Wind Watch: Turbines are not worth it

It has been calculated that, should the Mynydd y Gwair wind turbine scheme go ahead, it will attract grants of £6 million per year — mostly obtained by inflating our electricity bills.

Over its projected 25-year life, this would add up to an eye-watering £150 million, or around £2,000 from each and every household in Swansea.

Yet independent experts agree that any contribution wind turbines would make to climate change or anything else would be, at best, negligible.

At a time of financial stringency, it would be madness to allow our money to be squandered in this way.

Alun John Richards

Prometheus » Blog Archive » Trends in Homes Lost to Australian Bushfires

We often hear scientists warning that it is a mistake to attribute a single extreme event to human-caused climate change, but that hasn’t stopped such claims being made quite frequently by advocates for action on climate change in this tragic case. Further, those making such unsupportable claims take another highly misleading step when they recommended changes to carbon emissions policy as a way to address future bushfire risks. Work by McAneney et al. (among others) indicates that if you really want to reduce risks, such policies are far down on the list of what might be done.

Are these advocates who misrepresent the scientific and policy arguments in favor of action on climate policy ignorant, Machiavellian, or both? I don’t the issue can be soft-pedalled any longer.

Prometheus » Blog Archive » Redoing the Wishy-Washy IPCC

It is not clear how the meeting will arrive at a new scientific consensus or what climate policies it will try to influence and in what way. My guess is that the message that will come out is that the world needs “action” because the science is “alarming” and “disturbing.” The first keynote speaker listed for the event? Rajendra Pachauri, head of the obsolete IPCC. Perhaps in his keynote talk he will deliver a eulogy for the IPCC.