 tenancy contracts for the wind park construction by transnational companies, principally from Spain, including Iberdrola, Endesa, Preneal, Gamesa and Union FENOSA.
In response, the companies say that they operate in Mexico backed by an agreement signed by the Federal Electricity Commission, which is directed at encouraging development through large capital investment in the region to generate jobs.
However, Eduardo Zenteno, president of the Mexican Wind Energy Association, presents figures that seem to contradict this statement.
“In the next three years, the companies will invest $3 billion in Oaxaca in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Wind Tunnel in the following way: 78 percent will be invested in purchasing wind turbines, 14 percent in the electrical system, 6 percent in civil work and 2 percent in other spending.” He added that the electrical energy produced will be sold to companies with chain stores like Wal-Mart and Soriana, Coca-Cola, Pepsi Cola and Cemex.
Transnationals were attracted to the isthmus since it is a geographically strategic area for wind park construction. According to the Atlas for Wind Resources in Oaxaca, an investigation sponsored in 2004 by the US Energy Department and the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, the best areas to develop wind resources in Oaxaca are on the Isthmus and the greatest resources are in the hills, cordillera and coast.
The La Venta Wind Park II was constructed in 2003 on one of the hills, named La Venta, in the Juchitán area and is currently the biggest wind park in the region with over 98 windmills installed over 800 hectares (nearly 2,000 acres). La Venta is a rural indigenous community that lacks basic services where the state government periodically sends doctors and lawyers to attend the community.
Balderas explained that this is clear evidence that the transnational business model is not encouraging development or bringing about jobs for the Isthmus communities. Furthermore, during the three-month long construction of La Venta II, only 200 local workers were hired, which dwindled down to three hires at present: two janitors and one secretary.
Communal lands are not to be rented
Unlike what happened in La Venta, where there are no agrarian authorities to watch over communal lands, in the Santiago Niltepec community, east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the fear of losing lands has prevented campesinos from leasing their lands to Union FENOSA.
José Santiago Ramírez, secretary of the Santiago Niltepec Community Goods Commission, says the Spanish transnational offered 30-year contracts and 1,000 to 1,200 pesos — $98 to $117 — per hectare (2.5 acres) to the campesinos annually to rent their lands. But no company can have a contract directly with the landowner since 95 percent of the population’s lands is communal.
For Marco Antonio Velásquez, the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade technical secretary, the Isthmus case is not the only one. In Acapulco, Jalisco and Nayarit there has also been social resistance to damn construction which would result in thousands of displaced persons.
“It’s not just a few companies who maliciously want to strip the communities [of their lands]. It’s a policy that has been deliberately applied with the help of the municipal, state, and federal governments that has usurped power with the clear intention of protecting transnational corporations to move forward with their businesses,” he said.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, human rights
A wind power project on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southeastern Mexico has stripped massive amounts of land and natural resources from hundreds of indigenous campesinos in Oaxaca. Those affected are mostly from non-Spanish speaking indigenous communities.
Members were manipulated into giving up their lands in up to 60-year tenancy contracts through misinformation.
Faustina López Martínez, originally from the village of Juchitán, complained that the companies promised agriculture aid without ever following through. On the lands where she used to plant corn to sell, the Spanish company Union FENOSA plans to install windmills to generate wind energy for the next 30 years, and possibly extending to double the term. In exchange, López will receive 150 pesos (less than US$15) each year for the rent of each of her 3 hectares (7.4 acres) of land.
Javier Balderas, director of the Tepeyac Human Rights Center located in Tehuantepec, signaled that the project to build wind parks on the Isthmus, which has been imposed on the native peoples by displacing them from their lands, is part of the Plan Puebla Panama (PPP) strategy — an ambitious integration and development project launched in 2001 whose objective is to link nine Mexican states to Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua y Panama.
Indigenous rights violated
According to Balderas, the Mexican government violates International Labor Organization’s Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples by denying them the right to consultation to determine whether they will be jeopardized before pursuing any program to exploit their lands’ resources. The state further impedes their right to participate in utilizing, administrating and conserving their natural resources.
Based on these arguments, a team of lawyers from human rights organizations in Oaxaca and Mexico City have filed a lawsuit to annul at least 185 tenancy contracts for the wind park construction by transnational companies, principally from Spain, including Iberdrola, Endesa, Preneal, Gamesa and Union FENOSA.
In response, the companies say that they operate in Mexico backed by an agreement signed by the Federal Electricity Commission, which is directed at encouraging development through large capital investment in the region to generate jobs.
However, Eduardo Zenteno, president of the Mexican Wind Energy Association, presents figures that seem to contradict this statement.
“In the next three years, the companies will invest $3 billion in Oaxaca in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Wind Tunnel in the following way: 78 percent will be invested in purchasing wind turbines, 14 percent in the electrical system, 6 percent in civil work and 2 percent in other spending.” He added that the electrical energy produced will be sold to companies with chain stores like Wal-Mart and Soriana, Coca-Cola, Pepsi Cola and Cemex.
Transnationals were attracted to the isthmus since it is a geographically strategic area for wind park construction. According to the Atlas for Wind Resources in Oaxaca, an investigation sponsored in 2004 by the US Energy Department and the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, the best areas to develop wind resources in Oaxaca are on the Isthmus and the greatest resources are in the hills, cordillera and coast.
The La Venta Wind Park II was constructed in 2003 on one of the hills, named La Venta, in the Juchitán area and is currently the biggest wind park in the region with over 98 windmills installed over 800 hectares (nearly 2,000 acres). La Venta is a rural indigenous community that lacks basic services where the state government periodically sends doctors and lawyers to attend the community.
Balderas explained that this is clear evidence that the transnational business model is not encouraging development or bringing about jobs for the Isthmus communities. Furthermore, during the three-month long construction of La Venta II, only 200 local workers were hired, which dwindled down to three hires at present: two janitors and one secretary.
Communal lands are not to be rented
Unlike what happened in La Venta, where there are no agrarian authorities to watch over communal lands, in the Santiago Niltepec community, east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the fear of losing lands has prevented campesinos from leasing their lands to Union FENOSA.
José Santiago Ramírez, secretary of the Santiago Niltepec Community Goods Commission, says the Spanish transnational offered 30-year contracts and 1,000 to 1,200 pesos — $98 to $117 — per hectare (2.5 acres) to the campesinos annually to rent their lands. But no company can have a contract directly with the landowner since 95 percent of the population’s lands is communal.
For Marco Antonio Velásquez, the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade technical secretary, the Isthmus case is not the only one. In Acapulco, Jalisco and Nayarit there has also been social resistance to damn construction which would result in thousands of displaced persons.
“It’s not just a few companies who maliciously want to strip the communities [of their lands]. It’s a policy that has been deliberately applied with the help of the municipal, state, and federal governments that has usurped power with the clear intention of protecting transnational corporations to move forward with their businesses,” he said.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, human rights
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