By Andy May
Leah Stokes is the senior author of a new paper in PNAS, Prevalence and predictors of wind energy opposition in North America, in which she blames White people for opposing wind projects. She goes on to say that “…wealthier, Whiter communities [opposition] leads to continued pollution in poorer communities, and communities of color.”
There is evidence that offshore wind projects, or at least the geophysical site surveys required for building them, harm whales. The fact that these geophysical surveys can harm whales is well known and regulations prohibit the surveys, but numerous authorizations for surveys [waiving the rules] for renewable wind projects have been granted anyway. There is also evidence that wind turbines can harm our health, due to the low frequency sounds they produce. Thus, there are good reasons to protest wind turbine development, whether the protestor is White or not.
Stokes claims in her paper that she has “no competing interest.” This was accepted by the editor of the paper, Michael Mann. Yet her podcast, “A Matter of Degrees,” has received the following donations from organizations that support wind power:
The McKnight Foundation supports wind power and moving away from fossil fuels, the same is true of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Schmidt Family Foundation. Stokes is also a policy advisor to Evergreen Action, and a senior policy counsel to Rewiring America, an organization promoting the electrification of the USA.
As I asked Google Bard recently:
“A connection to the renewable industry is OK and not biased, but to the fossil fuel industry it is. This seems to be bias.”
This forced Google Bard to admit that:
“Both the renewable energy industry and the fossil fuel industry have a vested interest in the climate change debate.”
Thus, Stokes appears to have a competing interest, that could lead to bias in her paper. Advocates of wind are financially supporting her podcast. According to the PNAS rules, a financial interest may include:
“…membership on a standing advisory council or committee, service on the board of directors, public association with the company or its products, … compensation as a spokesperson, … or financial support.”
Do I need to ask why she left out her competing interests, or why Michael Mann accepted the paper with the “no conflict of interest” statement?
h/t Willie Soon and Matthew Nisbet.
Just another Climate Hoax grifter. She saw an opportunity to make a quick $200,000 by duping gullible foundations. This is in addition to her probably considerable salary at the Department of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA. Poly Sci.professors/lecturers are all know for their rigorous scientific background. A couple of years ago she would have told you that FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried had digital currency all figured out.
Conflict of interest is a white male patriarchal construct. You think I’m kidding. Get a few drinks in this person and I bet she’ll tell you all about how climate change is a holy struggle, and that rules do not apply. I mean, look at that expression.
Leah C. Stokes is an associate professor of environmental politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has a PhD in Public Policy from MIT and a master in Public Policy from Columbia University. She has published several books and articles on energy, climate and environmental politics.
This comes from her own personal website. It demonstrates that she’s not an individual with a particular viewpoint on a subject. She is representative of academia as a whole, a product of an industry whose goal is to further its position and income in the larger culture, a member of the quadriga that also includes government, the legal profession and media. Academia is the first among equals in this unholy alliance since they establish both the facts and their interpretation in all matters scientific and social. As an individual, she is merely a foot soldier in the larger campaign to change the culture and the economics of the West.
Here is an example of the outsized role academia plays in culture today. This is not to say that they are always successful in their fantasies. Nevertheless, the general population gives credence to them because of their undeserved elevated position. In fact, the hoi polloi holds academia in such an exalted status that it’s been the goal of parents for many decades to see their children become full-fledged academics and they’ve been willing to make the enormous investment required to do so. It has also become an hereditary phenomenon, children of academics are almost guaranteed a place in the same universe. Pointing this out generates calls of “anti-intellectualism” as if academia are the sinless ecclesiastics of a scientific illuminati. The reality is that only a small percentage make any novel and meaningful contribution. The rest are merely well-paid drones in a hive of mental mediocrity.
And yes, it is quite appropriate to attack the author. She is a young “kid” who claims to be a scientist yet has no hard science education or experience. She is a coddled, over-educated humanities major with degrees that merely have the word “environment” in them. It appears that she has never had a job in the “real world.”
Yet another example that we are winning. They can’t use science or observations to whip us so they call us names and accuse us of being bad people. It must suck to be them.
Stokes the senior author? In the photograph she looks like a teenager. What must the others be like? Primary school kids?
She forgot to mention ‘old’. Without doubt we old people are responsible for everything that’s wrong with the world. / s
Leah is an openly racist person who uses racist terminology like “communities of color.”