Huff – Po - The Liberals’ Ho – whistle whistle whistle...

Google led me to a Huffpost Canada stupidity the other day, “Wind Power:  A Quiet Solution to Climate Change”

Following the title comes; “We asked a tough question today: Is the fear and anxiety being spread about the sound of wind power justified?”

A horse’s ass has reason to hope the cart goes before the horse, but it really doesn’t.  The correct first question should address the title;  “Is wind power a solution to climate change? 

It isn’t. 

I let that one go but today America’s worst new export stoops to a new low with Vision vs. Populism …, which includes some gems from an imbecile with a title –seriously – ‘President, AIR MILES for Social Change’:

“Instead of recognizing our serious long term competitive vulnerability, as one of the world's most carbon-intensive, automobile-dependent economies, they're simply encouraging Ontarians to keep up the old habits and risk turning this province into tomorrow's rust belt.

Is this any different than offering more affordable cocaine to a population of unemployed and hungry addicts in order to "ease their pain"?”

Might be no different at all, from the perspective of a green shirted eco fascists that treats burning jet fuel like a peyote-fueled enlightenment ceremony.

It is curious that the Huffington Post shares the same commenting guidelines as the Toronto Star – specifically they don’t post comments until they have been approved.  In fairness to the The Star, over the past year they have moved from rejecting comments based on philosophy to rejecting them based on vitriol and unsubstantiated claims.

Ms. Huffington brought along some propaganda instincts from her birth continent, and has a ministry of truth to get rid of substantial comments to refute nonsensical crap like the Wind Power spin from the Ontario Liberal government linked Environmental Defense, and the Air Miles for Nirvana crowd.

That isn’t to say comments shouldn’t be monitored and removed on sites.  The great blog of Australian professor Barry Brooks, Brave New Climate, frequently admonishes to “play the ball and not the player” but also frequently removes unsubstantiated claims, and therein lies the ugly in the Huffington Post.  There is no ball.  There is no game outside of sell, sell, sell the Soros way.  There is only propaganda.

Having said that, wind turbines don’t address climate change because they don’t reduce emissions, and I state that in part due to:

• my review of US EIA data indicating states with significant wind capacity trail the country, as a whole, in reducing emissions (here)
• the Inhaber work recently published (and refuted, and supported, on this thread at Brave New climate) indicating that, in general, there is a law of declining returns that rapidly kicks in as wind capacity is added
• This paper, out of the Netherlands, has a striking graphics on Denmark’s experience illustrating how the CO2/kWh declined concurrent with declines in the CO2/GJ (fuel unit) until 2003, and since then the emissions per fuel unit continued their decline while the emission/kWh did not.

The statistical evidence that wind output is not reducing emissions is growing almost daily.   Worse news is the devaluing of sources that do as they are demoted to balancing wind loads, including most recently concerns from the US Pacific northwest’s BPA of “Possible increased wear and tear on balancing units, especially hydro.” 

The latest article at hugging ho is worse yet – but there are far better articles than I can offer which already note far more effective ways to reduce emissions from automobiles than regressive taxation at the pump.  Aldyen Donnelly’s included this:

“The older textbooks ... suggest that for a tax/price increase to effectively and efficiently impact consumer demand, the tax/price impact has to be revealed to/experienced by the consumer at a point of a “primary” consumption decision, not a “secondary” or derived consumption decision.  Most fuel/energy purchases by non-industrial consumers are secondary or derived from their decisions to locate their home and the vehicles they buy.  So even the traditional general economic theorists told us, so many years ago, that if we want to change energy demand in as economically efficient a fashion as possible, we likely would need to tax (to the extent this is the policy mechanism of choice) home and car purchases (primary capital expenditure decisions) and not energy/fuel purchases (secondary, variable, operating costs).”

That’s good stuff – Huffington wouldn’t know it though.

It’s not junk – like cocaine for hungry addicts