Guest post by Charles G. Battig, M.D.
At the September 4, 2019 Albemarle County board of supervisors meeting, members of an environmentalist group spoke in support of a county plan to meet the goals of the U.N. Paris Climate Accord. The following is a rebuttal to that proposal. It will be presented at the board of supervisors meeting September 18, 2019.
At the BOS meeting here two weeks ago, several lobbyists spoke. One expressed concern that her favorite bird was not showing up on time. I share that concern. She should be grateful that that bird showed up at all, and had avoided the 200mph wind turbine blade tips killing 100,000 of thousands of our feathered friends each year while providing intermittent renewable energy.
Be thankful also that that bird missed a massive commercial solar farm such as proposed for southern VA which would cause a sudden climate change for natural fauna in farm fields being put into a perpetual twilight zone in place of natural daylight. Those solar panels depend upon the mining of toxic rare earth minerals by children in Africa and the use of toxic chemicals in solar panel manufacturing in China; once in place, these panels begin leaching out toxic chemicals into native VA soil killing parts of the natural food chain for that bird…all for intermittent renewable energy, backed up by fossil fuel energy plants Good luck and best wishes for her favorite bird’s survival.
Another lobbyist made claim of many happy commercial interests here because of county staff climate proposals…I do not doubt it…I would also be happy all the way to the bank if I could get BOS to impose laws restricting freedom of choice and requiring purchase of my unique products, and impose taxes on the working class to pay for it. If products are so good and would save the earth as claimed then let the free market and the public decide. It should be an easy sell if they do as advertised. Instead paid lobbyists and stakeholders show up and want government favoritism at taxpayer expense, and claim that the (undefined and un-measured climate) will be measurably influenced or the planet saved…saved from what? Surveys often ask open ended feel-good questions…do you want clean air? Would you settle for healthy air? Yes…but they never include a taxpayer price tag for achieving that. Voters are tired of crony capitalism sustained by false scare stories and false remedies. County taxpayers are the biggest stakeholders yet are excluded from closed door negotiations. The Board of Supervisors is expected to represent them, and not paid lobbyists.
Carbon free…what does that mean? It is a wordsmithing scam…we are all carbon-based life forms; we eat carbohydrates to stay alive. It has become a politically disguised term for carbon dioxide. We exhale 4 per cent CO2…1000x 100x the atmospheric concentration. Plants live on CO2 and produce O2 which we breathe to stay alive. Too low CO2 and plants die; satellites show a global increase in greenery secondary to increased atmospheric CO2. Why are wine and beer industries here allowed to spew thousands of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere without apparent concern?
The impact of manmade CO2 on global climate/temperature is too small to be scientifically identified. The number one green-house gas by far at 90% or so is water vapor, as in clouds. Manmade CO2 comes in around 0.25% as a contributor. There is no proof that CO2 has any measurable impact on climate…just the echo chamber of talking heads on the media, politicians, and rent seeking interests claiming an imaginary climate catastrophe…an induced climate panic based on biased climate model computers which their designers admit cannot correctly model clouds and which ignore the cosmic drivers of solar energy. Ignored is the fact that the climate has been and is always changing. Shouts of “do something” and school walkouts betray the lack of any significant understanding of science or climate. It would be better to stay in school and learn basic science rather the follow the media child who claims to be able to see the invisible carbon dioxide.
No matter how sincere you are about influencing behavior and the climate, none of these measures will have any measurable impact on the climate, but will destroy personal freedom, increase the power of an elite ruling class, and needlessly raise the cost of living. Shameful are the tactics of frightening children and those trusting of their government. The current General-Secretary of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) agrees saying that the alarmist narrative on climate change has gone off the rails as he criticized the news media for provoking unjustified anxiety.
These are facts, not so much in vogue now as are emotional stories and unsubstantiated claims, but I graduated from engineering school, earned a Masters in Engineering, then a Medical Degree, and worked on the Apollo moon project, fields where facts were learned, defended in debate, and used in practice, and subject to change…unicorns, fairy tales, and political alliances did not carry the day, and will not now. Let Albemarle county focus on the real needs of education, housing, and transportation.
Charles G. Battig, M.D.
solar panels do NOT put everything under them in perpetual twilight.
You can graze sheep under/round them, or keep chickens… in the UK it is quite usual to grow natural vegetation/wildflowers around them for the benefit of insects.
https://www.bostonseeds.com/products/1/Grass-Seeds/130/Solar-Park-Seed-Mixtures/
“Grass and wildflower seed mixtures are frequently sown on solar farms as they can provide low maintenance ground cover as well as creating a habitat for pollinating insects”
Your figures on wind turbines and birds are completely wrong (and if you had quoted a source I’d have been able to show you why).
I trust the author is also boycotting all forms of modern electronic device also using African mined rare earths -e.g no cellphone
What about rainfall Griff? How do you get that grass evenly watered?
By the way, musicians should boycott Neodymium speakers because their manufacture produces radioactive waste using your logic, as they are essential to wind generators.
Dr. Battig, I’d be proud if you’d read them my primer poetry.
Mother Goose on Climate Prediction
As record winds blow
Unprecedented snow,
Oh, where is our globe a’ warming?
That depends on the sun
And the ways oceans run,
Plus clouds (with complexity) forming!
Now, for quite long,
Climate models are wrong.
So, what caused the pause in the warming?
Yes, look to the sun,
The ways oceans run,
And the clouds, in complexity forming.
CO2 is “too small”
To stop temperature’s fall
When the sun, clouds and oceans together,
Begin to cause cold
In cycles so old…
No one alive can remember!
So, if I do some harm
By just keeping warm,
You’ll have to kindly forgive me!
I find my solution
Makes carbon pollution;
Lest Gaia too quickly outlives me!
Nice!
Albemarle County is where Charlottesville is. Charlottesville is the home of U Va. That means they have 10 really good basketball players and 10 thousand leftist idiots. The good doctor will be drowned by the rising tide of idiocracy.
I’m embarrassed that I was born there. Perhaps, since I escaped at age 3, I was not affected by whatever it is in the water there that is serving to make these folks batshite crazy.
Thomas Jefferson would be flabbergasted.
It’s worse than the water supply, it’s in their daily media consumption.
Don’t be too tough with Steven Mosher when he pulls the side of the sweet little sixteens.
After all, the governments want to withhold the paid pension contributions to plug the state’s financial holes ..
So the governments talk about “demographic crisis” while instead spreading emergency demagogics.
Steven Mosher leans on the right, the political correct side. Leave him that little pride.