April 27, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

The Stuart Young wind report, partly funded by the environmental organization  John Muir Trust, is another item you should add as an objective source of information that is critical of wind energy ( http://www.jmt.org/news.asp?s=2&nid=JMT-N10561 ). It shows, yet again, that wind energy is a high cost, low benefit option, and that industry claims are rarely met. Kudos to the John Muir Trust which has been a rare voice of reason in the cacophony of self-serving political noise coming from the environmental community.

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Note by folc.ca: The cited report states: “At the end of the period studied, the connected capacity of wind power was over 2500MW so the expectation is that the wind network will produce, on average, 750MW of energy. In fact, it’s delivering far less than everyone’s expectations. The total wind capacity metered now is 3226MW but at 3a.m. on Monday 28th March, the total output was 9MW.”

That is born out by similar observations in Alberta.  For instance, during much of the cold spell during the week of Feb. 27 - Mar. 5, 2011, a week during which record cold temperature occurred in Alberta, of the nominal wind-power generating capacity of 777MW in Alberta, 0MW to 2MW were being produced.

You can observe current wind power generation in Alberta.

“A Reality Check for Wind Energy Investors” is a good article written by an energy experienced attorney and CPA. Read through the comments and his good responses to those: http://seekingalpha.com/article/262050-a-reality-check-for-wind-power-investors.

“Major wind farm canceled over FWS bird strike concerns”

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/04/06/xcel-windpower-dispute/

A good (very short) New Scientist video about how turbines kill bats http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRqu4WiLQfk&hd=1. Combine that with this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8419796/Wind-turbines-hit-bat-populations.html.

What happens when fantasies like wind energy collide with reality? http://tinyurl.com/3ua72xe.

Two more states’ RPS mandates have been studied and found seriously wanting:

1 - Ohio http://www.atinstitute.org/study-ohio’s-alternative-energy-mandates-will-keep-its-economy-in-a-slump/, and

2 - Minnesota http://www.atinstitute.org/study-minnesota’s-renewable-energy-mandate-will-damage-state-economy-with-little-to-no-benefit-to-environment/.

A very worthwhile radio interview with activists in Minnesota http://tinyurl.com/3u494h7.

An interesting article about how wind turbines are no longer all the rage in [the Netherlands] http://www.dutchnews.nl/features/2011/04/trouw_wind_turbines_unpopular.php.

This is very good news, from a credible source: “The US Will Build Five Nuclear Reactors by 2020”  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-04/u-s-may-build-five-new-nuclear-reactors-by-2020-new-energy-finance-says.html.

Some recent global warming articles of interest —

900+ Peer Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism about AGW http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html.

An organization’s commendable efforts to have constructive, non-partisan solutions to global warming and energy issues http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=380&Itemid=108.

“Research on Forecasting for the Manmade Global Warming Alarm” http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/images/stories/pdf/ags2011congress.pdf

Bill O’Reilly talks about proposed US government cuts, especially the money for “Climate Control” http://tinyurl.com/3rowyg3.

Supreme Court Hears the extremely important CO2 Emission Case http://tinyurl.com/3rwcdjw.

A recent article of general interest —

A short video talking about the debt situation with the US government http://www.youtube.com/embed/VtVbUmcQSuk

Thank you for your support.

john droz jr.,

physicist & environmental advocate

Posted in Energy Newsletter, Wildlife, Energy Issues, Alternative Energy Sources, Community & Industry | Print | No Comments »

September 12, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Some of you reading this are farmers, I know.

The farmers amongst you will love to read a common-sense, objective and down-to-earth demolition of the mistaken claim that if we were all to be vegetarians, the Earth could accommodate more people.  All of you farmers must have had to defend against the accusation, at one time or another, I am sure, that by raising animals for slaughter, you violate animal rights.  I had to do that on occasion, but more about that after the introduction excerpted from the following post.

Animal, Vegetable, or E. O. Wilson

Posted at wattsupwiththat.com on September 11, 2010 by Willis Eschenbach

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

Buoyed by the equal parts of derision and support I received for writing in “I am So Tired Of Malthus” about how humans are better fed than at any time in history, I am foolishly but bravely venturing once again into the question of how we feed ourselves.

In a book excerpt in the February 2002 Scientific American entitled “The Bottleneck”, the noted ant entomologist Professor Edward O. Wilson put forward the familiar Malthusian argument that humans are about to run out of food. He said that we are currently getting wedged into a “bottleneck” of population versus resources. He warned of the dangers of “exponential growth” in population, and he averred that we will be squeezed mightily before the population levels off….(Full Story)

Quite a few years ago, when our youngest was attending Grade VI, one of his school buddies spent some time with him after school on our farm.  Later in the evening, his mother came to pick him up and had a cup of coffee with us.  She was properly attired, in Harrowsmith fashion, as it behooves an acreage-owner married to one of the bosses in one of the nearby chemical factories: knee-high leather boots, a nice, expensive woolen sweater  (probably bought but hand-knit), a knee-length lamb-skin coat, with the wool on the inside, and a nice woolen scarf (perhaps hand-knit by herself).

She did not want any cream in her coffee, as that would have interfered with her dietary regimen, which, she proudly exclaimed, strictly excluded all things not vegetarian.

We came to the subject of what we were producing on our farm.  “We produce sheep, more exactly, lambs, but our main crop is hay, the excess of which we sell to other livestock producers, while we use most of the hay for our flock of sheep,” I replied, “After all, we do need rather a lot of hay, given that we must feed our sheep for about 210 days of the year.”

She asked, “You produce the lambs for the wool?”  I explained that wool did not come off the lambs we sold but was taken off our ewes, while the lambs were shipped to the livestock auction as soon as they were the right weight, before they had enough wool worth the shearing.  That was not enough information, because she asked, “What are the lambs used for, breeding?” and I explained that virtually all of them were destined for human consumption, and perhaps only rarely would any have been used for breeding.

She grew visibly cool and somewhat silent.

I did a bit more explaining, after I felt that it was my turn to ask her questions.  “You have nice boots, real leather?”  Yes, they were.  “The sweater and the scarf you wear are real wool?” Yes, they were.  “That is not fake but real lambskin that was used for the making of your warm coat?”  Yes. it was real lambskin, and the coat was indeed comfortably warm.

I told her, “You have no problem with wearing animal products derived from animals that were produced on someone’s farm, produced for slaughter, but you won’t eat animal products, because you wish to save the lives of animals, on account that animals have a right to live.  Is it not a little bit incongruous to find fault with people who raise animals for slaughter and with people who do the slaughtering, skinning and butchering so that the raw material can be produced for the clothing you use to dress yourself with?”

She had no answer to that and changed the subject.  If I remember right, we discussed her dog, a great white Pyrenee, a livestock-guardian dog, traditionally used to protect sheep against predator attacks, sheep she did not have, but she claimed that her dog herded her chickens.

We talked about the problem we had with increasing predation on our sheep by the coyotes in the neighbourhood, and that soon we would have to buy a couple or three guardian dogs to keep our losses down.

She thought that killing coyotes was cruel and unjust, “The coyotes were here first.”  That is the wrong thing to say to a sheep farmer, but I patiently explained to her that our sheep were here a long time before the coyotes began to move in because we had started raising lunch, dinner and supper for them.

I wish I would then already have heard the story about the livestock-predation seminar and what had happened there, but I did not know it then, or I would have told it to her.

At the livestock-predation seminar, a woman from Greenpeace in the back row stood up and commented, “You farmers!  All you can think of is better methods for luring, trapping, snaring, poisoning and shooting coyotes.  Surely you could device and employ more humane methods for controlling their population, such as neutering them!”

A man stood up in the front row and responded, “Lady, you must understand.  We are worried about that the coyotes kill our sheep, not that the coyotes breed them.”

Posted in Wildlife, Propaganda debunked, Alarmist Insanity | Print | No Comments »

August 27, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Thanks to wattsupwiththat.com:

In other news:

The EPA is considering banning lead weights used to balance automobile tires:

http://www.greencarreports.com/blog/1021157_green-groups-ask-epa-to-ban-lead-wheel-weights

Thank the Sierra Club who unbelievably puts this in their press release: (PDF)

“1.6 million pounds of lead from wheel weights is left falling off of cars each year where anyone can find and possibly ingest it,” said Jeff Gearhart, Research Director for the Ecology Center.

Yeah, those people sitting by the side of the road looking for lead weights to eat is a real problem, yesssiree. Too late for California though, a ban is already in effect. Full disclosure: I’m a scofflaw. I have lead wheel weights on my car.

Next I think we should ban dirt. Really, it’s full of nasty stuff just sitting around where anyone can find and possibly ingest it.

From the CDC:

How dangerous is eating dirt? My mother was pretty certain about this—damn dangerous. Soils contaminated by industrial or human pollutants pose considerable threat to anyone who eats them. Reports abound of lead poisoning and other toxicities in children eating contaminated soils. Similarly, we do not have to look farther than the last refugee camp or the slums of Calcutta or Tijuana or Basra to find the dangers of soils contaminated with untreated human waste. But the inherent biologic danger of soil is difficult to assess. Soil unaffected by the pressures of overpopulation, industry, and agriculture may be vastly different from the soil most of us encounter routinely.

Yeah ban dirt, that’s the ticket.

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The quote, above, is part of posting about the news that the US EPA refuses to ban lead in hunting ammunition.

It is worth your while to look up the posting at that link and to make sure that you read the comments.  There you will find gems like this one:

co2insanity says:

August 27, 2010 at 3:56 pm

The insanity of this is that the green types like wind turbines that slice and dice birds but don’t like lead shot.

Walter

Posted in Wildlife, Alarmist Insanity | Print | No Comments »

August 5, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

All of South America experienced a very harsh cold spell in mid-July that killed more than 400 people (mostly children), much life stock and many alpacas. (See Historical Cold Snap Freezes South America, July 21, 2010)

Now another consequence of the extreme cold spell emerges.

BoliviaBella.com

1 Million Fish Dead in Bolivian Ecological Disaster

(3 Aug. 2010 - Update: The number of dead fish and other water-dependent wildlife has increased to about 6 million.)

Over 1 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles, dolphins and other river wildlife are floating dead in numerous Bolivian rivers in the three eastern/southern departments of Santa Cruz, Beni and Tarija. The extreme cold front that hit Bolivia in mid-July caused water temperatures to dip below the minimum temperatures river life can tolerate. As a consequence, rivers, lakes, lagoons and fisheries are brimming with decomposing fish and other creatures….(Full Story — make sure to watch the video at the end of the article)

It would be surprising if the fish-die-off would not affect other South-American nations as well.

The mainstream media in the anglo-sphere kept totally silent on the ecological disaster and instead continued all along with raising alarm about catastrophic man-made global warming.

Posted in Censorship, Wildlife, Weather, Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

July 24, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

It is obvious that 165,000 is a much larger number of geese than is 1,600 ducks.

It is not so obvious why the deliberate killing of 400 geese (and at least 164,600 more geese to go) is not as prominent a story as is the accidental deaths of 1,600 ducks and other waterfowl in Fort McMurray.

The deaths of the 1,600 ducks at Ft McMurray made the front pages for weeks, while the planned cull of 165,000 geese in New York City only rated a short article on the bottom of page A4 of the July 24, 2010 edition of the Edmonton Journal.

Up to 165,000 Canada geese will be sitting ducks for NYC cull

July 24, 2010

The recent gassing of a large flock of Canada geese in New York City may be part of a larger plan to kill more than 165, 000 of the large migratory birds. A nine-page “work plan” outlines the Big Apple’s goal for a drastic cull of the population… (Read more)

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