Josh writes: There is lots of news around about renewables, especially wind and solar, feeling the sharp stab of economic reality and the burn of bankrupcy – see SunEdison, German renewables, more SunEdison, Dutch wind and British green blundering – all via The GWPF.
This would be cheery news if governments hadn’t wasted so much taxpayers cash on such pointless policies in the first place.
The “burn the village to save it” remedy to a dis proven theory is catching up with the perpetrators. All is smiles while the ‘save the world’ banners are flying but the stark reality is ‘save the people’ will be the new slogan and it won’t be coming from the environmentalists or one world government camps.
The cover of Maclean’s (a Canadian news magazine) proclaims: “How to Kill the NDP” “Blow an Election. Turf Your Leader” “Embrace a Radical Manifesto Written by Two Eco-Activists” (ie. Naomi Klein and Ari Lewis)
I’m just settling down to read the article. 🙂 It’s nice to see that folks see the green blob as being toxic to political survival and feel that they can say so in public. Most of the MSM isn’t willing to stand up to the green blob.
Here’s another sign that the tide of stupidity is turning. (If it isn’t a perma-link, it’s the April 15 Pearls Before Swine strip.)
“….Most of the MSM isn’t willing to stand up to the green blob….”
Most of the MSM is bought and owned by the Progressives. Think about it. Someone writes or speaks against AGW and they instantly lose their job. Only the owners have that kind of power to dictate editorial content. Why else would the MSM be incessantly scare mongering with the most inane articles about AGW? By now people are tired of it so it’s not pandering to the readers. They are being directed that way and want to maintain their employment.
marki, don’t forget Robert Conquest’s second laws of politics:
For some reason progressives seem to have a really bad case of confirmation bias. They don’t want to hear anything that goes against their belief systems. This is a common trait for those whose beliefs are emotionally derived rather than rational. They therefore only hire others who don’t make them question their own beliefs.
@JoeCrawford
“For some reason progressives seem to have a really bad case of confirmation bias. They don’t want to hear anything that goes against their belief systems. This is a common trait for those whose beliefs are emotionally derived rather than rational. They therefore only hire others who don’t make them question their own beliefs.”
Your analysis is indeed very much to the point and quite true. Not only the MSM but also the education system does suffer very badly by this psychological tendency of left-leaning people, as I can confirm by many years of work experience with such always “well-meaning” but often unreasonable and ideologically driven individuals.
But why are such folks so dominantly overpopulated in the media and education systems? The explanation must be IMHO their strong missionary zeal to “improve or rescue the world”, what is of course a noble impulse, but often leads to intolerant and totalitarian behavior, unfortunately…
The provincial NDP in B.C. and Alberta are trying to distance themselves from the Leap Manifesto. A manifesto??? Really??? The unabomber had a manifesto. Karl Marx had a manifesto. Naomi Klein and company are delusional.
What manifesto means to me is that this is what I will force upon you if I ever get into power.
Enough said, we’ve been down this road before in our barbaric history.
metro New Canada, April 9, 2016
‘A few facts about the Leap Manifesto’
Leap Manifesto joint resolution from the ridings of Toronto-Danforth and Vancouver East.
http://www.metronews.ca/news/canada/2016/04/09/a-few-facts-about-the-leap-manifesto.html
TDNDP/Toronto-Danforth NDP
‘Think Big in a Time of Climate Crisis’
“A Town Hall on the Leap manifesto, March 29, 2016
Hosted by Peter Tabuns, Ontario MPP
Included:
Avi Lewis
Joanna Kerr, Executive Director Greenpeace
And others
http://www.tdndp.ca
————————————————————
Ontario NDP
Peter Tabuns, MPP, Toronto- Danforth and former Executive Director of Greenpeace Canada
http://www.ontariondp.ca/peter_tabunsmpp
NDP Toronto-Danforth Riding Association
Provincial Riding Association President: Janet Solberg
http://www.tdndp.ca/contact
————————————————————————–
Wikipedia: Stephen Lewis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Lewis
According to Wikipedia, Stephen Lewis has a sister Janet Solberg. So Janet Solberg is aunt of Avi Lewis if this information is correct.
Interestingly, Naomi Klein and Ari Lewis are not “eco-activist” but died-in-the-wool socialists. The greenery is just camouflage.
And her grandparents got the hell out of the Soviet Union! I wonder why?
“Her paternal grandparents were communists who began to turn against the Soviet Union after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and had abandoned communism by 1956.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Klein
The Leap Manifesto, 2016
Initiated in the spring of 2015 at a two-day meeting in Toronto, ON, Canada.
Initiating Signatories and Initiating Organizations at:
https://leapmanifesto.org/en/whos-on-board
I always snicker when people like Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben try to form a connection or an association between communist/socialist/leftist ideology on one hand and environmentalism/being green on the other. Where is the historical evidence to support such a connection or association? The Soviet Union? Eastern Europe? Even China today with its communist dictatorship?
Such a connection is about as genuine as a three dollar bill. That there are people out there who believe the existence of it just demonstrates how naive those people can be.
Calgary Sun, Editorial, April 12, 2016
Has a photo of the “NDP + Leap Manifesto” button worn at the Alberta NDP convention April 2016.
http://calgarysun.com/2016/04/12/the-leap-manifesto-will-push-the-ndp-further-into-irrelevance-and-this-is-good-news-for-alberta
Buttons/badges such as this have to be made in advance of an event/meeting/convention.
If it’s really a benefit, people will buy it.
If it’s only a political benefit, it will be subsidized.
(But the people will still pay for it.)
That is too true and too easy to understand. The thought police are in their way.
“Most of the MSM isn’t willing to stand up to the green blob.”
Sometimes I think many people in many industries have been replaced with compliant, non-questioning button-pushers unable to even conceive of challenging the so-called status quo. I suppose over reliance on computers, software and the internet can do that to a person. And computers do make centralized control of things much easier.
“If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no-one dares criticize it.” – Pierre Gallois
Most of the MSM are fairly stupid, don’t confuse the ability to read a teleprompter and look good on camera with anything more than that. I know a number of news reporters who, when off camera, are actually pretty dim-witted and unattractive
Those dumb reporters are perfectly capable of parroting a prediction of coming apocalypse from a “green” organization, but if you come from the industry side of the fence, beware being interviewed by any mainstream reporter. They will twist your words, take them out of context etc., in an effort to make you/your employers/your organization/your industry look stupid/greedy/mendacious (pick one). I have been able to avoid it, but I know people who’ve got into trouble just for speaking as one would in a normal conversation, when there’s a reporter across the table.
Post-normal science requires post-normal economics.
http://www.nltimes.nl/2016/04/14/hundreds-dutch-green-energy-windmills-operating-loss/
What would normally be legitimate tax deductions for business operation costs in any other industry becomes a subsidy for the fossil fuel sector.
And for the renewable energy sector subsidies become profits hence: “… subsidies for generating wind energy are in many cases no longer cost-effective … smaller, older windmills in particular are running at a loss, but even newer mills are struggling to be profitable with insufficient subsidies …” (from the link above).
The solution: “… chairman of umbrella organization for sustainable energy companies, thinks that the subsidy arrangement need to change …” viz. increase the subsidies so the wind energy companies can become profitable again.
The fossil fuel industry is highly taxed. The green energy industry is high subsidized. And yet, the latter is considered to be very competitive with the former.
+A1!!!!
There really should be a word other than “profit” or its various word forms here. Profit is not just accounting jargon. Profit is a signal that an activity is needed or desired by bona fide buyers at arm’s length by showing the thing is worth more to them than the cost to produce and deliver it to them. With profit and its beneficial signalling cousin, loss, we engage in time optimal resource allocation. With profit, we all become better off. These perversions of basic economic activity by interventionists and manipulators do no such things. They merely transfer wealth on a cost greater than production and delivery basis cause huge misallocations of resources, and make us all poorer.
If he’s “feeling the heat” now, just wait til President Trump gets in.
Bruce, sorry
I am certain that the irrational exuberance over Trump parallels the similar exuberance that the Democrats had in 2008 with the same potential results. Sorry the narcissism and blame someone else tactic from Trump looks too familiar to me to that or the last 7 years. Blaming the republicans for all of Obama’s mistakes may fool many but it is clearly just a dishonest political move from someone who claims to not be a politician while having bought favors from Clinton’s, etc in the past.
I don’t know how you made the leap to “irrational exuberance” from what I said. All I meant was, wrt the Green Blob, Trump will almost certainly make things far worse for them than they are now. Surely, he is a flawed candidate, but given the choice between him and Clinton, whom would you choose? And if Cruz were, by some miracle able to pull off an upset in the convention, well I guess I’d have no choice but to vote for him. Though I do find him to be creepy, and dislike his pandering to evangelicals.
Catcracking
April 15, 2016 at 8:45 pm
Trump is an iconoclastic guy and he is fighting the GOP establishment. He knows he has to “get more presidential” and he is a good negotiator which would be invaluable in government. Also, his constituency is Americans, whereas the left’s is a more Euro-new- world-order- putsch with the UN as its gathering point. For the things Trump doesn’t know about, he will engage the best strategic minds for such specialties.
Remember the Central Park ice rink that was out of order more than in service over several decades? He chastised New York bureaucrats and bragged he would make a rink that worked and they said go ahead. He went to (IIRC) the New York Rangers club and asked who had the best rink in the NHL. Toronto was the reply and he found the guy who designed theirs, engaged him to fix it. The specialist looked at the layout of the pipes and the equipment and said it needed to be scrapped. So said, so executed! Now Central Parks has one of the best rinks in the world! He didn’t make any new friends in officialdom
Translate this into government:
He chastised Washington politicos and bragged he would make America great again. He has promised to engage specialists (State Dempartment, etc) to help him to fix the broken machinery of Washington. The specialist will see it needed to be scrapped. So said, so he will execute! America will be great again! It will be hated by the marxbrothers in Europe, NGOs, UN, etc. etc. but how do you think these envious anti-American constructs have felt about America since WWII. What do you think the UN’s real mission is?
The lefties in Washington want to be loved and to join the Euro-kumbaya destroyers of civilization. The Kumba is laughing behind American backs as their endeavor, long frustrated, seems to be making “progress”. Remember also, that your fear has been artfully engendered by the lefty policies and K-12 education subversion and encouraging (with cash, to be sure) universities to be instruments and training places for the next generation of marxbrothers. The GOP has similarly been undermined, moving inexorably left by seeing central Democrat constructs as “To big to fail”. You need someone who has the guts to dismantle all that isn’t working for the benefit of the people of America and Americans need the guts that the left has been replacing with fear. Why do you need a doer to also be sweet and cuddly?
In Canada, we’ve lost much of the confident, independent ‘doer’ people of earlier generations, handing over the doing to the left and increasing our dependence on Nanny Gov. Conservative Stephen Harper kept us afloat for almost a decade of the worst world economic crisis since the 1930s (maybe ever), but the electorate didn’t find him cuddly enough and now we are heading for serious trouble. The left didn’t even feel the need to change Naomi Kleins Leap Forward “Manifesto” title. I kid you not! They adopted a Manifesto with all the marxbrothers freight this term carries. I’ve been trying to get people like Catcracking to not be afraid – this may be your last chance! Once Trump has righted the American ship, then you can look for a cuddly president for a while.
History of a Climate Con
Al Gore had a revelation: Energy taxes would be a loser for Obama.
Are ‘Green Blobs’ edible? Can you cook ‘Green Blobs’ like the Chinese cook jellyfish?
John
No. They are full of toxins, and cause a great deal of immediate indigestion and bile reflux if ingested.
The preferred method of dealing with them is lots of bleach, provided not a drop spills or they will sue you for it… and if possible heavy bombardment with gamma rays…. (unfortunately sometimes that makes them very angry and they get even bigger and stupider and crankier… )
Under no circumstance can you ingest Green Blob (cooked, dissected, dismembered, or whole) and survive. It causes massive psychotic breaks and delusions, is occasionally lethal, and usually causes brain damage even in modest doses. It is best not to handle Green Blob as, like jellyfish, it has toxic surfaces and can cause rashes and irritation on even minor contact.
Avoidance and distance are your best bets. Wear protective clothing if possible. If in doubt, call the military. It is rumored that they have chemical, biological and nuclear weapons that can deal with it, but so far that has not been confirmed. Most contacts have ended badly, even for folks believed protected by sanity and rational measures.
In short, it is best if the Green Blob is treated as toxic and avoided at all costs and at all times. Europe has not followed these guidelines, and the last reports received from there were not encouraging. Spain, Cyprus, and Germany have all been lost per the last dispatches (some year or two ago) and the UK is reported to be in violent convulsions attempting to “exit” the plague. Results expected in a few months. Anyone thinking of travel there is advised to get their vaccinations updated and pack long underwear and heavy coats. Filter masks advised. We have heard little other than a monotonous drone from folks who have ventured there. The prognosis is not good.
So please, if you see Green Blob in your area, go immediately inside, close all door and windows, and call 911. We don’t think that calling 911 will do any good, but it is what all these things say to do, so we figured “why not?”… Then go hide under your bed…
LOL! +1,000.
E.M.Smith on April 16, 2016 at 12:08 am
– – – – –
E.M.Smith,
Maybe dragon fire is needed . . . and a whole lot of cat litter . . . to deal with ‘Green Blobs’.
As to cooking/eating ‘Green Blobs’, I have heard often during numerous business trips to Asia that there is a old saying there: “If it moves you can eat it [when prepared/cooked properly]”. I offer a $100 to anyone who figures out a way for ‘Green Blobs’.
John
How about this John, you nail them to a board then cover them with manure of any kind, cook at 350 degrees F (176.66 C) for 12 hours then scrape it all off the board then eat the board.
did i win?
16 Apr: Guardian: Martin Lukacs: The Leap Manifesto opens horizon for bold new politics in Canada
The media attacks are a sign: a New Democratic Party that takes on inequality and climate change can crack open the country’s political debate
***(Martin Lukacs was involved in the writing of the Leap Manifesto along with a broad coalition)
From the headlines screaming outrage on the front pages of Canada’s newspapers, you’d think the New Democratic Party had shuttered their convention doors, armed themselves and made for Edmonton’s solitary hills.
“A hard left turn to nowhere,” blasted the National Post, after NDP members voted to debate the Leap Manifesto in local ridings. “How to Kill the NDP,” Maclean’s exclaimed. Captured by the “loony left,” added the Toronto Star.
Was it passionate concern speaking for the future of Canada’s social democratic party? Hardly…
Here’s what they would prefer: a NDP shackled to a political consensus that has gripped countries like Canada for decades. This consensus tells us that we should leave our fate to the market…
If they can help their party shake loose from this consensus, many Canadians will want to join them—or to listen…
Like the crisis of climate change, which the manifesto says is not just an existential threat—it is an opportunity to transform our country for the better…
The breadth of this vision is reflected in the diversity of hands that wrote it: labour unionists, migrant rights activists, food policy experts and feminists, Indigenous leaders and environmentalists and anti-poverty organizers…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2016/apr/15/the-leap-manifesto-opens-horizon-for-bold-new-politics-in-canada
It’s just old but rebranded Marxism.
Food Policy Experts? What in the world about food needs “policy”? Just eat it and move on…
And feminists.
Don’t forget the feminists.
“Green Blob” I like it. I hope whom ever coined the term don’t mind me using it to describe the alarmist.
Owen Paterson
Every prime minister has the right to choose his team to take Britain into the general election and I am confident that my able successor at Defra, Liz Truss, will do an excellent job. It has been a privilege to take on the challenges of the rural economy and environment. However, I leave the post with great misgivings about the power and irresponsibility of – to coin a phrase – the Green Blob.
The Leap Manifesto: Mixing ice tea with bathwater
and
Debunking the Leap Manifesto 100% Renewables by 2050 demand
Its never been about the environment. It has always been about wealth redistribution to favored cronies.
Amen!
15 Apr: BBC: Wind farm construction ‘cuts golden plover numbers by 80%’
The construction of a wind farm in Sutherland led to an 80% drop in the number of golden plovers in the area, according to a five-year study.
Scientists have now said their research project should be used as the basis for future studies on the effects of wind farms on other bird species.
The study was funded by the Gordonbush site’s owners, energy company SSE, and conducted by RSPB Scotland…
Golden plover, of which there are believed to be between 38,000 and 59,000 breeding pairs in the UK, are protected under the European Birds Directive…
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-36048939
15 Apr: UK Times: Wind turbines blamed for steep fall in bird population at Sutherland site
Bird numbers plummeted after a wind farm was built on breeding grounds in Sutherland over the objection of conservationists, researchers say.
Construction of Gordonbush wind farm for the energy company SSE was followed by a drop of nearly 80 per cent in the number of golden plovers, a report found.
The RPSB, which objected to the plans for Gordonbush, says the study confirms that wind farms should not be sited on breeding grounds used by wading birds such as plovers…
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/scotland/article4733162.ece?utm_term=0_876aab4fd7-ac0778d847-303439889&utm_content=buffer1c994&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
From the “Well Duh!” department?
14 Apr: Thomson Reuters Foundation: Laurie Goering: To curb climate change, ‘we need to move everything’: investors
Meeting the goals of a new global agreement to tackle climate change will require social change on an almost unprecedented scale, sustainable investment experts said on Thursday.
That includes shifting trillions of dollars each year into renewable energy – up from $345 billion last year – and making everything from transport to agriculture and consumer products much greener very quickly.
“This is about scale. It is about timing. It is about scope. We cannot move 500 companies and 200 investors in a few countries. We need to move everything,” said Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a U.S.-based business sustainability group.
Failure to make big shifts fast would amount to putting our children and grandchildren in the path of a speeding bus, she told the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford.
“We would each throw ourselves in front of a bus if it was coming at our child, regardless of our politics,” she said. “We have got to change this debate so people understand… climate change is that bus.”…
Some of that transformation is already underway, said David Blood, a senior partner at Generation Investment Management. Much of the clean energy technology needed is already available, and a surging divestment campaign is persuading investors that keeping money in fossil fuel companies is a growing financial risk…
“It’s in the interests of the whole world that India gets (to clean energy) faster,” said Mary Robinson, a former Irish president who runs a climate justice foundation.
But large institutional investors are wary of risk and want clear returns, which can make them hesitant to invest in emerging economies like India, the experts said…
That must be done in a way that persuades investors who “don’t recognize the urgency of the problem”, said Blood, whose company is one of the world’s largest sustainable investment firms…
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who spoke at the Oxford forum this week, put the value of unburnable fossil fuels at $22 trillion…
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-fossilfuels-investment-idUSKCN0XB2C6
Is it wrong to note that these hysterics and Catherine the Great style commands are emitted by women or men seeking or aligned with those seeking women’s tax-deductible donations, or votes?
ANYTHING prefixed with “Social” or suffixed with “Justice” is firmly and clearly flagged as Progressive Socialist Propaganda and is typically exactly the opposite in actual meaning and goal.
Climate Justice means “NOTHING to do with climate and promoting IN-justice via subsidy farming”.
“Social Entrepreneurship” means non-Social Crony relationships and anything BUT being an entrepreneur as you use Government to assure gain and studiously avoid market risks and harvest subsidies.
“Sustainable” is well on its way to joining that club. “Sustainable investments” means “subsidy farm that is NOT sustainable without government largess / corruption”.
Someone needs to tell these folks that Animal Farm was NOT a guide book… and “1984” was not a manual…
+ 1
superb comment.
Regards,
WL
How strange that none of these reports make note of the fact that Blood and Gore are (or at least indisputably were) – in fact – partners in grime.
See: Wastelandia: Andrew Weaver et al‘s big green choru$ and $ymphony … in the key of Gore for all the … uh… gory details.
It’s easy to take foolish risks with other people’s money. It’s even easier when you’ve convinced yourself that it’s the only way to save the planet.
A local utility announced a project to add 1000 wind turbines generating 2000 MW at ‘no expense’ to customers because the tax incentives over a ten year period will cover the costs.
I would like to thank the American taxpayers for my ‘free’ electricity.