March 31, 2013

Bernie, don’t betray us

[Letter to U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, from Garret Keizer of Sutton, Vermont — Published in the Times Argus and the Rutland Herald, March 31, 2013. Removed by request of the author.]

... Bernie Sanders, ... de facto spokesperson for the opportunists of “green capitalism”.
[Garret Keizer previously wrote in Harper’s Magazine (June 2007) about this issue — click here.]


March 28, 2013

Rump Steak

Advocacy group Rural Vermont is promoting its 2013 “Annual Celebration”:

“Philip Ackerman-Leist,” director of Green Mountain College’s Farm & Food Project ... will be the guest speaker. Ackerman-Leist will share his first-person account of the recent international controversy involving Green Mountain College’s pair of working oxen “Bill” and “Lou.” This moving and disturbing story illustrates the profound lack of understanding and connection between contemporary American society and the source of our food. ... Special guest Philip Phillip [sic] will offer his ideas on how we can work together to bridge this divide.
Rural Vermont is a fairly politically progressive organization unfortunately bound by a devotion to and reflexive defense of the exploitation of animals. Ackerman-Leist similarly is too gorged on the flesh of (and the profits from) his grass-fed heritage-breed cows to consider that he might be the one with a profound lack of understanding. What possible ideas could he offer to bridge the divide between those who think a team of oxen deserved retirement after 10 years of work and those who can only think about such animals as food?

It was precisely people who are connected with the sources of their food who were able to draw a line at killing Bill and Lou. Ackerman-Leist, who petulantly had Lou killed despite (or rather because of) the controversy, is like the slaughterhouse worker who recently posted a video of himself shooting a horse. There is nothing in his actions or words that suggests working together to bridge a divide. In fact, the bridge is already there, but he refuses to acknowledge it, stubbornly seething at the shoreline, still shouting impotent defiance after those who have left him behind.

environment, environmentalism, animal rights, vegetarianism, veganism, Vermont, ecoanarchism

March 24, 2013

Life after Oil and Gas: Pity Earth’s Creatures

Today’s New York Times Sunday Review juxtaposed two pieces on its front page: Elisabeth Rosenthal’s puff piece (last gasp?) for large-scale renewable energy, “Life After Oil and Gas”, and Edward Hoagland’s lamentation about nature’s disappearance under the march of human civilization, “Pity Earth’s Creatures”.

Hoagland’s piece stands as the answer to Rosenthal’s.

Except for some comments by International Energy Agency economist Fatih Birol suggesting that conservation and efficiency are more practical and effective choices, Rosenthal hardly considers why we have an energy crisis, of consequences as much as supply. (She also ignores, of course, the fact that huge investments in wind and solar have never been documented to actually reduce the use of other fuels. And both Rosenthal and Birol ignore the fact that countries and states that produce a high percentage of their electricity from wind are actually on larger grids, which make the percentage very much less.)

Instead Rosenthal assumes that we can “easily” produce the power we need from wind, solar, and water, citing the latest work of Mark Jacobson, whose numbers should frighten rather than inspire:

For New York State alone: 4,020 onshore and 12,770 offshore 5-MW wind turbines, 387 100-MW concentrated solar plants, 828 50-MW PV solar plants, 5,000,000 5-kW home and 500,000 100-kW business rooftop PV solar systems, 36 100-MW geothermal plants, 1,910 0.75-MW wave systems, 2,600 1-MW tidal turbines, as well as 7 1,300-MW hydro plants (half of which already exists).

Except for the rooftop solar, where do these go? Where do all the new “smart-grid” power lines and substations go? Where do all the materials to build and maintain and replace all these things come from? And what if these projections fall short (as they most certainly would)?

Except for rare hydro sources like Niagara Falls (or geothermal sources like Iceland’s volcanoes), renewable energy sources are diffuse. Therefore they require sprawling facilities of huge devices to collect enough to meet even a fraction of our electricity needs, let alone all of our energy (i.e., including transportation, heating, and manufacturing).

Furthermore, wind and solar are intermittent: The wind isn’t always blowing, and the sun shines only during the day. On top of that, their energy is variable, wildly so, in the case of wind. That means they need 100% backup.

Jacobson’s vision has already been imagined by H.G. Wells. In his 1897 “A Story of the Days To Come”, he described “the Wind Vane and Waterfall Trust, the great company that owned every wind wheel and waterfall in the world, and which pumped all the water and supplied all the electric energy that people in these latter days required.”
Far away, spiked, jagged and indented by the wind vanes, the Surrey Hills rose blue and faint; to the north and nearer, the sharp contours of Highgate and Muswell Hill were similarly jagged. And all over the countryside, he knew, on every crest and hill, where once the hedges had interlaced, and cottages, churches, inns, and farmhouses had nestled among their trees, wind wheels similar to those he saw and bearing like vast advertisements, gaunt and distinctive symbols of the new age, cast their whirling shadows and stored incessantly the energy that flowed away incessantly through all the arteries of the city. ...

To the east and south the great circular shapes of complaining wind-wheels blotted out the heavens ...
Where is nature in all this? Where is the countryside? Jacobson’s vision would turn it all into a power plant for the cities, and mines and refineries for endlessly building that power plant. There would be no escape. No nature to marvel at and lose oneself in. No nature to be left alone to live its own lives. Only the vain hand of human expansion.

As Hoagland writes in the other piece, we have already lost so much, as 7 billion people (doubled since 1970, tripled since 1940) trample over and push aside the world of other lives. The dream of renewables, which are inherently inefficient, only expands that process. If we would decry what we have already done to the earth, we need to start doing with a lot less. But the reality of renewables is that their use not only allows but requires more use of fossil and nuclear fuels, more extraction of resources, more paving over paradise.


March 20, 2013

Wind industry fears real scrutiny

To the Editor, Valley News:

What is the real threat of Vermont Senate Bill 30 (Dori Wolfe: “Don't Reject Wind Energy in Vermont,” letter, March 17)? Now stripped of the 3-year moratorium provision, it only requires the Section 248 permitting process to abide by rather than merely consider Act 250 criteria.

It is ironic that business people like Wolfe, while in one breath urging us to save the environment by buying their products and services, in the next express alarm that environmental scrutiny “would severely damage the wind industry.”

But on the latter point she is right: These projects, especially on otherwise fiercely protected ridgelines, are not green. The environmental (not to mention financial) costs far outweigh the necessarily minuscule benefit from a diffuse, intermittent, and highly variable source.

To avoid that conclusion, Wolfe raises the specter of oil and gasoline, which fuel our cars, heat our homes, and power our factories but provide almost none of our electricity. In fact, more wind requires building more natural gas– and even diesel-powered plants just for backup. She notes that housecats kill more birds, as if that absolves the additional deaths caused by wind turbines, and disregards wind energy’s unique toll on raptors (eagles, owls, and the like) and bats, the latter already decimated by white nose syndrome.

Wolfe also touts the latest poll showing continuing support for industrial wind energy (ignoring the broad dissatisfaction everywhere they are actually erected or even proposed). If industrial wind is as popular as the polls indicate, then the greater local involvement enabled by Act 250 would be a boon, not a threat.

But S.30 would make it harder for developers to divide communities and to pit town against town, because Act 250 puts the region’s interests before those of industry lobbyists in Montpelier.

If industrial-scale wind (and solar) are indeed beneficial to the environment and communities, locally as well as globally, then its marketers have nothing to fear from a more democratic and environmentally rigorous permitting process. If they do indeed have reason to fear, that’s precisely why we need to say yes to S.30.

Eric Rosenbloom

[Note:  The letter as reproduced here reflects minor editing by the author.]

[Click here to read about Jeff Wolfe's threats regarding S.30.]

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, Vermont

March 17, 2013

in the muddle is the sounddance

Why do European cars have twice the fuel efficiency as in the US?

Dear Senator/Representative:

I use the Mini Cooper Clubman (manual transmission) as a typical example here, and because the Clubman is a larger model. Compare these fuel efficiency figures:

US: 35 mpg hwy, 27 cty, 30 comb.

UK: 50 mpg hwy, 34 cty, 43 comb. (CO₂ emissions 129 g/km, 152 g/mi)
(converted from Imperial to US gallons)

UK: 65 mpg hwy, 53 cty, 60 comb. (CO₂ emissions 103 g/km, 138 g/mi)
(converted from Imperial to US gallons)

These new super-efficient diesel engines (and apparently the regular gas engines, too) are burdened in the U.S. with obsolete particulate emissions rules that severely reduce their efficiency.

Whereas their efficiency ensures very low emissions anyway.

Please do all you can to allow the new-generation diesel engines that Europeans enjoy into the US, without forcing them (or even regular gas engines) to lose their incredible efficiency.

Imagine cutting the greenhouse gas emissions from most of our cars by half!

[comment:  CO₂ emissions are not regulated in either the U.S. or the E.U., and particulate emission limits are similar (and similarly specified as g/mi or g/km), so it is even stranger that high-efficiency diesel-powered cars, common in Europe, are not available in the U.S. Or that those few diesels that are available in the U.S. (e.g., from Volkswagen) get much less mileage than comparable models in Europe.]

March 13, 2013

Time and the Ferret Fancier

Time, still a cross, an irreconcilable liability; the single healthy moment chased by a starvation future and devoured by a voracious past. Paul Noble said time was only the skin of space, a necessity relative to the mind of man. That hard word relative: the height of a tree relative to the depth of the root and the strength of the storm.

Time like an everflowing stream . . . that pessimistic hymn that always made him see vividly the Annam and hear the curlews mewling, the melancholy air the cry of doomed prisoners in the dark; one of Rainey’s favorites because it could be dropped a key and roared without strain.

But he kept on trying to agree his two times – he had to, to make-believe some semblance of normality. He swore in a new set of intentions every night.

Morning and evening, Rainey one end, Jill the other and every evening scrape scrape scrape – Jill harping on the taut netting-wire with a not unmusical minor sound, the pink eyes flashing when they caught a spark of light. He always intended to be early with her meal but, just like going to school, some small thing or another appeared to delay him.

And then the dull end of a melancholy day – a few hours in the house, the fire dying down, the smell of hot rubber when the bottles were filled, Agatha making her policeman rounds, Ellen taking out her hairpins and letting the still rich gray-black hair flow over her shoulders, transforming herself unwittingly into a young old witch, the dark eyes burning in the parchment-pale face, Conor yawning, winding the clock and examining the kindling for the morning, the refreshed clock dinging and danging out time – ding-dang, time-time. Wash hands, face, teeth, feet and take the miming candle and dance a horde of shadows up the stairs. Bed and an insurance man's spell of a prayer that was a rope down which he slid into timelessness, through all the gathering pageantry of dream.

—Anthony C. West, The Ferret Fancier (1963)

March 10, 2013

Annie Gower

By Eric Rosenbloom, copyright 2013

She bore me and she bears me still
    My mother Annie Gower.
She played with me and plays to kill
    My sister Annie Gower.
She took me in and takes it well
    My lover Annie Gower.
She made our bed and makes a meal
    My wife my Annie Gower.
She mourns me and each morn she will
    My widow Annie Gower.
She reads my words and red her quill
    My daughter Annie Gower.
I built a bower on the hill
    And wooed my Annie Gower.
And we embraced beneath the elm
    That grew for Annie Gower.
We sang my rise and when I fell
    And dreamed of Annie Gower.

March 9, 2013

Gluttony dressed up as foodie-ism

B. R. Myers wrote in the March 2011 Atlantic:




















environment, environmentalism, vegetarianism, veganism

What Is Finnegans Wake?






It is not about Life, it is life.



















March 8, 2013

Ten Ways to Kill Big Wind

Mike Bond writes:

Despite many victories, communities around the world are still facing a plague of industrial wind projects that like hideous War of the Worlds steel monsters are destroying communities, mountains, and wildlands, slaughtering birds and bats, sickening people and driving them from their homes.

Even though these wind projects do not reduce greenhouse gases or fossil fuel use, they have dreadful environmental, social and economic impacts on whole regions. But they are a tool for energy companies and investment banks to make billions in taxpayer subsidies that get added to our national debt.

The good news is that communities worldwide are learning how to defeat these dreadful projects. More and more laws and moratoriums are being passed against them, while other projects are defeated on legal grounds or by overwhelming public opposition.

In Hawaii, an industrial wind project that would have constructed ninety 42-story turbine towers across seventeen square miles of Molokai has been defeated by a determined two-year effort of the island’s residents. In the process we learned many tactics, which I’ve tried to summarize below and are further described in Saving Paradise:
  1. Show wind projects for what they are: industrial. Not environmental, not green, not renewable, and cause no reductions in greenhouse gases or fossil fuel use, no long-term jobs and few short-term ones.

  2. Don’t be nice. These wind developers are your enemies: they want to destroy where you live, steal your money (property values), and are quite happy to literally drive you from your homes. They will lie, cheat, bribe, buy politicians, and do whatever else they can to win. They won’t be fair and you can’t trust them.

  3. Create a group and get your community behind you. Point out property value loss, human health issues, environmental destruction, tourism impacts, and all the other dreadful results of industrial wind. If you have a homeowners’ associations, make them aware of the danger so they can join the fight.

  4. Publicize your case. In the newspapers, TV and radio, on blogs and in nationwide petitions. Use good graphics. Go viral, worldwide. Develop a good professional website with lots of information and ways for viewers to participate. Community members should write op-eds and letters to the editor. A very powerful tool is frequent press releases that pass on news reports from National Wind Watch and other groups about the devastating impacts of industrial wind. These press releases should be sent to all relevant media outlets and local, state and national legislators.

  5. Do mailings to everyone. In Molokai we sent two mailings to all the island’s 2,700 addresses. The first mailer described the dangers of the project and included a survey with a stamped return envelope. We had a massive response, with 97% of responses against the project, and our group gained hundreds of new members. A year later we sent a second mailer with photo mockups showing how the turbines would tower over homes and landscapes. This mailer also included a bumper sticker which many residents then put on their cars.

  6. Be visible. Put up lots of signs, both homemade and professionally done. Put up billboards if you can. Professional signs show you mean business, and are taken more seriously.

  7. Find legislators who will help you. On the state level, Republicans are often more responsive and more concerned about the environment than traditionalist Democrats who have bought the idea that wind is environmental (or who are receiving contributions from wind companies).

  8. Litigate. Find every avenue to impair or slow the wind developers. Once the Washington industrial welfare subsidies are removed, industrial wind companies will vanish overnight.

  9. Get property value loss appraisals. Average losses of 40% or more are being reported; in Molokai, one of the reasons the landowner planning the project cancelled it was they estimated a 75% property value loss on their lands near the project. Publicize the loss of assessed value at county level, and how that will reduce tax revenues. In most cases, property value loss far exceeds any revenue the county might receive from the project.

  10. Civil disobedience. Politicians and energy companies are terrified of this. Don’t be afraid to go to jail to protect the land and homes you love. On Molokai we planned if necessary to start a hunger strike on the island, and there were people ready to starve to death to protect our island. The level of your commitment is equal to the level of your success.
—Posted on March 8, 2013, by Mike Bond,


March 2, 2013

Coal has surged despite destroying environment for wind energy

Wind Wise Radio (,, has recently posted a few news items about the increase of coal use around the world, despite (or in part because of?) the huge expansion of industrial-scale wind energy.

China's Wind Farms Come With a Catch: Coal Plants

‘To safeguard against blackouts when conditions are too calm, officials have turned to coal-fired power as a backup. ... More coal is being burned in existing plants, and new thermal capacity is being built to cover this shortfall in renewable energy. ... Officials want enough new coal-fired capacity in reserve so that they can meet demand whenever the wind doesn't blow’



As China Burns More Coal, India Needs More

‘It has now been estimated by the International Energy Agency that India may be importing as much coal as China by 2017. ... India has large reserves of coal, however, its economy is growing at a rate where domestic production is unable to meet consumer demand. India currently relies on coal-fired power plants for the majority of its electricity production. However, strict environmental regulations make it difficult to increase the output of the power plants. Importing large amounts of coal is also not always an efficient alternative, as it is difficult to pass on the costs to consumers, many of whom live on less than two U.S. dollars a day. India is thus commonly faced with power outages due to the slow supply of coal. Cities are commonly plagued with blackouts that last for hours, especially during the summer months when air-conditioning is needed. In response, India now aims to build at least 16 more power plants, referred to as ultra-mega power projects.’


‘In 2011, total annual coal exports were up 31% compared to 2010, reaching 107 million short tons, due largely to rising exports to Europe and Asia. ... In general, coal use abroad continued to grow. ... Falling domestic coal consumption (down 4.6% in 2011) along with a slight increase in U.S. coal production (0.9%) freed up more coal to export. ... Rising spot natural gas prices in Europe, up about 35% in 2011, prompted European electricity generators to use more coal.’

Coal resurgence threatens climate change targets [U.K.]

‘Coal is enjoying a renaissance, with the highest consumption of the fuel since the late 1960s. ... The controversial use of shale gas in the US, where it now makes up a quarter of electricity generation, has brought down carbon emissions there – but the greenhouse gases have simply been exported elsewhere, meaning no net gain for the planet. As gas power has replaced coal in the US, the excess coal has pushed down prices on world markets, sparking a bonanza for the high-carbon fuel. Last year, coal had its best year in more than four decades. Its global share of primary energy consumption rose from about 25%, where it has been for years, to 30% – the highest level since 1969, long before governments made any efforts to tackle climate change. ... In the UK, between the second quarter of 2011 and the second quarter of 2012, coal consumption rose by nearly a quarter. Europe overall has burned more coal in the past year than any time since it pledged steep emissions cuts, and China and India have also been burning more. Cheap coal, caused by weakening demand in the US where power stations have switched fuels to use gas, has been the biggest factor. ... Fracking has cut the US's greenhouse gas emissions to their lowest level since 1992, as power stations across the country have switched to gas from coal.’

Germany to Add Most Coal-Fired Plants in Two Decades, IWR Says


wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism