Canadian Hydro Developers [company] “increased expenses” in second quarter a result of
low winds and high cost of victim compensation.
A Press Release from Wind Concerns Ontario
August 18, 2009
Toronto - Canadian Hydro Developers (TSX: KHD) has spent 1.75 million dollars since 2005 purchasing the property of residents who have reported negative health effects as a result of Phases I and II of the Melancthon Wind Project. Families have literally been bought out of their own communities by Canadian Hydro Developers as a result.
With a plate (potential) capacity of 199.5 Megawatts, Canadian Hydro Wind Developer’s Melancthon project is Ontario’s largest wind factory. However, on the Canadian Hydro Wind Developer’s website that anticipated power production is only be 31.2% of capacity.
Meanwhile, the most recent hourly data provided by the Independent Electricity Operator for Ontario which monitors output shows that during the hottest week this summer – August 10th to August 16th, the Melancthon Project’s electricity output was just 5.9% of capacity and just 20% of Canadian Wind Developer’s anticipated return.
“Reckless provincial regulations that allow for irresponsible project design have put developers like Canadian Hydro Developers in a position of liability for impacts on human health surrounding their wind factories. So far this one project has cost Canadian Hydro Developers $1.75 million due to health impacts. As more evidence continues to mount, the liability of companies like Canadian Hydro Developers will also increase,” said John Laforet, President of Wind Concerns Ontario, a coalition of thirty-four grassroots citizens groups in twenty-one counties and the City of Toronto.
Mr. Laforet continued, “The reality is the current model for wind power installations in Ontario is harmful to citizens’ health and the pocketbooks of investors. Between the liability for impacts on human health and simply a lack of constant wind, these are high risk investments, regardless of what price the government of Ontario puts on each kilowatt hour.”
Wind Concerns Ontario is calling for a minimum setback requirement of 1.5 KM from residences to be included in the Green Energy Act regulations, to protect human health from the negative affects of wind factories.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Thoughts on our Civilisation
"You can't put new wine into old wineskins".......This discussion between Paul and George (Weren't they "Beetle Peepel" a long time ago? Maybe they are back re-incarnated....
For my 2 cents worth,this is a pretty good summary of the state of affairs......I don't know any answers but this is thought- provoking and helps in understanding...I think we all know this but it is hard to articulate it as well as these two have....Let me know what you think.....danny
Published on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 by The Guardian/UK
Is There Any Point in Fighting to Stave off Industrial Apocalypse?
The collapse of civilisation will bring us a saner world, says Paul Kingsnorth. No, counters George Monbiot – we can't let billions perish
by George Monbiot and Paul Kingsnorth
Dear George
On the desk in front of me is a set of graphs. The horizontal axis of each represents the years 1750 to 2000. The graphs show, variously, population levels, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, exploitation of fisheries, destruction of tropical forests, paper consumption, number of motor vehicles, water use, the rate of species extinction and the totality of the human economy's gross domestic product.
What grips me about these graphs (and graphs don't usually grip me) is that though they all show very different things, they have an almost identical shape. A line begins on the left of the page, rising gradually as it moves to the right. Then, in the last inch or so – around 1950 – it veers steeply upwards, like a pilot banking after a cliff has suddenly appeared from what he thought was an empty bank of cloud.
The root cause of all these trends is the same: a rapacious human economy bringing the world swiftly to the brink of chaos. We know this; some of us even attempt to stop it happening. Yet all of these trends continue to get rapidly worse, and there is no sign of that changing soon. What these graphs make clear better than anything else is the cold reality: there is a serious crash on the way.
Yet very few of us are prepared to look honestly at the message this reality is screaming at us: that the civilisation we are a part of is hitting the buffers at full speed, and it is too late to stop it. Instead, most of us – and I include in this generalisation much of the mainstream environmental movement – are still wedded to a vision of the future as an upgraded version of the present. We still believe in "progress", as lazily defined by western liberalism. We still believe that we will be able to continue living more or less the same comfortable lives (albeit with more windfarms and better lightbulbs) if we can only embrace "sustainable development" rapidly enough; and that we can then extend it to the extra 3 billion people who will shortly join us on this already gasping planet.
I think this is simply denial. The writing is on the wall for industrial society, and no amount of ethical shopping or determined protesting is going to change that now. Take a civilisation built on the myth of human exceptionalism and a deeply embedded cultural attitude to "nature"; add a blind belief in technological and material progress; then fuel the whole thing with a power source that is discovered to be disastrously destructive only after we have used it to inflate our numbers and appetites beyond the point of no return. What do you get? We are starting to find out.
We need to get real. Climate change is teetering on the point of no return while our leaders bang the drum for more growth. The economic system we rely upon cannot be tamed without collapsing, for it relies upon that growth to function. And who wants it tamed anyway? Most people in the rich world won't be giving up their cars or holidays without a fight.
Some people – perhaps you – believe that these things should not be said, even if true, because saying them will deprive people of "hope", and without hope there will be no chance of "saving the planet". But false hope is worse than no hope at all. As for saving the planet – what we are really trying to save, as we scrabble around planting turbines on mountains and shouting at ministers, is not the planet but our attachment to the western material culture, which we cannot imagine living without.
The challenge is not how to shore up a crumbling empire with wave machines and global summits, but to start thinking about how we are going to live through its fall, and what we can learn from its collapse.
All the best, Paul
Dear Paul
Like you I have become ever gloomier about our chances of avoiding the crash you predict. For the past few years I have been almost professionally optimistic, exhorting people to keep fighting, knowing that to say there is no hope is to make it so. I still have some faith in our ability to make rational decisions based on evidence. But it is waning.
If it has taken governments this long even to start discussing reform of the common fisheries policy – if they refuse even to make contingency plans for peak oil – what hope is there of working towards a steady-state economy, let alone the voluntary economic contraction ultimately required to avoid either the climate crash or the depletion of crucial resources?
The interesting question, and the one that probably divides us, is this: to what extent should we welcome the likely collapse of industrial civilisation? Or more precisely: to what extent do we believe that some good may come of it?
I detect in your writings, and in the conversations we have had, an attraction towards – almost a yearning for – this apocalypse, a sense that you see it as a cleansing fire that will rid the world of a diseased society. If this is your view, I do not share it. I'm sure we can agree that the immediate consequences of collapse would be hideous: the breakdown of the systems that keep most of us alive; mass starvation; war. These alone surely give us sufficient reason to fight on, however faint our chances appear. But even if we were somehow able to put this out of our minds, I believe that what is likely to come out on the other side will be worse than our current settlement.
Here are three observations: 1 Our species (unlike most of its members) is tough and resilient; 2 When civilisations collapse, psychopaths take over; 3 We seldom learn from others' mistakes.
From the first observation, this follows: even if you are hardened to the fate of humans, you can surely see that our species will not become extinct without causing the extinction of almost all others. However hard we fall, we will recover sufficiently to land another hammer blow on the biosphere. We will continue to do so until there is so little left that even Homo sapiens can no longer survive. This is the ecological destiny of a species possessed of outstanding intelligence, opposable thumbs and an ability to interpret and exploit almost every possible resource – in the absence of political restraint.
From the second and third observations, this follows: instead of gathering as free collectives of happy householders, survivors of this collapse will be subject to the will of people seeking to monopolise remaining resources. This will is likely to be imposed through violence. Political accountability will be a distant memory. The chances of conserving any resource in these circumstances are approximately zero. The human and ecological consequences of the first global collapse are likely to persist for many generations, perhaps for our species' remaining time on earth. To imagine that good could come of the involuntary failure of industrial civilisation is also to succumb to denial. The answer to your question – what will we learn from this collapse? – is nothing.
This is why, despite everything, I fight on. I am not fighting to sustain economic growth. I am fighting to prevent both initial collapse and the repeated catastrophe that follows. However faint the hopes of engineering a soft landing – an ordered and structured downsizing of the global economy – might be, we must keep this possibility alive. Perhaps we are both in denial: I, because I think the fight is still worth having; you, because you think it isn't.
With my best wishes, George
Dear George
You say that you detect in my writing a yearning for apocalypse. I detect in yours a paralysing fear.
You have convinced yourself that there are only two possible futures available to humanity. One we might call Liberal Capitalist Democracy 2.0. Clearly your preferred option, this is much like the world we live in now, only with fossil fuels replaced by solar panels; governments and corporations held to account by active citizens; and growth somehow cast aside in favour of a "steady state economy".
The other we might call McCarthy world, from Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road [1] – which is set in an impossibly hideous post-apocalyptic world, where everything is dead but humans, who are reduced to eating children. Not long ago you suggested in a column [2] that such a future could await us if we didn't continue "the fight".
Your letter continues mining this Hobbesian [3] vein. We have to "fight on" because without modern industrial civilisation the psychopaths will take over, and there will be "mass starvation and war". Leaving aside the fact that psychopaths seem to be running the show already, and millions are suffering today from starvation and war, I think this is a false choice. We both come from a western, Christian culture with a deep apocalyptic tradition. You seem to find it hard to see beyond it. But I am not "yearning" for some archetypal End of Days, because that's not what we face.
We face what John Michael Greer [4], in his book of the same name, calls a "long descent": a series of ongoing crises brought about by the factors I talked of in my first letter that will bring an end to the all-consuming culture we have imposed upon the Earth. I'm sure "some good will come" from this, for that culture is a weapon of planetary mass destruction.
Our civilisation will not survive in anything like its present form, but we can at least aim for a managed retreat to a saner world. Your alternative – to hold on to nurse for fear of finding something worse – is in any case a century too late. When empires begin to fall, they build their own momentum. But what comes next doesn't have to be McCarthyworld. Fear is a poor guide to the future.
All the best, Paul
Dear Paul
If I have understood you correctly, you are proposing to do nothing to prevent the likely collapse of industrial civilisation. You believe that instead of trying to replace fossil fuels with other energy sources, we should let the system slide. You go on to say that we should not fear this outcome.
How many people do you believe the world could support without either fossil fuels or an equivalent investment in alternative energy? How many would survive without modern industrial civilisation? Two billion? One billion? Under your vision several billion perish. And you tell me we have nothing to fear.
I find it hard to understand how you could be unaffected by this prospect. I accused you of denial before; this looks more like disavowal. I hear a perverse echo in your writing of the philosophies that most offend you: your macho assertion that we have nothing to fear from collapse mirrors the macho assertion that we have nothing to fear from endless growth. Both positions betray a refusal to engage with physical reality.
Your disavowal is informed by a misunderstanding. You maintain that modern industrial civilisation "is a weapon of planetary mass destruction". Anyone apprised of the palaeolithic massacre of the African and Eurasian megafauna, or the extermination of the great beasts of the Americas, or the massive carbon pulse produced by deforestation in the Neolithic must be able to see that the weapon of planetary mass destruction is not the current culture, but humankind.
You would purge the planet of industrial civilisation, at the cost of billions of lives, only to discover that you have not invoked "a saner world" but just another phase of destruction.
Strange as it seems, a de-fanged, steady-state version of the current settlement might offer the best prospect humankind has ever had of avoiding collapse. For the first time in our history we are well-informed about the extent and causes of our ecological crises, know what should be done to avert them, and have the global means – if only the political will were present – of preventing them. Faced with your alternative – sit back and watch billions die – Liberal Democracy 2.0 looks like a pretty good option.
With my best wishes, George
Dear George
Macho, moi? You've been using the word "fight" at a Dick Cheney [5]-like rate. Now my lack of fighting spirit sees me accused of complicity in mass death. This seems a fairly macho accusation.
Perhaps the heart of our disagreement can be found in a single sentence in your last letter: "You are proposing to do nothing to prevent the likely collapse of industrial civilisation." This invites a question: what do you think I could do? What do you think you can do?
You've suggested several times that the hideous death of billions is the only alternative to a retooled status quo. Even if I accepted this loaded claim, which seems designed to make me look like a heartless fascist, it would get us nowhere because a retooled status quo is a fantasy and even you are close to admitting it. Rather than "do nothing" in response, I'd suggest we get some perspective on the root cause of this crisis – not human beings but the cultures within which they operate.
Civilisations live and die by their founding myths. Our myths tell us that humanity is separate from something called "nature", which is a "resource" for our use. They tell us there are no limits to human abilities, and that technology, science and our ineffable wisdom can fix everything. Above all, they tell us that we are in control. This craving for control underpins your approach. If we can just persaude the politicians to do A, B and C swiftly enough, then we will be saved. But what climate change shows us is that we are not in control, either of the biosphere or of the machine which is destroying it. Accepting that fact is our biggest challenge.
I think our task is to negotiate the coming descent as best we can, while creating new myths that put humanity in its proper place. Recently I co-founded a new initiative, the Dark Mountain Project [6], which aims to help do that. It won't save the world, but it might help us think about how to live through a hard century. You'd be welcome to join us.
Very best, Paul
Dear Paul
Yes, the words I use are fierce, but yours are strangely neutral. I note that you have failed to answer my question about how many people the world could support without modern forms of energy and the systems they sustain, but 2 billion is surely the optimistic extreme. You describe this mass cull as "a long descent" or a "retreat to a saner world". Have you ever considered a job in the Ministry of Defence press office?
I draw the trifling issue of a few billion fatalities to your attention not to make you look like a heartless fascist but because it's a reality with which you refuse to engage. You don't see it because to do so would be to accept the need for action. But of course you aren't doing nothing. You propose to stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, and, er … "get some perspective on the root cause of this crisis". Fine: we could all do with some perspective. But without action – informed, focused and immediate – the crisis will happen. I agree that the chances of success are small. But they are non-existent if we give up before we have started. You mock this impulse as a "craving for control". I see it as an attempt at survival.
What could you do? You know the answer as well as I do. Join up, protest, propose, create. It's messy, endless and uncertain of success. Perhaps you see yourself as above this futility, but it's all we've got and all we've ever had. And sometimes it works.
The curious outcome of this debate is that while I began as the optimist and you the pessimist, our roles have reversed. You appear to believe that though it is impossible to tame the global economy, it is possible to change our founding myths, some of which predate industrial civilisation by several thousand years. You also believe that good can come of a collapse that deprives most of the population of its means of survival. This strikes me as something more than optimism: a millenarian [7] fantasy, perhaps, of Redemption after the Fall. Perhaps it is the perfect foil to my apocalyptic vision.
With my best wishes, George
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
Paul Kingsnorth is a writer, environmentalist and poet. He has written widely for publications worldwide. His new book, Real England [8], is published by Portobello. George Monbiot is the author of the bestselling books The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order [9] and Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain [10], as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows [11], Amazon Watershed [12] and No Man's Land [13].
For my 2 cents worth,this is a pretty good summary of the state of affairs......I don't know any answers but this is thought- provoking and helps in understanding...I think we all know this but it is hard to articulate it as well as these two have....Let me know what you think.....danny
Published on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 by The Guardian/UK
Is There Any Point in Fighting to Stave off Industrial Apocalypse?
The collapse of civilisation will bring us a saner world, says Paul Kingsnorth. No, counters George Monbiot – we can't let billions perish
by George Monbiot and Paul Kingsnorth
Dear George
On the desk in front of me is a set of graphs. The horizontal axis of each represents the years 1750 to 2000. The graphs show, variously, population levels, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, exploitation of fisheries, destruction of tropical forests, paper consumption, number of motor vehicles, water use, the rate of species extinction and the totality of the human economy's gross domestic product.
What grips me about these graphs (and graphs don't usually grip me) is that though they all show very different things, they have an almost identical shape. A line begins on the left of the page, rising gradually as it moves to the right. Then, in the last inch or so – around 1950 – it veers steeply upwards, like a pilot banking after a cliff has suddenly appeared from what he thought was an empty bank of cloud.
The root cause of all these trends is the same: a rapacious human economy bringing the world swiftly to the brink of chaos. We know this; some of us even attempt to stop it happening. Yet all of these trends continue to get rapidly worse, and there is no sign of that changing soon. What these graphs make clear better than anything else is the cold reality: there is a serious crash on the way.
Yet very few of us are prepared to look honestly at the message this reality is screaming at us: that the civilisation we are a part of is hitting the buffers at full speed, and it is too late to stop it. Instead, most of us – and I include in this generalisation much of the mainstream environmental movement – are still wedded to a vision of the future as an upgraded version of the present. We still believe in "progress", as lazily defined by western liberalism. We still believe that we will be able to continue living more or less the same comfortable lives (albeit with more windfarms and better lightbulbs) if we can only embrace "sustainable development" rapidly enough; and that we can then extend it to the extra 3 billion people who will shortly join us on this already gasping planet.
I think this is simply denial. The writing is on the wall for industrial society, and no amount of ethical shopping or determined protesting is going to change that now. Take a civilisation built on the myth of human exceptionalism and a deeply embedded cultural attitude to "nature"; add a blind belief in technological and material progress; then fuel the whole thing with a power source that is discovered to be disastrously destructive only after we have used it to inflate our numbers and appetites beyond the point of no return. What do you get? We are starting to find out.
We need to get real. Climate change is teetering on the point of no return while our leaders bang the drum for more growth. The economic system we rely upon cannot be tamed without collapsing, for it relies upon that growth to function. And who wants it tamed anyway? Most people in the rich world won't be giving up their cars or holidays without a fight.
Some people – perhaps you – believe that these things should not be said, even if true, because saying them will deprive people of "hope", and without hope there will be no chance of "saving the planet". But false hope is worse than no hope at all. As for saving the planet – what we are really trying to save, as we scrabble around planting turbines on mountains and shouting at ministers, is not the planet but our attachment to the western material culture, which we cannot imagine living without.
The challenge is not how to shore up a crumbling empire with wave machines and global summits, but to start thinking about how we are going to live through its fall, and what we can learn from its collapse.
All the best, Paul
Dear Paul
Like you I have become ever gloomier about our chances of avoiding the crash you predict. For the past few years I have been almost professionally optimistic, exhorting people to keep fighting, knowing that to say there is no hope is to make it so. I still have some faith in our ability to make rational decisions based on evidence. But it is waning.
If it has taken governments this long even to start discussing reform of the common fisheries policy – if they refuse even to make contingency plans for peak oil – what hope is there of working towards a steady-state economy, let alone the voluntary economic contraction ultimately required to avoid either the climate crash or the depletion of crucial resources?
The interesting question, and the one that probably divides us, is this: to what extent should we welcome the likely collapse of industrial civilisation? Or more precisely: to what extent do we believe that some good may come of it?
I detect in your writings, and in the conversations we have had, an attraction towards – almost a yearning for – this apocalypse, a sense that you see it as a cleansing fire that will rid the world of a diseased society. If this is your view, I do not share it. I'm sure we can agree that the immediate consequences of collapse would be hideous: the breakdown of the systems that keep most of us alive; mass starvation; war. These alone surely give us sufficient reason to fight on, however faint our chances appear. But even if we were somehow able to put this out of our minds, I believe that what is likely to come out on the other side will be worse than our current settlement.
Here are three observations: 1 Our species (unlike most of its members) is tough and resilient; 2 When civilisations collapse, psychopaths take over; 3 We seldom learn from others' mistakes.
From the first observation, this follows: even if you are hardened to the fate of humans, you can surely see that our species will not become extinct without causing the extinction of almost all others. However hard we fall, we will recover sufficiently to land another hammer blow on the biosphere. We will continue to do so until there is so little left that even Homo sapiens can no longer survive. This is the ecological destiny of a species possessed of outstanding intelligence, opposable thumbs and an ability to interpret and exploit almost every possible resource – in the absence of political restraint.
From the second and third observations, this follows: instead of gathering as free collectives of happy householders, survivors of this collapse will be subject to the will of people seeking to monopolise remaining resources. This will is likely to be imposed through violence. Political accountability will be a distant memory. The chances of conserving any resource in these circumstances are approximately zero. The human and ecological consequences of the first global collapse are likely to persist for many generations, perhaps for our species' remaining time on earth. To imagine that good could come of the involuntary failure of industrial civilisation is also to succumb to denial. The answer to your question – what will we learn from this collapse? – is nothing.
This is why, despite everything, I fight on. I am not fighting to sustain economic growth. I am fighting to prevent both initial collapse and the repeated catastrophe that follows. However faint the hopes of engineering a soft landing – an ordered and structured downsizing of the global economy – might be, we must keep this possibility alive. Perhaps we are both in denial: I, because I think the fight is still worth having; you, because you think it isn't.
With my best wishes, George
Dear George
You say that you detect in my writing a yearning for apocalypse. I detect in yours a paralysing fear.
You have convinced yourself that there are only two possible futures available to humanity. One we might call Liberal Capitalist Democracy 2.0. Clearly your preferred option, this is much like the world we live in now, only with fossil fuels replaced by solar panels; governments and corporations held to account by active citizens; and growth somehow cast aside in favour of a "steady state economy".
The other we might call McCarthy world, from Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road [1] – which is set in an impossibly hideous post-apocalyptic world, where everything is dead but humans, who are reduced to eating children. Not long ago you suggested in a column [2] that such a future could await us if we didn't continue "the fight".
Your letter continues mining this Hobbesian [3] vein. We have to "fight on" because without modern industrial civilisation the psychopaths will take over, and there will be "mass starvation and war". Leaving aside the fact that psychopaths seem to be running the show already, and millions are suffering today from starvation and war, I think this is a false choice. We both come from a western, Christian culture with a deep apocalyptic tradition. You seem to find it hard to see beyond it. But I am not "yearning" for some archetypal End of Days, because that's not what we face.
We face what John Michael Greer [4], in his book of the same name, calls a "long descent": a series of ongoing crises brought about by the factors I talked of in my first letter that will bring an end to the all-consuming culture we have imposed upon the Earth. I'm sure "some good will come" from this, for that culture is a weapon of planetary mass destruction.
Our civilisation will not survive in anything like its present form, but we can at least aim for a managed retreat to a saner world. Your alternative – to hold on to nurse for fear of finding something worse – is in any case a century too late. When empires begin to fall, they build their own momentum. But what comes next doesn't have to be McCarthyworld. Fear is a poor guide to the future.
All the best, Paul
Dear Paul
If I have understood you correctly, you are proposing to do nothing to prevent the likely collapse of industrial civilisation. You believe that instead of trying to replace fossil fuels with other energy sources, we should let the system slide. You go on to say that we should not fear this outcome.
How many people do you believe the world could support without either fossil fuels or an equivalent investment in alternative energy? How many would survive without modern industrial civilisation? Two billion? One billion? Under your vision several billion perish. And you tell me we have nothing to fear.
I find it hard to understand how you could be unaffected by this prospect. I accused you of denial before; this looks more like disavowal. I hear a perverse echo in your writing of the philosophies that most offend you: your macho assertion that we have nothing to fear from collapse mirrors the macho assertion that we have nothing to fear from endless growth. Both positions betray a refusal to engage with physical reality.
Your disavowal is informed by a misunderstanding. You maintain that modern industrial civilisation "is a weapon of planetary mass destruction". Anyone apprised of the palaeolithic massacre of the African and Eurasian megafauna, or the extermination of the great beasts of the Americas, or the massive carbon pulse produced by deforestation in the Neolithic must be able to see that the weapon of planetary mass destruction is not the current culture, but humankind.
You would purge the planet of industrial civilisation, at the cost of billions of lives, only to discover that you have not invoked "a saner world" but just another phase of destruction.
Strange as it seems, a de-fanged, steady-state version of the current settlement might offer the best prospect humankind has ever had of avoiding collapse. For the first time in our history we are well-informed about the extent and causes of our ecological crises, know what should be done to avert them, and have the global means – if only the political will were present – of preventing them. Faced with your alternative – sit back and watch billions die – Liberal Democracy 2.0 looks like a pretty good option.
With my best wishes, George
Dear George
Macho, moi? You've been using the word "fight" at a Dick Cheney [5]-like rate. Now my lack of fighting spirit sees me accused of complicity in mass death. This seems a fairly macho accusation.
Perhaps the heart of our disagreement can be found in a single sentence in your last letter: "You are proposing to do nothing to prevent the likely collapse of industrial civilisation." This invites a question: what do you think I could do? What do you think you can do?
You've suggested several times that the hideous death of billions is the only alternative to a retooled status quo. Even if I accepted this loaded claim, which seems designed to make me look like a heartless fascist, it would get us nowhere because a retooled status quo is a fantasy and even you are close to admitting it. Rather than "do nothing" in response, I'd suggest we get some perspective on the root cause of this crisis – not human beings but the cultures within which they operate.
Civilisations live and die by their founding myths. Our myths tell us that humanity is separate from something called "nature", which is a "resource" for our use. They tell us there are no limits to human abilities, and that technology, science and our ineffable wisdom can fix everything. Above all, they tell us that we are in control. This craving for control underpins your approach. If we can just persaude the politicians to do A, B and C swiftly enough, then we will be saved. But what climate change shows us is that we are not in control, either of the biosphere or of the machine which is destroying it. Accepting that fact is our biggest challenge.
I think our task is to negotiate the coming descent as best we can, while creating new myths that put humanity in its proper place. Recently I co-founded a new initiative, the Dark Mountain Project [6], which aims to help do that. It won't save the world, but it might help us think about how to live through a hard century. You'd be welcome to join us.
Very best, Paul
Dear Paul
Yes, the words I use are fierce, but yours are strangely neutral. I note that you have failed to answer my question about how many people the world could support without modern forms of energy and the systems they sustain, but 2 billion is surely the optimistic extreme. You describe this mass cull as "a long descent" or a "retreat to a saner world". Have you ever considered a job in the Ministry of Defence press office?
I draw the trifling issue of a few billion fatalities to your attention not to make you look like a heartless fascist but because it's a reality with which you refuse to engage. You don't see it because to do so would be to accept the need for action. But of course you aren't doing nothing. You propose to stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, and, er … "get some perspective on the root cause of this crisis". Fine: we could all do with some perspective. But without action – informed, focused and immediate – the crisis will happen. I agree that the chances of success are small. But they are non-existent if we give up before we have started. You mock this impulse as a "craving for control". I see it as an attempt at survival.
What could you do? You know the answer as well as I do. Join up, protest, propose, create. It's messy, endless and uncertain of success. Perhaps you see yourself as above this futility, but it's all we've got and all we've ever had. And sometimes it works.
The curious outcome of this debate is that while I began as the optimist and you the pessimist, our roles have reversed. You appear to believe that though it is impossible to tame the global economy, it is possible to change our founding myths, some of which predate industrial civilisation by several thousand years. You also believe that good can come of a collapse that deprives most of the population of its means of survival. This strikes me as something more than optimism: a millenarian [7] fantasy, perhaps, of Redemption after the Fall. Perhaps it is the perfect foil to my apocalyptic vision.
With my best wishes, George
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
Paul Kingsnorth is a writer, environmentalist and poet. He has written widely for publications worldwide. His new book, Real England [8], is published by Portobello. George Monbiot is the author of the bestselling books The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order [9] and Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain [10], as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows [11], Amazon Watershed [12] and No Man's Land [13].
Skypower Obit- Danny
Skypower Obituary“The mighty have fallen from their thrones” the psalmist wrote. It’s a day now since the news got out that Skypower of Toronto the Good has had a financial collapse, and to say that I was sorry would be a lie.
I am in a celebrative mood for one reason alone: my neighbors nor I shall not have to live with them as corporate neighbors! They don’t deserve to because they did not treat the people with due honor or respect.
They were a people with a book of rules and regulations but without heart, a group of men and women who chose the letter of the law and used it as a club to get their way, rather than to meet the people half way and live by the spirit of it instead.
They did what they seem predestined to do viz. to divide and conquer. Secret tryst with municipal leaders, faulty and flawed pseudo-Consultations with the people, secret leases with lessors sworn to secrecy, and unkept promises for meetings never held – all about a Wind Turbine Communal Home Invasion in the name of clean energy regardless of the cost to man nor beast in one of Nova Scotia’s prime pristine gems still left.
From all appearances, neither our Municipal leaders nor Skypower, had the intestinal fortitude to venture into the homeland of families here fifteen generations or more and many who have come here since, to lay the cards on the table and open a discussion with the people. They slayed, instead, democracy stone dead!
The issue for me is not the wind! The issue is democracy denied! At days end, some may have a few more bucks in their pockets, but there still shall be no winners. Another chip off an already fragile community demeans and cripples all the more.
Whatever be the future I don’t know, but as for Skypower I must say: Good Riddance!
Dan Mills
Waterford, Digby County, Nova Scotia, Canada
I am in a celebrative mood for one reason alone: my neighbors nor I shall not have to live with them as corporate neighbors! They don’t deserve to because they did not treat the people with due honor or respect.
They were a people with a book of rules and regulations but without heart, a group of men and women who chose the letter of the law and used it as a club to get their way, rather than to meet the people half way and live by the spirit of it instead.
They did what they seem predestined to do viz. to divide and conquer. Secret tryst with municipal leaders, faulty and flawed pseudo-Consultations with the people, secret leases with lessors sworn to secrecy, and unkept promises for meetings never held – all about a Wind Turbine Communal Home Invasion in the name of clean energy regardless of the cost to man nor beast in one of Nova Scotia’s prime pristine gems still left.
From all appearances, neither our Municipal leaders nor Skypower, had the intestinal fortitude to venture into the homeland of families here fifteen generations or more and many who have come here since, to lay the cards on the table and open a discussion with the people. They slayed, instead, democracy stone dead!
The issue for me is not the wind! The issue is democracy denied! At days end, some may have a few more bucks in their pockets, but there still shall be no winners. Another chip off an already fragile community demeans and cripples all the more.
Whatever be the future I don’t know, but as for Skypower I must say: Good Riddance!
Dan Mills
Waterford, Digby County, Nova Scotia, Canada
Labels:
wind turbines
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Sound Travels- Windmills
Mr.MacAlpine, I appreciate your fixation on decibel measurement, but
I want to relate a story of my own.
You know where I live...on top of Seawall Hill. It was very still here this
morning and the stillness brought to mind nights when I am kept awake or
awakened by noise. I jumped in my car and calculated the mileage from my
door to the site of numerous beach parties on the shore in summer.
My bedroom faces the east. Many a night when the young are celebrating their
lives, I not only hear the noise of music and talking; I can understand
every word distinctly - every cuss word and expetlive, even the words of the
playing music as if it was outside my open window.
It is 1.5 km. from my driveway to the shore. How do you set a proper
distance with the decibel measure as all you've got and seem to trust in?
There are nights when I close my window and bedroom door and move accross
the hall to a bedroom on the western side.
Let me add another true story. On Saturday last, a wedding took place at a
neighbors nearby. Again it was a fairly still evening. I heard nothing at my
place, but in another direction a neighbor cleary heard the music at 300 m.
away.
That may not seem so strange.However,over the mountain, 3700 m. away from
the party, according to the map,in Gullivers Cove just below the mountains
crest, the music from the party was heard, not as clearly assuredly as at
300 m., but nonetheless it was heard clearly enough that a resident stepped
outside to see if the music was coming from the nearby woods, if not
consistently but certainly with some sporadic regularity.
I am not criticizing my neighbour for celebrating a family members wedding.
It's the bravest who have the courage to marry today. They need to be
celebrated. My question is: "What distance would a bylaw have to set, and
what sort of decibel measurement would be effective in that case? Noise
differs, of course, when the grass is long than when it is flattened by the
elements...., when trees are cut or grow, and countless other factors.
It seems to me that determining a fixed decibel maximum would be
commensurate with shooting yourself in the foot.
Dan Mills
I want to relate a story of my own.
You know where I live...on top of Seawall Hill. It was very still here this
morning and the stillness brought to mind nights when I am kept awake or
awakened by noise. I jumped in my car and calculated the mileage from my
door to the site of numerous beach parties on the shore in summer.
My bedroom faces the east. Many a night when the young are celebrating their
lives, I not only hear the noise of music and talking; I can understand
every word distinctly - every cuss word and expetlive, even the words of the
playing music as if it was outside my open window.
It is 1.5 km. from my driveway to the shore. How do you set a proper
distance with the decibel measure as all you've got and seem to trust in?
There are nights when I close my window and bedroom door and move accross
the hall to a bedroom on the western side.
Let me add another true story. On Saturday last, a wedding took place at a
neighbors nearby. Again it was a fairly still evening. I heard nothing at my
place, but in another direction a neighbor cleary heard the music at 300 m.
away.
That may not seem so strange.However,over the mountain, 3700 m. away from
the party, according to the map,in Gullivers Cove just below the mountains
crest, the music from the party was heard, not as clearly assuredly as at
300 m., but nonetheless it was heard clearly enough that a resident stepped
outside to see if the music was coming from the nearby woods, if not
consistently but certainly with some sporadic regularity.
I am not criticizing my neighbour for celebrating a family members wedding.
It's the bravest who have the courage to marry today. They need to be
celebrated. My question is: "What distance would a bylaw have to set, and
what sort of decibel measurement would be effective in that case? Noise
differs, of course, when the grass is long than when it is flattened by the
elements...., when trees are cut or grow, and countless other factors.
It seems to me that determining a fixed decibel maximum would be
commensurate with shooting yourself in the foot.
Dan Mills
Labels:
noise and turbines
Dr. Pierpont and Health Issues
Leading article: Wind power – a cautionary word
Sunday, 2 August 2009
All new technologies carry risk. That is true of benign new technologies as well as the old industrial sort. This paper's report on the potential health hazards of wind turbines, generators of eco-friendly wind power, will be unwelcome for many environmentalists and indeed for the Government, which for entirely creditable reasons is committed to a great increase in their number. But a new book by a New York paediatrician, Dr Nina Pierpont, on which our report is based and which draws on international studies, ought not to be ignored.
This paper is in favour of wind turbines. But Dr Pierpont suggests that the vibrations and low-level subsonic noise that is emitted can cause a range of health problems, including sleep disorders, and may aggravate more serious underlying conditions. She attributes this to the fact that the human ear is far more sensitive to vibrations, not merely audible noise, than we have assumed. And the disruption to the ear's vestibular system – directly linked to our sense of balance – caused by vibrations and low-level noise from turbines is a factor that the British Government has not, so far, taken into account in assessing whether to commission wind farms. For the sake of public reassurance, it should.
Related articles
Are wind farms a health risk? US scientist identifies 'wind turbine syndrome'
This newspaper believes that Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy, ought to study these findings, as indeed should the Department for Health. And we do so as firm supporters of the principle that Britain must take its environmental responsibilities seriously, and as a supporter of Mr Miliband's radical White Paper on energy. It is not incompatible with support for green issues to suggest that the move towards renewable energy sources should take account of human health concerns. Indeed, the Government stands a far greater chance of winning public support for reducing carbon emissions if it shows it is receptive to new scientific findings. Public health issues and eco-sensitivity must not be mutually exclusive if people are to be won over to the larger project of changing our patterns of energy consumption.
We hope, therefore, that Mr Miliband will not simply dismiss Dr Pierpont's book, which will be published in October, simply as ammunition for what he describes as "socially unacceptable" opposition to wind power. Dr Pierpont's research was self-funded, and she is not personally opposed to wind turbines. Only last week, we saw the consequences of a cavalier attitude to health in the decommissioning of the steelworks at Corby, which resulted in some children conceived at the time being born with deformities. If the Government were to continue to commission and site wind farms without regard for these new scientific findings, ministers, or their successors, may be laying the taxpayer open to the possibility of large claims for compensation. More importantly, they may be exposing innocent members of the public, including children, to avoidable health problems.
The obvious recommendations that flow from the new research about the effects of wind turbines on a range of health issues – effects that also flow, to a lesser extent, from reflected light off the blades – are actually relatively modest. Foremost, there is an urgent need for credible official research into the health effects of the turbines. Then there is a prudential argument for postponing the commissioning of land-based wind farms until they are shown to be safe. At the very least, they should be treated like electricity pylons, and houses should not be built close by – the French government allows a radius of 1.5km for residential developments near wind turbines, while Dr Pierpont recommends a radius of 2km.
This approach may seem contrary to a vigorous commitment to greener energy, but it need not be. Additionally, wind power is just one of several good options. It may seem perverse just now, given the weather, to argue for solar energy, but the German government has made huge strides in the past decade in promoting the production and use of solar energy panels. It has set a useful example, which the White Paper seeks to emulate, in encouraging citizens to generate solar energy for sale to the national grid. Japan too, has embraced solar energy. There is also wave power, a potentially vast source of energy, which should be explored further.
In any event, Dr Pierpont has made an important contribution to a debate about wind turbines that should be conducted not between champions and opponents of renewable energy, but within the community of those who want this country to behave in an environmentally responsible way. That we can and should do.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
All new technologies carry risk. That is true of benign new technologies as well as the old industrial sort. This paper's report on the potential health hazards of wind turbines, generators of eco-friendly wind power, will be unwelcome for many environmentalists and indeed for the Government, which for entirely creditable reasons is committed to a great increase in their number. But a new book by a New York paediatrician, Dr Nina Pierpont, on which our report is based and which draws on international studies, ought not to be ignored.
This paper is in favour of wind turbines. But Dr Pierpont suggests that the vibrations and low-level subsonic noise that is emitted can cause a range of health problems, including sleep disorders, and may aggravate more serious underlying conditions. She attributes this to the fact that the human ear is far more sensitive to vibrations, not merely audible noise, than we have assumed. And the disruption to the ear's vestibular system – directly linked to our sense of balance – caused by vibrations and low-level noise from turbines is a factor that the British Government has not, so far, taken into account in assessing whether to commission wind farms. For the sake of public reassurance, it should.
Related articles
Are wind farms a health risk? US scientist identifies 'wind turbine syndrome'
This newspaper believes that Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy, ought to study these findings, as indeed should the Department for Health. And we do so as firm supporters of the principle that Britain must take its environmental responsibilities seriously, and as a supporter of Mr Miliband's radical White Paper on energy. It is not incompatible with support for green issues to suggest that the move towards renewable energy sources should take account of human health concerns. Indeed, the Government stands a far greater chance of winning public support for reducing carbon emissions if it shows it is receptive to new scientific findings. Public health issues and eco-sensitivity must not be mutually exclusive if people are to be won over to the larger project of changing our patterns of energy consumption.
We hope, therefore, that Mr Miliband will not simply dismiss Dr Pierpont's book, which will be published in October, simply as ammunition for what he describes as "socially unacceptable" opposition to wind power. Dr Pierpont's research was self-funded, and she is not personally opposed to wind turbines. Only last week, we saw the consequences of a cavalier attitude to health in the decommissioning of the steelworks at Corby, which resulted in some children conceived at the time being born with deformities. If the Government were to continue to commission and site wind farms without regard for these new scientific findings, ministers, or their successors, may be laying the taxpayer open to the possibility of large claims for compensation. More importantly, they may be exposing innocent members of the public, including children, to avoidable health problems.
The obvious recommendations that flow from the new research about the effects of wind turbines on a range of health issues – effects that also flow, to a lesser extent, from reflected light off the blades – are actually relatively modest. Foremost, there is an urgent need for credible official research into the health effects of the turbines. Then there is a prudential argument for postponing the commissioning of land-based wind farms until they are shown to be safe. At the very least, they should be treated like electricity pylons, and houses should not be built close by – the French government allows a radius of 1.5km for residential developments near wind turbines, while Dr Pierpont recommends a radius of 2km.
This approach may seem contrary to a vigorous commitment to greener energy, but it need not be. Additionally, wind power is just one of several good options. It may seem perverse just now, given the weather, to argue for solar energy, but the German government has made huge strides in the past decade in promoting the production and use of solar energy panels. It has set a useful example, which the White Paper seeks to emulate, in encouraging citizens to generate solar energy for sale to the national grid. Japan too, has embraced solar energy. There is also wave power, a potentially vast source of energy, which should be explored further.
In any event, Dr Pierpont has made an important contribution to a debate about wind turbines that should be conducted not between champions and opponents of renewable energy, but within the community of those who want this country to behave in an environmentally responsible way. That we can and should do.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Friday Deadline
From: Tom Haynes-Paton
Date: 8/4/2009 11:06:36 AM
Subject: FRIDAY DEADLINE: Eight Reasons the Digby Wind Power Project is a bad fit for Digby Neck
Tom's note: I favor wind energy. But because of the serious potential health threats to residents, not when located in the midst of a residential community like Digby Neck.
And also for economic/environmental reasons not on Digby Neck, because it will seriously disrupt and damage our area's primary eco-tourism destination. My business dropped 50% for a 4-week period while they merely resurfaced the Digby Neck highway. Many tourists, told about the disruptions, went via the South Shore instead. The wind farm construction is to take more than a year. And worse, with permanent industrial wind installations, "The best kept eco-tourism secret Digby Neck" will become industrial-park Digby Neck.
Skypower Inc. is now trying to flood Nova Scotia Environment Minister Sterling Belliveau with a "I support the Digby Neck wind farm" form letter.
Please mail or email EA@gov.ns.ca your own concerns by this Friday's postmarked deadline to:
Environmental Assessment Branch
Nova Scotia Environment
PO Box 442
Halifax, NS B3J 2P8 Or phone the Review Manager at 902-424-7630
For further background information, see the helpful summation article below.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: fntp1@ns.sympatico.ca
To: fntp1@ns.sympatico.ca
Subject: Eight Reasons the Digby Wind Power Project is a bad fit for Digby Neck
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 11:42:01 -0300
Digby Neck needs your help again if it is to remain unmolested by thoughtless industrialization.
Perhaps you have heard that a 20 turbine wind farm, "Digby Wind Park", is proposed for the Gulliver's Cove/Rossway area of Digby Neck. Construction is scheduled to begin in September with an April 2010 "in service" date for the 30 megawatt facility.
The proponent is a partnership of Scotian WindFields Inc. of Nova Scotia and SkyPower Corp. of Toronto.
The project is currently undergoing a provincial Environmental Assessment (EA).
SkyPower's EA, prepared by Jacques Whitford Stantec Ltd., was filed on April 30, 2009. On June 19, the Deputy Minister of the Environment found it lacking and gave the proponent a year to come up with additional information.
Two weeks later on July 3, SkyPower filed their Addendum with most of the additional information in the form of a new turbine layout.
The deadline for comments on the Addendum, which can include comments on the original EA, is next Saturday August 8. All documents are available for review on the Department of Environment website www.gov.ns.ca/nse/ea
Please take the time to send your comments on this proposed project to the NS Department of Environment. Contact information is at the end of this email.
-------------------------------------------------
Regardless of how you feel about the benefits of wind power, the Digby Wind Power Project should not be allowed to go ahead for the environmental and health reasons summarized below:
1) According to the Addendum, there are 113 residences within 2 km of a proposed turbine. Of these, 39 are within 1 km of a turbine - several are 600 to 700 metres away from a turbine even in the latest turbine layout.
There is peer-reviewed medical evidence that there are likely to be health effects among some of these residents. Current knowledge indicates that these health effects are caused by the low frequency noise (LFN) created by the 77 metre diameter rotors (rotating blades) slicing through the air, not from the mechanical noise of the gears in the nacelle. Dr. Nina Pierpont, a medical doctor in private practice in upstate New York has studied cases of people affected by large turbines. She suggests turbines be located a minimum of 2.4 km (1.5 miles) from occupied buildings.
Though the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) cites the opinions of acousticians to dispute Dr. Pierpont’s work, we know of no medical doctor who has reviewed her work and found her methods or conclusions to be unscientific. See www.windturbinesyndrome.com for more on Dr. Pierpont's work.
With the Addendum, the proponent submitted a paper prepared by CanWEA that "reiterates that peer-reviewed scientific literature have consistently found no evidence linking wind turbines to human health concerns."
2) Health Canada, in their submission on the EA, asked the proponent to Please ensure that the environmental assessment contains a discussion regarding the audibility of the turbines and it is advisable to also develop a communication strategy to accurately disclose the potential noise related to the project to nearby residents prior to project construction....Please provide a discussion of the potential for low frequency noise at the nearest residential receptors, and provide an assessment of whether or not monitoring for low frequency noise is warranted.
In the Addendum, the proponent responded there is no evidence that the wind turbine technology proposed for the Project presents any potential problems related to the generation of infrasound energy. Infrasound is generally accepted to be frequencies ranging from 0 to 20 cycles per second (Hz). Low frequency noise (LFN) is 20 to 200 cycles per second (Hz). They are clearly avoiding the question.
3) If any residents in the local communities of Gulliver's Cove, Rossway and Waterford do end up being affected by the 118 metre tall machines, the 35.4 kilovolt overhead connector lines running between them, the substation, or the new 69 kilovolt transmission line to be built to connect to the grid at Digby, the proponents offer no mitigation other than creating a registry for complaints.
4) If residents wish to sell their homes and move away, rather than live with the noise and annoyance of the machines, or the drastic change in their landscape, the proponents offer no guarantee that their homes won't have lost most of their current value by being within a wind farm. Many people will have no option but to continue living in what may become a very undesirable and disturbing place. Many local families have lived in the area for generations.
5) The proponent states that the project will have no significant negative effect on tourism in the area. NS Tourism, Culture and Heritage in their submission on the EA stated that the general area does have an extensive history and natural beauty which gives it tourism appeal and potential. The department has several concerns about the impact of the project on the area and its people. These concerns about the impact of the project on tourism in the area are not addressed in the Addendum as they were not specifically spelled out in the Deputy Minister's decision.
6) The new turbine layout creates a row of ten turbines along approximately 2500 metres of the ridge of the North Mountain, west of the village of Gulliver's Cove.
Digby Neck in this area is about 3 km wide and the turbines would occupy the northern half of the width for a distance of 2.5 km along the Neck. Digby Neck is a known bird migration corridor, particularly during the fall migration (flying north to south). Nearby Brier Island has the international designation "Important Bird Area".
There is no discussion in the Addendum of the impact of the latest turbine configuration on migrating birds or bats. The conclusions in the EA are that Although Digby Neck itself is considered to be an important bird migration corridor, no such importance has been identified for the Project area itself. The mitigation proposed, in the event of bird or bat fatalities, is that "it is likely" they will count the bodies for two years after construction.
7) Ecology Action Centre which, like many environmental groups, supports the development of this type of wind project expects that municipal land use by-laws will make sure they are sited in locally appropriate places.
In Digby Municipality, a draft by-law was developed over the past year by the Planning Advisory Committee with input from concerned residents. This by-law was then rejected by Council on July 20, after the proponent strongly voiced their objections to it during the final hearing on June 29. Incredible as it may seem, three of the four councillors who voted against the draft by-law also sit on the Planning Advisory Committee which developed it.
Though we participated in the municipal planning process in good faith we remain without any protection from a local land use by-law to regulate wind development in Digby Municipality.
8) Lease agreements for the lands to be used for the wind farm were negotiated in secret. There was no public consultation about the project by the proponent until months later.
Two members of council were informed of the proposal at a secret meeting in July 2007, reportedly after key lands had been secured through lease options. The ill-fated by-law process was begun the following spring as additional Lease Options were being signed.
The first public meeting, in open house format, was held by the proponent in November 2008. Between the Deputy Minister's decision on June 19, 2009 and the upcoming deadline for comments on the Addendum, August 8, there will have been three additional open houses.
Repeated requests from concerned residents for a formal, recordable public meeting to answer our questions have been rejected by the proponent. This lack of true public consultation during the planning stages of the project is unacceptable to us.
--------------------------------------------
We urge you to submit a short comment to the Department of Environment on or before the Saturday, August 8, 2009 deadline.
Please email your comments to EA@gov.ns.ca, phone the Review Manager at 902-424-7630, or mail them to Environmental Assessment Branch, Nova Scotia Environment, PO Box 442, Halifax, NS B3J 2P8 postmarked on or before August 8.
Thank you!
A Growing Number of Concerned Residents of Digby Municipality
Date: 8/4/2009 11:06:36 AM
Subject: FRIDAY DEADLINE: Eight Reasons the Digby Wind Power Project is a bad fit for Digby Neck
Tom's note: I favor wind energy. But because of the serious potential health threats to residents, not when located in the midst of a residential community like Digby Neck.
And also for economic/environmental reasons not on Digby Neck, because it will seriously disrupt and damage our area's primary eco-tourism destination. My business dropped 50% for a 4-week period while they merely resurfaced the Digby Neck highway. Many tourists, told about the disruptions, went via the South Shore instead. The wind farm construction is to take more than a year. And worse, with permanent industrial wind installations, "The best kept eco-tourism secret Digby Neck" will become industrial-park Digby Neck.
Skypower Inc. is now trying to flood Nova Scotia Environment Minister Sterling Belliveau with a "I support the Digby Neck wind farm" form letter.
Please mail or email EA@gov.ns.ca your own concerns by this Friday's postmarked deadline to:
Environmental Assessment Branch
Nova Scotia Environment
PO Box 442
Halifax, NS B3J 2P8 Or phone the Review Manager at 902-424-7630
For further background information, see the helpful summation article below.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: fntp1@ns.sympatico.ca
To: fntp1@ns.sympatico.ca
Subject: Eight Reasons the Digby Wind Power Project is a bad fit for Digby Neck
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 11:42:01 -0300
Digby Neck needs your help again if it is to remain unmolested by thoughtless industrialization.
Perhaps you have heard that a 20 turbine wind farm, "Digby Wind Park", is proposed for the Gulliver's Cove/Rossway area of Digby Neck. Construction is scheduled to begin in September with an April 2010 "in service" date for the 30 megawatt facility.
The proponent is a partnership of Scotian WindFields Inc. of Nova Scotia and SkyPower Corp. of Toronto.
The project is currently undergoing a provincial Environmental Assessment (EA).
SkyPower's EA, prepared by Jacques Whitford Stantec Ltd., was filed on April 30, 2009. On June 19, the Deputy Minister of the Environment found it lacking and gave the proponent a year to come up with additional information.
Two weeks later on July 3, SkyPower filed their Addendum with most of the additional information in the form of a new turbine layout.
The deadline for comments on the Addendum, which can include comments on the original EA, is next Saturday August 8. All documents are available for review on the Department of Environment website www.gov.ns.ca/nse/ea
Please take the time to send your comments on this proposed project to the NS Department of Environment. Contact information is at the end of this email.
-------------------------------------------------
Regardless of how you feel about the benefits of wind power, the Digby Wind Power Project should not be allowed to go ahead for the environmental and health reasons summarized below:
1) According to the Addendum, there are 113 residences within 2 km of a proposed turbine. Of these, 39 are within 1 km of a turbine - several are 600 to 700 metres away from a turbine even in the latest turbine layout.
There is peer-reviewed medical evidence that there are likely to be health effects among some of these residents. Current knowledge indicates that these health effects are caused by the low frequency noise (LFN) created by the 77 metre diameter rotors (rotating blades) slicing through the air, not from the mechanical noise of the gears in the nacelle. Dr. Nina Pierpont, a medical doctor in private practice in upstate New York has studied cases of people affected by large turbines. She suggests turbines be located a minimum of 2.4 km (1.5 miles) from occupied buildings.
Though the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) cites the opinions of acousticians to dispute Dr. Pierpont’s work, we know of no medical doctor who has reviewed her work and found her methods or conclusions to be unscientific. See www.windturbinesyndrome.com for more on Dr. Pierpont's work.
With the Addendum, the proponent submitted a paper prepared by CanWEA that "reiterates that peer-reviewed scientific literature have consistently found no evidence linking wind turbines to human health concerns."
2) Health Canada, in their submission on the EA, asked the proponent to Please ensure that the environmental assessment contains a discussion regarding the audibility of the turbines and it is advisable to also develop a communication strategy to accurately disclose the potential noise related to the project to nearby residents prior to project construction....Please provide a discussion of the potential for low frequency noise at the nearest residential receptors, and provide an assessment of whether or not monitoring for low frequency noise is warranted.
In the Addendum, the proponent responded there is no evidence that the wind turbine technology proposed for the Project presents any potential problems related to the generation of infrasound energy. Infrasound is generally accepted to be frequencies ranging from 0 to 20 cycles per second (Hz). Low frequency noise (LFN) is 20 to 200 cycles per second (Hz). They are clearly avoiding the question.
3) If any residents in the local communities of Gulliver's Cove, Rossway and Waterford do end up being affected by the 118 metre tall machines, the 35.4 kilovolt overhead connector lines running between them, the substation, or the new 69 kilovolt transmission line to be built to connect to the grid at Digby, the proponents offer no mitigation other than creating a registry for complaints.
4) If residents wish to sell their homes and move away, rather than live with the noise and annoyance of the machines, or the drastic change in their landscape, the proponents offer no guarantee that their homes won't have lost most of their current value by being within a wind farm. Many people will have no option but to continue living in what may become a very undesirable and disturbing place. Many local families have lived in the area for generations.
5) The proponent states that the project will have no significant negative effect on tourism in the area. NS Tourism, Culture and Heritage in their submission on the EA stated that the general area does have an extensive history and natural beauty which gives it tourism appeal and potential. The department has several concerns about the impact of the project on the area and its people. These concerns about the impact of the project on tourism in the area are not addressed in the Addendum as they were not specifically spelled out in the Deputy Minister's decision.
6) The new turbine layout creates a row of ten turbines along approximately 2500 metres of the ridge of the North Mountain, west of the village of Gulliver's Cove.
Digby Neck in this area is about 3 km wide and the turbines would occupy the northern half of the width for a distance of 2.5 km along the Neck. Digby Neck is a known bird migration corridor, particularly during the fall migration (flying north to south). Nearby Brier Island has the international designation "Important Bird Area".
There is no discussion in the Addendum of the impact of the latest turbine configuration on migrating birds or bats. The conclusions in the EA are that Although Digby Neck itself is considered to be an important bird migration corridor, no such importance has been identified for the Project area itself. The mitigation proposed, in the event of bird or bat fatalities, is that "it is likely" they will count the bodies for two years after construction.
7) Ecology Action Centre which, like many environmental groups, supports the development of this type of wind project expects that municipal land use by-laws will make sure they are sited in locally appropriate places.
In Digby Municipality, a draft by-law was developed over the past year by the Planning Advisory Committee with input from concerned residents. This by-law was then rejected by Council on July 20, after the proponent strongly voiced their objections to it during the final hearing on June 29. Incredible as it may seem, three of the four councillors who voted against the draft by-law also sit on the Planning Advisory Committee which developed it.
Though we participated in the municipal planning process in good faith we remain without any protection from a local land use by-law to regulate wind development in Digby Municipality.
8) Lease agreements for the lands to be used for the wind farm were negotiated in secret. There was no public consultation about the project by the proponent until months later.
Two members of council were informed of the proposal at a secret meeting in July 2007, reportedly after key lands had been secured through lease options. The ill-fated by-law process was begun the following spring as additional Lease Options were being signed.
The first public meeting, in open house format, was held by the proponent in November 2008. Between the Deputy Minister's decision on June 19, 2009 and the upcoming deadline for comments on the Addendum, August 8, there will have been three additional open houses.
Repeated requests from concerned residents for a formal, recordable public meeting to answer our questions have been rejected by the proponent. This lack of true public consultation during the planning stages of the project is unacceptable to us.
--------------------------------------------
We urge you to submit a short comment to the Department of Environment on or before the Saturday, August 8, 2009 deadline.
Please email your comments to EA@gov.ns.ca, phone the Review Manager at 902-424-7630, or mail them to Environmental Assessment Branch, Nova Scotia Environment, PO Box 442, Halifax, NS B3J 2P8 postmarked on or before August 8.
Thank you!
A Growing Number of Concerned Residents of Digby Municipality
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wind Farm telephone survey
Subject: Wind Farm Telephone Survey today---Please participate if calledþ tomhaynespaton
To South West Nova Residents:
If you are called by a company carrying out a survey about "local issues",
please participate.
I have just been called by a New Brunswick company asking if I was willing
to participate in an 8 min. survey about issues affecting my local area. When I
asked details, she said the Digby local area. And then said energy issues.
Only after I agreed to participate and got into the interview did I realize
that the questions were specifically dealing with the "Digby Neck wind farm
issue".
The first question was, what is the most important issue facing Nova Scotia
as a province. Then, the most important issue facing "your local area".
It is a good survey, well balanced. There are even places when you can add
anything else that is important to you, a freely expressed opinion in addition
to multiple choice questions, (agree or disagree, strongly or not...) Also, she
let me go back and change answers when I heard the following questions.
Does anyone know who would be footing the bill for this survey?
Cheers,
Tom
To South West Nova Residents:
If you are called by a company carrying out a survey about "local issues",
please participate.
I have just been called by a New Brunswick company asking if I was willing
to participate in an 8 min. survey about issues affecting my local area. When I
asked details, she said the Digby local area. And then said energy issues.
Only after I agreed to participate and got into the interview did I realize
that the questions were specifically dealing with the "Digby Neck wind farm
issue".
The first question was, what is the most important issue facing Nova Scotia
as a province. Then, the most important issue facing "your local area".
It is a good survey, well balanced. There are even places when you can add
anything else that is important to you, a freely expressed opinion in addition
to multiple choice questions, (agree or disagree, strongly or not...) Also, she
let me go back and change answers when I heard the following questions.
Does anyone know who would be footing the bill for this survey?
Cheers,
Tom
Labels:
wind farm telephone calls
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