IT'S ONLY GREENIE AGITATION THAT CAUSED WINDFARMS TO BE BUILT BUT NOW GREENIES WANT TO SHUT THE SAME WINDFARMS DOWN

Trying to keep Greenies happy is futile, not to mention costly to the public

The wind farm at Altamont Pass produces clean electricity for tens of thousands of homes. The windmills also kill a large number of migratory birds passing through the region east of San Francisco. Two environmental groups are going to court with the ultimate aim of shutting down the farm for three months during the migration season to help protect red-tail hawks, golden eagles, and other raptors killed by the mills.

On Friday, the nonprofit group Californians for Renewable Energy filed a suit in Alameda County Superior Court demanding the county conduct an environmental impact report on the windmills. CARE president Michael Boyd said on Saturday the Golden Gate Audubon Society was filing a sister suit on Monday. "The perception is it's environmentalist versus environmentalist," Boyd said. "But it's environmentalists versus the power cartel."

The nearly 6,000 windmills on the rolling hills of Altamont Pass, 60 miles east of San Francisco, make up one of the largest wind farms in the country. The turbines generate enough electricity to power more than 120,000 homes. And more birds are killed in the region than at any other wind farm in the country, according to the California Energy Commission.

Earlier this year, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and the companies that operate the turbines agreed to shut down 50 percent of the turbines during prime migration season, set to begin on Tuesday, and to shut 100 mills permanently as part of a plan to protect the birds. But Boyd said the plan did not go far enough and did not have merit because it was drawn up without conducting an environmental impact reporting required by the California Environmental Quality Act.

Under the act, when a suit is filed, all parties involved must sit down for a mandatory settlement conference. At that time, Boyd said, CARE will ask for all turbines to be shut down for three months during migration, and for 200 mills to be removed.

More here







GLOBAL WARMING GOES BACK A LONG WAY

Forget Kyoto. By the time Christ appeared on Earth, the planet was already belching enough gas to cause global warming. And we have our ancestors to blame. Or thank. William Ruddiman, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, is behind a controversial theory suggesting that humans had a hand in warming the planet nearly 8,000 years ago, and in doing so, might have prevented another ice age. In his new book titled Plows, Plagues, Petroleum: How Humans took Control of the Climate, Ruddiman delves further into the theory that first made waves in the winter of 2003. “I presented my results at the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco back then,” recalls Ruddiman. His findings threw a monkey wrench into a time-honoured theory: that global warming began only 150 years ago, shortly after the Industrial Revolution.

Earth gracefully pirouettes like a ballerina around its axis. Every now and then – once in 22,000 years to be exact – the axis tilts causing the planet to wobble. This clumsy movement is enough to cause warmer summers in the Northern Hemisphere and drive methane levels up in the atmosphere through the breakdown of plant matter in the wetlands. Then, as the Northern Hemisphere moves away from the sun, methane emissions plummet, reaching a nadir 11,000 years later. Thus waxed and waned methane throughout recorded history, up until 5,000 years ago. Then it took a wrong turn.

As Ruddiman pored over data collected from ancient air trapped inside Antarctic ice cores, he found that the methane levels reversed directions 5,000 years ago, soaring back to 700 parts per billion when they should have ebbed to 450 ppb, akin to previous cycles. Intrigued, he turned his attention to carbon dioxide. Here, a similar picture unfolded. During the current interglacial period, the level of CO2 peaked around 10,500 as expected and continued its slow decline through modern times. Then, it reversed course 8,000 years ago. By the start of the industrial era, CO2 concentrations had soared to 285 parts per million, around 40 ppm higher than expected. Ruddiman suspected that these discrepancies were not driven by natural causes.

So, could humans have been responsible for this anomaly? Ruddiman found his answers in the ancient civilizations of China and Mesopotamia. Ruddiman found evidence from studies in archeology and human historical records to show that Europeans began clearing forests to make way for new crops like wheat, barley and peas around 8,000 years ago. “This significant deforestation would have pushed levels of CO2 upwards,” he opines. Likewise, around 5,000 years ago, Chinese farmers began flooding lowlands near rivers to grow rice, which would have contributed to a rise in atmospheric methane. Thus, ancient agriculture, not modern industry, was responsible for the onset of global warming. Plows, not petroleum

As with all radical theories, this one has its skeptics. In particular, Ruddiman found one critique that warranted a closer look. Fortunaut Joos is a professor of environmental physics at the University of Bern, Switzerland. For the past many years, Joos has developed models of carbon cycling, thanks to which he can predict the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at a given period of time. Joos jumped on Ruddiman’s assertions and stated that there is no way forest clearing could account for the anomalous 40 ppm rise in CO2. With the area of forestland prevalent in the day, any rise in CO2 would level off at four ppm. So, Ruddiman’s assertions were off the mark – by a factor of 10. “Indeed,” confessed Ruddiman, “he was right. Deforestation could only account for 35-45 per cent of the anomalous CO2 rise.” So, where did the rest of the CO2 come from?

After much rumination, Ruddiman hit upon a possible answer. “It dawned on me that, alongside human factors pushing CO2 levels up, there might be another mechanism keeping the CO2 levels from going down.” Further research revealed a cooling trend prevalent in previous interglacial cycles. Looming sea ice in Antarctica is believed to drive down atmospheric CO2 values by reducing carbon exchanges between southern ocean surface water and the atmosphere. This cooling mechanism is absent today, thus possibly adding to an already increased level of gas.

The critics notwithstanding, Many of Ruddiman’s colleagues have welcomed his new assertions and the resulting paradigm shift in our understanding of climate change. Ruddiman’s theory brings up an intriguing prospect. Greenhouse gases distanced us from an impending ice age. Could this mean that global warming was a good thing? “Ah, you’ve hit the nail on the head!” exclaims Ruddiman.

Yet today, the face of global warming is decidedly ugly: floods, melting glaciers, droughts, disease. How then to reconcile the devastating effects of global warming with this new image of greenhouse gases as a warm cuddly blanket, shielding Earth from the next ice age? “My theory is about the past,” he emphasizes, “and we simply cannot make inferences about the beneficial effects of global warming today based on yesterday’s records.” “If anything,” he notes, “this study should be a lesson in humility. As humans, we were able to alter the climate simply by growing food,” he muses. “Now, with all the technology at our disposal, just imagine what we can do with the climate in the near future!”

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GREENPEACE DUMMIES

They were recently fined in Alaska too -- for a violation of environmental regulations. They are just egotists who like playing with big toys -- floating toys in particular

Greenpeace is to be fined after its flagship Rainbow Warrior II damaged a coral reef in the central Philippines during a climate change awareness campaign. The ship and its crew were assessed a 640,000-peso ($15,000) fine after the 55m motor-assisted schooner ran aground at the Tubbataha Reef Marine Park yesterday, park manager Angelique Songco said. The ship's bow sliced through a reef formation measuring 160sq m, she said.

A Greenpeace official in the Philippines described the incident as accidental, and said it would comply with the marine park authorities' ruling. Rainbow Warrior II arrived in the reservation in the middle of the Sulu Sea, about 600km south of Manila, last weekend as part of a four-month Asia-Pacific campaign to promote earth-friendly energy sources, Greenpeace campaign manager Red Constantino said. He said the crew made dive sorties to inspect the effect of global warming on the coral formation, which is listed among the World Heritage sites of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. The chart indicated we were a mile and a half" from the coral reef when the ship ran aground, Mr Constantino said....

Mr Constantino said that Greenpeace divers on the Tubbataha expedition had found that healthy coral and no evidence of bleaching, believed to be caused by warming sea temperatures. He said the healthy state of the Tubbataha Reefs did not disprove the theory of global warming, which he described as an "extremely complicated science". [A rare admission!]

More here. (Neo-Con has had a laugh at this story too)

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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