Energy Poverty Around the World

The global warming/climate change industry has been aggressively pushing renewable energy, wind, solar, and biofuels for a long time even though the economies of various industrialized countries need much more energy than what renewables generate.

The green activists have been zealously lobbying Congress and the EPA to change the laws, rules, and regulations that would make it much more expensive and difficult for fossil fuel energy producers to survive while passing the higher costs onto consumers, impoverishing those customers on fixed incomes and taking away disposable income from the rest.

Green energy causes electricity poverty around the world. Today the Fraser Institute of Canada, an independent, non-partisan public policy think-tank released a study that found that energy poverty is on the rise in Canada.

"Government policies that raise electricity prices may push some families into energy poverty and further stretch the household budgets of families already in energy poverty," said Taylor Jackson, study co-author and policy analyst at the Fraser Institute.

"Because high energy costs take a large bite out of many household budgets, families across Canada pay the price when government energy policies boost the cost of electricity," said Kenneth Green, the Fraser Institute's senior director of natural resource studies and co-author of Energy Costs and Canadian Households: How Much Are We Spending?

According to the study, Canadian households that make $47,700 or less per year are disproportionately affected by energy poverty.

The Fraser Institute found that in 2013 the three regions most affected by energy poverty were Atlantic Canada at 20.6 percent, Saskatchewan at 12.9 percent and Ontario at 7.5 percent, with a general 7.9 percentage in Canada. “Between 2010 and 2013, energy poverty was on the rise in most provinces.” British Columbia had the lowest at 5.3 percent.

The study authors also found that the Green Energy Act of Ontario is responsible for the increase in electricity prices.

In 2013 Der Spiegel warned us that “the political world is wedged between the green-energy lobby, masquerading as saviors of the world, and the established electric utilities, with their dire warnings of chaotic supply problems and job losses.” http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html

In Germany, the Energiewende, or energy wave (revolution), was “Chancellor Angela Merkel’s project of the century.” It turned out to be a flop, although not as bad as her recent policy of welcoming with open arms of waves of violent Muslims into Europe.

After the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Merkel “quickly decided to begin phasing out nuclear power and lead the country into the age of wind and solar.” The government-predicted renewable energy surcharge turned out to be higher than the 20 percent price hike.

Of all the companies that must pay the renewable energy surcharge, 2,300 German businesses with lobbying representation, were able to exempt themselves from this green energy surcharge by claiming tough international competition.

Der Spiegel said that German customers were forced to pay 20 billion euros for electricity from solar, wind, and biofuel plants that had a market price of only 3 billion euros. The authors explained that this cost did not include “unintended costs and collateral damage associated with the project.” The costs included the fact that, depending on weather and time of day, the entire country can face “absurd states of energy surplus or deficit.” Solar panels and wind turbines can generate lots of electricity at times and other times zero.

According to Der Spiegel, more than 300,000 German households a year had their electricity cut off for unpaid bills. Caritas, a charity group, called this “energy poverty.”

Sweden, a heavily forested country, used up its biomass from wood and paper industry waste to fuel conventional power plants; once it exhausted this source, it switched to wind farms on land because the offshore ones were very expensive and tended to rust much quicker.

There is no doubt that Americans have also been affected by energy poverty. The Institute for Energy Research is citing the case of the residents in Pueblo, Colorado. The state’s Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act forced inexpensive coal plants to be closed. Their residential kWh rate has increased 26 percent since 2010 when “the new local utility company in Pueblo replaced nearly all its inherited cheap coal capacity with wind and natural gas.” Residential customers, with a poverty rate of 18.1 percent and one third of the population on welfare, had to pay for the large infrastructure bills when the switch was made. Wind turbines were added in order to meet the state’s Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act requirement of 30 percent capacity coming from renewable resources. http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/energy-poverty-coming-america-coal-shuttered-green-power/

At CPAC 2015, during a panel discussion on climate change and global warming alarmism, Gary Broadbent, representing Murray Energy Corporation, the largest privately held coal mine in the U.S., highlighted Obama’s “war on coal” via regulations passed by EPA alone in the last five years totaling 25,000 pages.  Quoting Robert E. Murray, Chairman of Murray Energy Corporation, Broadband said, “Prior to the election of President Obama, coal provided 52% of the electricity generation in our country. Today it is 37%. In our judgement, it will further decline to about 30%, at a maximum.”

Enumerating the 411 power plants designated for closure through 2016, “101,000 megawatts of the lowest cost electricity in America,” CEO Murray wrote that electricity, generated by coal at the plant cost of 4 cents per kWh, will be replaced by “Mr. Obama and his appointees” with 15 cent per kWh electricity from natural gas and 22 cent per kWh electricity from wind and solar power, not to mention the huge subsidies to solar power from American taxpayers.

In CEO Murray’s opinion, the Obama Administration has bypassed illegally Congress, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the States and their Public Utility Commissions, which are “empowered to regulate the availability and cost of electricity.”

According to Chairman Murray, while we came within 700 megawatts of reducing loads to 61 million Americans in 13 states during the Polar Vortex of 2014, “China has been building a new 500 megawatt coal-fired plant every week for years, [and] burned about 4.0 billion tons of coal last year.”

Smart Meters, Watching Our Lives

Under the guise of climate change advocacy which pretends to save the planet from a non-existent anthropogenic global warming, people across the globe have been forced by utilities and their governments to accept smart meters as readers of their electricity consumption. I called these smart meters in my book, “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy,” drones attached to our homes. http://www.amazon.com/U-N-Agenda-21-Environmental-Piracy-ebook/dp/B009WC6JXO/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1443973354&sr=1-1&keywords=UN+Agenda+21%3A+Environmental+Piracy

Smart meters are being deployed without debate and without the informed consent of homeowners. They inspect homes 24/7 through several pulses a minute and without a warrant, over-bill, cause home fires, result in environmental and health problems, are vulnerable to hacking, and data obtained from such smart meters are sold to third parties without homeowners’ consent.

During peak usage, the utility company can turn off the power several hours a day, adjust the thermostat from afar, or turn off entire grids in an “emergency” situation when they run short of electricity. It is too expensive to build excess capacity storage facilities.

Smart meter removal from one’s home may not be enough. Within a five square mile area there is a collecting point of information from all meters and a transmitter receives information from all the collecting points of information within 125 miles of its location. This transmitter sends all collected data to a master location, the “mother ship,” where everyone’s information is stored, analyzed, and sold to a third party who is interested in the household’s pattern of usage, consumption of electricity, or possibly “illegal” activity in that home.

In addition to electric bills doubling in many places even though consumption had remained the same or had been reduced, customers are being “nudged” via carefully crafted notes added to their monthly bills for their shameless and selfish use of the planet’s resources.

Some individuals and townships have gone to court and managed to obtain permission from their utilities to opt-out of the installation of smart meters, in exchange for a monthly reading fee which can be quite high in various places. Others were not successful and, after seeing their utility bills double, have filed a class action suit against their utilities. Such was the case of California.

In the Dominican Republic, angry customers of Edenorte have ripped their smart meters from their sockets because their electric bills have doubled even though they were sold a false bill of goods that digital meters would give them a more accurate reading of their usage. They were also unhappy that their “electricity was being cut off out of nowhere and they would have no power for a couple of hours every day, sometimes more.” Edenorte was a “free entity,” no longer under government regulation.

A video obtained by Josh Del Sol, the producer of the award-winning documentary, “Take Back Your Power,” shows the public outrage; people are turning over electric company trucks, slashing their tires, breaking windows, and piling up hundreds of removed smart meters in front of the electric company’s offices in the city of Peidro Blanca.

The residents complained that “the lower their consumption, the higher the bills.” The claim is not without merit as utility companies billing schemes tend to punish those who consume less and reward those who consume more. One of the protesters in the video asks, “How is it possible in X days for it to register 1041 kWh?” He continues, “This is why we say that they have rigged these meters to benefit them.” https://takebackyourpower.net/hundreds-of-angry-customers-pull-smart-meters-video/

In San Antonio, KENS 5 reported that “CPS Energy admitted to overcharging customers who recently have had smart meters installed,” affecting hundreds, possibly thousands of angry customers. http://www.kens5.com/story/news/2015/09/21/cps-energy-admits-overcharging-customers-smart-meters/72600652/

K.T. Weaver, of SkyVision Solutions, wrote about the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) Board meeting which took place on August 20, 2015, at which meeting, President Rob Kerth said, ”Any efforts or investments made to avoid smart meters are entirely wasted. I know that change can be unnerving, especially when it comes quickly, but giving into hysteria and falling victim to the alarmists and the charlatans of our era will not improve anyone’s lives.” http://smartgridawareness.org/2015/09/26/elected-official-who-dismisses-concerned-consumers-as-charlatans/

Failing to demonstrate how charging customers more for the same energy consumption and reducing their access to electricity, affecting their privacy and good health, is going to improve anyone’s lives, it is glaringly evident that smart meters are a convenient way to control our energy use and our independence.

Having attended a utility regulator hearing three years ago, I heard testimony after testimony of Americans who were made really sick by their smart meters, or their homes caught fire and went up in flames.

Smart meters, heavily subsidized by the government, are sold to the public under the false narrative of convenience, modernization, cheaper energy, expedience, and better service.

Smart meters are convenient ways to spy on citizens, charge more per kWh of consumption, reduce consumption by cutting power delivery, replace coal-generated and cheaper electricity with more expensive “renewable” energy, control the population and its health, reduce costs for utilities who no longer have to worry about storing excess capacity in additional storage plants, reduce costs of wire maintenance under and above ground, and eliminating jobs for meter readers.

Unbeknownst to most of us, homes are now fitted with smart water meters, smart gas meters, and smart appliances that communicate with each other and with the “mother ship.”

 

 

 

 

Pope Francis' Encyclical on Climate Change

Olive grove in Assisi (Photo: Ileana 2008)

Extremely curious at the media allegation that the “scientific Pantheist who advises Pope Francis” and has swayed “Laudato Si'” (named so after St. Francis of Assisi’s canticle), “seems to believe in Gaia, but not in God,” I set out to read for myself the climate change encyclical in Italian.  https://stream.org/scientific-pantheist-who-advises-pope-francis/

Pope Francis, began his 192-page “Lettera Enciclica, Laudato Si’ del Santo Padre Francesco Sulla Cura Della Casa Comune,” by quoting a St. Francis d’Assisi canticle, and by saying that we are abusing and irresponsibly using “our sister Mother Earth, which sustains and governs us and produces diverse fruits with colourful flowers and herbs.” www.speciali.espresso.repubblica.it/pdf/laudato_si.pdf/

On page 5 he continues with, “Ogni aspirazione a curare e migliorare il mondo richiede di cambiare profondamente gli ‘stili di vita, i modelli di produzione e di consume, le strutture consolidate di potere che oggi reggono le societa.” As I translate, “Any aspiration to care for and improve the world requires changing profoundly life-styles, the patterns of production and consumption, the established structures of power that today govern society.”

I have heard these words before written in the 40-chapter U.N. Agenda 21 document signed by 179 countries in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro and repeated by subsequent Rio conference participants and advocates who really want to destroy capitalism. Here’s a quote by Christina Figueres, Executive Secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, in which she admits that environmental activists and lobbyists aim to destroy capitalism, not save the globe from ecological Armageddon.

"This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution"
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/021015-738779-climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism.htm#ixzz3eqV8jjk8

To accelerate our compliance with United Nations demands on greenhouse gas emissions, Congress was informed in a CRS report on June 29, 2015 about the dangers of increased atmospheric CO2, even though, lost in the report is the following statement, “The atmospheric CO2 concentration was however higher in Earth’s more distant past (many millions of years ago) at which time paleolithic and geological data indicate that temperatures and sea levels were also higher than they are today.”

The objective of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is to “stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the Earth’s climate system.” To the U.N., according to this CRS report, “stabilizing carbon dioxide concentrations implies zero net emissions.” (Jane A. Leggett, Greenhouse Gas Pledges by Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Congressional Research Service , R44092, June 29, 2015)

As Leggett explains in the footnotes on page 2 of the CRS report, the UNFCCC’s covers only greenhouse gases influenced by human activity but implicitly includes gases that occur naturally and human-related such as CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, manufactured gases such as hydroflourocarbons (HFC), perfluorcarbons (PFC), sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), nitrogen trifluoride (NF3). Cloroflourcarbons (CFC) are apparently covered under the 1985 Vienna Convention to Protect the Stratospheric Ozone Layer and the Montreal protocol. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44092.pdf

Quoting Patriarch Bartholomew on page 8, Pope Francis said that “by being human we are destroying the biological diversity of God’s creation, we are compromising the integrity of the planet, we contribute to climate change, deforest the earth, destroying its humid areas.” We are committing sins because “a crime against nature is a crime against ourselves and is a sin against God.” The 15-page preamble asks on page 13 for a “new universal solidarity.”

The following chapters deal with water, human life quality, social degradation, inequality on the planet, the greening of society, environmental justice for the poor, reproductive health, country inequality, poor countries of the southern hemisphere, universal communion, the common destination of goods, the human root of ecological crisis (read man-made), crises and consequences of the modern Anthropocene, the need to defend work, social, environmental, cultural, and economic ecology,  ecology of daily life, the principle of the common good, justice through generations, sustainable agriculture, protection of natural resources and water, replacement of fossil fuels with renewables, Rio +20, the Rio Declaration of 1992, reparations for poor countries for the environmental damage caused by developed countries, etc.

These paragraphs are obviously an abbreviated and religiously-tinged regurgitation of Agenda 21 goals as spelled in the 40 chapters of the U.N. Agenda 21 document signed in 1992 by 179 countries.

A dialogue between religion and science is proposed on page 152 because the majority on the planet view themselves as faithful. It is thus imperative for religion to enter the dialogue of curing nature, of abolishing poverty, and of building a network of respect and fraternity.

It is vital for education and spiritual ecology to merge together, he said, but to do so we must create change in our excessive consumerism, our collective egoism, and in our sense of precariousness and insecurity. We must strive for the common good, he added. The Christian community and churches have an important role to play in this educational change to form and educate the masses for responsible austerity, to cure poverty, and to care for the environment in this ecological conversion.  (p. 163)

With all due respect to his Holiness and the church, this document reads just like any other communist-based environment manifesto and is full of transparent communist jargon (especially the bold-faced words) promoted and supported by various United Nations-affiliated environmental NGOs.

We already have an environmental Constitution for the world, The Draft International Covenant on Environment and Development (DICED).  I spoke at length about some of the 79 articles of DICED in my book, “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy.” http://www.amazon.com/U-N-Agenda-21-Environmental-Piracy-ebook/dp/B009WC6JXO/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2_kin/183-4301922-3525013?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436019246&sr=1-1&keywords=UN+Agenda+21%3A+Environmental+Piracy

But having his Holiness support the goals of the climate change industry, gives their entire agenda a new and powerful façade.

The papal encyclical “Laudato Si” published on May 24, 2015 ends with a beautiful Prayer for our earth on page 184 and with a Christian prayer with the Creator on pages 185-187.

When Pope Francis asked on page 123, “What type of world do we wish to leave for our children who are now growing up,” it is clear to me what type, it is global communism ordered around the redistribution of wealth and around a one-world government under the guise of planet stewardship.

Sources quoted:

www.chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351072?eng=y

www.speciali.espresso.repubblica.it/pdf/laudato_si.pdf/

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/021015-738779-climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism.htm#ixzz3eqV8jjk8

https://stream.org/scientific-pantheist-who-advises-pope-francis/

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44092.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/U-N-Agenda-21-Environmental-Piracy-ebook/dp/B009WC6JXO/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2_kin/183-4301922-3525013?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436019246&sr=1-1&keywords=UN+Agenda+21%3A+Environmental+Piracy

 

 

Our Lives and Freedoms Matter More Than Progressive Propaganda

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015

The regime’s main stream media purposefully ignores the latest renewable energy news and events while bombarding us non-stop with gay issues, Christian bashing, manufactured “white privilege” stretching to the nude color of bras and Band-Aids, and “black lives matter” idiotic disruptions of restaurant patrons around the country, patrons that have nothing to do with the black on black crime in areas such as Chicago.

Mark Duchamp, Chairman of World Council for Nature, reported on the dangerous effects wind turbines in Australia have on animal farms located in the vicinity of wind farms. “Life near turbines is hell, according to a panel of south-west property owners who have battled against wind farms for the best part of a decade.”  http://wcfn.org/2015/04/02/wind-farms-deformities/

According to The Standard in Australia, farmers complained to a Portland panel that there is a need to shut down wind turbines at night across Australia, referring to their personal health and health impacts on their livestock. “The number of deformed lambs increased over the period of the wind farm operating near our property. The lambing rate in our merino stock decreased to a rate of 37 percent from 85 percent prior to the wind farms being established.” http://standards.net.au/story/2983411/turbine-neighbours-tell-of-their-hell/

I have written before about disruptions in ovulation, miscarriages, birth defects in mink farms and sleep issues with workers and ranchers who tended these mink farms in Denmark. http://ileanajohnson.com/2014/06/wind-turbines-and-negative-effects-on-animals/

The much praised and promoted smart meters that were supposed to form a “self-healing” and “resilient” smart grid turned out to be a nightmare for many, particularly for 5,800 residents of Stockton, California whose smart meters exploded simultaneously when a truck ran into a utility pole, causing a power surge. http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015/03/30/stockton-smart-meters-explode-after-truck-causes-power-surge/

Josh Del Sol reported that the “catastrophic failure of these PG&E ‘smart’ meters – which are not approved by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) – not only damaged meter bases and other homeowner property, but left those 5,800 customers without power.” http://takebackyourpower.net/news/2015/04/01/hundreds-of-smart-meters-simultaneouly-explode

According to Take Back Your Power, following fires in Portland, Oregon, Lakeland, Florida, Arizona, and Ontario, the province of Saskatchewan ordered in July 2014 the removal of all 105,000 smart meters.  

Josh Del Sol wrote that, following another power surge in Palo Alto, California which ignited 80 smart meters, The Utility Reform Network (TURN) stated through its representative: “In the collective memory of TURN, we have not seen similar incidents with analog meters.”

I dedicated four chapters to smart meters in my bestselling book, U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy. The smart meter program is a massive data collection without the customer’s authorization or a judge’s warrant. Smart meters are expensive, have a short life-span when exposed to sunlight and heat, but the government gives generous subsidies for their installation. http://www.amazon.com/U-N-Agenda-21-Environmental-Piracy-ebook/dp/B009WC6JXO/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427990151&sr=1-1&keywords=UN+Agenda+21%3A+Environmental+Piracy

The smart grid is part of “the internet of things,” a way to control your smart appliances, your energy consumption, shutting down your electricity at will by the utility company, it does not save electricity, on the contrary rates and bills have gone up despite of consumption remaining the same, monitoring your every activity in the home, hacking vulnerability, and health issues associated with involuntary exposure to round the clock pulsed microwave radiation.

On March 27, 2015, the United Kingdom issued its IoD Policy Report written by Dan Lewis and Jamie Kerr on smart meters deployment, “the largest UK government-run IT project in history and the most expensive and complex programme in the world,” with the title, “Not too clever: Will Smart Meters be the next Government IT disaster?” www.takebackyourpower.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Smart-meters-Not-too-clever-1-IoD.pdf

This smart grid plan is sold to the entire electrified planet under the guise of climate change, protecting the environment through green environmentalist action, and the wireless “convenience” and “modernization.” The reality is that collecting data in real time, non-stop, and selling it to third parties is more lucrative financially than the entire utility industry.

Michael Thompson, wrote that a new study, released by the Thomas Jefferson Institute and researched by economists at the Beacon Hill Institute in Boston, revealed that under the new stringent EPA regulations, Virginia will have to reduce CO2 levels 38 percent by 2030 at a cost of $1.7 billion, resulting in a loss of 38,000 jobs and electricity rate increases by 25 percent. “And the impact on our environment – the reduction of CO2 – will be almost negligible.” www.thomasjeffersoninst.org/files/3/EPAStudy_March 2015.pdf

A Max Planck Institute for Meteorology study by Bjorn Stevens found “that aerosol radiative forcing is less negative and more certain than is commonly believed.” http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00656.1

Bjorn Stevens found that “the magnitude of the cooling effect from anthropogenic (man-made) aerosol emission during the late 19^th and 20^th century was less than currently believed, which eliminates the support for the high-end negative estimates (such as those included in the latest assessment of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”  http://www.cato.org/blog/you-ought-have-look-climate-sensitivity-environmental-worries-are-trending-downward

The implications are that carbon dioxide must be causing less global warming than climate models predict. “Going forward we should expect less warming from future greenhouse gas emissions than climate models are projecting,” according to Cato Institute climate scientists Pat Michaels and Chip Knappenberger, a potential “death blow to the global warming hysteria.”

Tom DeWeese, President of the American Policy Center (APC), one of the main driving forces behind the battle to stop Agenda 21, is reporting that anti-Agenda 21 legislation has been introduced in several state legislatures, including Missouri, Montana, Maine, and potentially Louisiana. Concerned citizens and legislators will meet with Tom DeWeese in Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Louisiana, and Arizona.

The main stream media ignores, ridicules, or attacks the thorough research and tireless work of the American Policy Center (APC). Few citizens are even aware that there are direct ties between Agenda 21 and Common Core; Obamacare in our health care; gun control; illegal immigration; the manufactured global warming that is fleecing taxpayers worldwide; and “all the local ‘planning’ that is transforming our neighborhoods into ‘stack and pack’ high rise monsters; no cars, limited energy, no suburban housing, higher costs and shortages are all included in the future of Agenda 21 policy.”

In the progressive propaganda quest to push its gay agenda, the “black lives matter” race-baiting campaign, the cultural wars against Christian values and businesses, the fake “war on women,” the manufactured racial bigotry, and its welfare agenda of “social justice,” amnesty for illegal immigrants intent on changing the face of our “evil” capitalist society, the importance of our lives and freedoms as a society is marginalized and ignored.

Progressives do not realize in their monumental ignorance that they are supporting dark forces that will imprison them and eventually kill them for the very liberties they are falsely claiming that are under attack.

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Hook and By Crook, You Are Going to Pay for Climate Change

“Science has become the new stepchild of politics.” – Michael Savage

It’s the first day of spring and we are having snow again. Not much, a couple of inches, just enough to prove that March always goes out like a lion. Undeterred, global progressives, intent on sending us into the stone age of technology, are forcing their agenda of redistributive taxation of man-made global warming/climate change on everyone.

But that’s not all. According to Dr. Klaus Kaiser, Central Europe experienced a Mother Nature event – a total solar eclipse around 9 a.m., March 20, 2015, the spring equinox,  and a super-moon. It will be interesting to see how electric power plants dependent heavily on solar power fared in a shut-down during the day when energy demand is at its peak. And the most vulnerable was Germany which derives a larger percent of its electricity needs from solar power. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/70574

Dr. Kaiser said, “With well over 10,000 wind turbines in operation, the European electric grid has already experienced instability close to collapse.  The (far) offshore system Bard-1 in the German Bight, built for approximately $5 billion two years ago is slowly rusting in the sea. It is a real money maker—for the legal profession.”

Dominion Virginia Power has offered customers in their monthly billing the whimsical “Green Power,” to reduce the family’s carbon footprint in 2015, a “voluntary option that enables customers to match their electricity use with clean, renewable energy from wind (78%), solar (1%), and biomass (21%).”  Dominion offers two choices:

-          100% Option, matching 100 percent of a customer’s electricity use with Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), at a cost of 1.3 cents per kWh.

-          Block Option, purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) in fixed monthly increments; each $2 supports 154 kWh of renewable energy.

Such voluntary options are nothing more than customers subsidizing unnecessarily expensive energy generation that is not really clean, it is the industry’s “dirty little secret,” as someone called it years ago.

Having researched the wind and solar power generation extensively, and having written a bestseller and numerous articles on the topic, I know that renewable energy is neither cheap, nor clean, nor victimless. There are millions of animal casualties, chopped birds by wind turbines and fried birds by solar panels’ heat flux; animals experience bizarre behavior, fertility issues, and spontaneous abortion of fetuses when living in close proximity to wind farms; humans experience serious health effects as well when in close proximity to wind turbines and from their home smart meters attached to the smart grid.

One of the more interesting presentations I heard at CPAC 2015 was the panel on “Climate: What Tom Steyer Won’t Tell You.”

Representative Bill Flores (TX-17) addressed the global warming alarmism, pointing out that this administration has done everything in its power to stop domestic energy production in this country, spending billions of dollars for bankrupt solar energy producers like Solyndra. He enumerated the six “inconvenient truths” of those promoting the climate agenda:

1.       It kills U.S. jobs.

2.       It costs trillions of dollars.

3.       It’s based on junk science.

4.       It uses fantasy technology that is yet to be developed.

5.       It manipulates cost/benefit analysis by using junk economics.

6.       It fails the smell test.

Rep. Flores stated that Obama’s energy agenda, via EPA’s tightening regulations such as ozone levels and Waters of the U.S., kills 3 million American jobs, exporting them to China and India, and importing their pollution back to the United States. “By 2020, the EPA’s ozone regulations will eliminate $3.5 trillion of economic output.” There is no credible evidence that ozone levels cause increased health issues for Americans but poverty does, Rep. Flores added. Because the EPA knows that California cannot meet its stringent ozone standards, then California is excluded from the equation.

It is EPA regulatory malpractice, said Rep. Flores, as evidenced by the attempt to change the definition of water in the Waters of the U.S. from “navigable waters” to any puddle of rain that falls in a farmer’s field.

Tom Steyer, a “green” energy devotee, has pledged $100 million in 2014 to Democrats who oppose the Keystone pipeline and favor the disuse of fossil fuels over renewables.  Steyer opposes coal in an attempt to boost the value of his solar projects.  According to John Hinderaker, “Steyer owes his fortune in large part to the fact that he has been one of the world’s largest financiers of coal projects.” http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/04/the-epic-hypocrisy-of-tom-steyer.php

Myron Ebell, Director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, jocularly introduced as the “enemy number one to the climate change agenda,” talked about the environmental noose that was put around the world’s global economy in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro and the decades since then that tightened that noose. Obama took control of the economy through ever more stringent environmental regulations even though there has been no global warming in the last 18 years.  

Pointing out that the entire global warming fiasco is based on faulty IPCC computer modeling, Ebell said, “Do you trust the models or the actual data?” Ninety-seven percent of climate change scientists say, trust us, we have the models. “If the models and the data don’t agree, change the data.” The deception was exacerbated by the infamous hockey stick graph, Ebell added.  Every agency of the federal government views global warming as the greatest national security threat.  John Kerry, our Secretary of State, said in a speech that climate change is his number one priority.

Gary Broadbent, representing Murray Energy Corporation, the largest privately held coal mine in the U.S., highlighted Obama’s “war on coal” via regulations passed by EPA alone in the last five years totaling 25,000 pages.  Quoting Robert E. Murray, Chairman of Murray Energy Corporation, Broadband said, “Prior to the election of President Obama, coal provided 52% of the electricity generation in our country. Today it is 37%. In our judgement, it will further decline to about 30%, at a maximum.”

Enumerating the 411 power plants designated for closure through 2016, “101,000 megawatts of the lowest cost electricity in America,” CEO Murray wrote that electricity, generated by coal at the plant cost of 4 cents per kWh, will be replaced by “Mr. Obama and his appointees” with 15 cent per kWh electricity from natural gas and 22 cent per kWh electricity from wind and solar power, not to mention the huge subsidies to solar power from American taxpayers.

In CEO Murray’s opinion, the Obama Administration has bypassed illegally Congress, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the States and their Public Utility Commissions, which are “empowered to regulate the availability and cost of electricity.”

According to Chairman Murray, while we came within 700 megawatts of reducing loads to 61 million Americans in 13 states during the Polar Vortex of 2014, “China has been building a new 500 megawatt coal-fired plant every week for years, [and] burned about 4.0 billion tons of coal last year.”

CEO Robert E. Murray offered multiple examples that “the global ‘climate change’ scare is purely political and not based on any science:

-          According to NASA satellites and ground-based temperature measurements, the earth has not warmed for the last eighteen years and five months. But CO2 levels have risen almost ten percent since 1997.

-          Seventy percent of the years since the Ice Age were warmer than today.

-          There has been a decline in the world land area under drought in the past thirty years.

-          Rates of sea-level rise remain infinitesimal, averaging only about one millimeter per year as measured by tide gauges.

-          Satellites show that a greater area of Antarctic sea ice exists now than any time since space-based measurements began in 1979.

-          2012 and 2013 IPCC reports concluded that there has been no significant increase in either the frequency or intensity of extreme weather events in the modern era.

-          The past year was not the warmest on record, as Mr. Obama claimed during his State of the Union address, which I attended, on January 20.”

On this sunless first day of spring, with cold temperatures, rain, sleet, and snow in the northeast, we should be thankful to the cold industry for producing enough energy to keep us warm and our large economy running smoothly. There is no secret that the environmental NGOs such the Sierra Club, Natural Resource Defense Council, and rich individuals promoting “Beyond Coal,” are influencing EPA’s overregulation of the manufacturing sector under the guise of saving the planet, to the detriment of our economy, and destroying wealth and the middle class in the process. The war on coal is real and so is the war on our free market-based way of life.

 Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015

 

Falling Oil Prices and the Climate Change Agenda

The latest falling oil prices to $55.96 (West Texas Intermediate), dropping from a high of $105 per barrel in June 2014, as a result of increased domestic oil production from fracking, is making the price of $150 per barrel of renewables look ridiculously expensive, not counting the wasted government subsidies in bankrupt solar power companies. The green agenda, which has become a climate change industry, is very lucrative for wealthy climate alarmists and for the United Nations.

Dick Morris said, “The oil price drop is really gutting Obama’s green agenda.” And the reasons are clear:

-          There is no longer a dire need to fund the green agenda

-          There is no climate change other than natural changes occurring over the millennia

-          There is no need to dole out the $3 billion dollars U.S. promised to fund U.N.’s International Climate Fund, a foreign aid slush fund to distribute money to third world dictators in the name of environmental justice; fortunately, Congress has stripped the $3 billion dollars from the budget

-          Natural gas is replacing coal at a faster pace, with half the emissions

-          The administration and progressives can no longer use the faux outrage against oil companies

-          Domestic oil production is destroying the dependence on foreign oil, while OPEC revenues are dropping precipitously

Despite multiple evidence of climate change/global warming fraudulent data and claims, United Nations just concluded its most recent meeting to promote their profitable climate change industry.

According to Newsmax, on December 11, 2014, Walt Cunningham, Craig Rucker, and Marc Morano were rushed from stage after 18 minutes of their approved 30 minute talk at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Lima, Peru.

The three were told to “wrap up” their talk in order to accommodate U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, who was there to promote the U.N. climate treaty (LOST) which failed ratification by the Senate. With all the serious geo-political and economic issues facing humanity, Kerry said that “climate change may be, in fact, the most serious challenge we face on the planet.”

Marc Morano of Climate Depot reported that after the three speakers left, the room remained vacant for 35 minutes. Executive Director Craig Rucker from the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) said, “We are one of the few skeptical voices of reason here at the conference. To interrupt our press conference smacks of a cheap form of censorship.” In his opinion, based on factual data explained in the pamphlet “Global Warming: Facts Versus Faith,” climate alarmism is “one of the biggest frauds in the field of science.”

Walt Cunningham, a NASA astronaut who flew with the Apollo 7 mission in 1968, told the United Nations that “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Earth’s climate history indicates CO2 is not a major factor in climate change. The U.N. has twisted science in order to enrich itself and inflate its own importance.”

Craig Rucker continued, “It is mind-boggling that, as the world rushes toward adopting a climate agreement, the alleged scientific ‘consensus’ behind global warming is being blown apart. With Antarctic sea ice at record high numbers, polar bears thriving, and no global warming for 18 years and two months, you would think there would be a need to pause and reconsider the evidence for a climate catastrophe.”

As I’ve stated in my book, U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy, the global warming/climate change agenda did not spring overnight, it has a long history of deception, its insidious and highly profitable agenda covers every facet of our society, it is a master plan of global wealth redistribution, and it will take a miracle to dismantle it. http://www.amazon.com/U-N-Agenda-21-Environmental-Piracy/dp/0615716474/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419266185&sr=1-1&keywords=UN+Agenda+21%3A+Environmental+Piracy

 

 

 

 

Global Warming as a Fabricated Moral Issue

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2014

The area south of Buffalo, New York was buried this week in 76 inches of snow, quite possibly the largest 24-hour total in U.S. recorded history. At the same time, the desperate advocates of global warming/climate change are finding more novel ways to push their carbon dioxide reduction and carbon footprint taxation in order to redistribute the wealth from the United States to the rest of the world.

David Ignatius suggests in the Washington Post that climate should be treated as a “moral issue – a matter like civil rights.” His idea of “treating climate change as an ethical problem” might succeed in convincing climate deniers that taxing them to death would solve the faux global warming problem. (Washington Post, November 19, 2014)

Unsure of a planetary Armageddon future, an “Endarkenment,” in light of skeptics armed with a “truckload of studies to demonstrate the opposite,” Ignatius suggests, “The safe (and conservative) course is to assume the worst.”

Ignatius concludes that global warming/climate change is a moral issue when “the quality of life around the world is at stake,” and “people who resist action are not just misguided, they’re wrong.”

Even though we are using more natural gas, this administration is shutting down coal-powered plants through impossible regulations, destroying the coal industry, making an unconstitutional agreement with China’s ruler Xi Jinping to reduce our CO2 emissions, the gas of life considered by the United Nations and the EPA a “pollutant.” This unconstitutional agreement which the U.S. Senate has not ratified was signed by President Obama in order to solve “climate change” by Executive fiat, forcing a cut of 25 percent of 2005 CO2 levels by 2025, causing Americans a lot of economic hardship and rationing.

Communist China which produces the highest levels of carbon emissions in the world, will only force their citizens to stop ‘increasing’ their CO2 output by 2030 and use more renewables, eventually. If China follows through, it would be a miracle. http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/19514-obama-signs-climate-deal-with-communist-dictator-gop-balks

Knowing how polluted China is and how difficult it is to breathe the air in Beijing on most days, the statement of U.N. climate chief and executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christina Figueres, that China is better prepared to fight “global warming,” is laughable.

John L. Casey, a former space shuttle engineer and NASA consultant, wrote “Dark Winter: How the Sun Is Causing  a 30-Year Cold Spell,” warning about a radical shift in global climate due to reduced activity in solar flares, causing a fast cooling of the earth. Temperatures will be similar to those observed during the “solar minimum” in the Middle Ages which lasted for 300 years and ended in early 1800s. It is painfully evident when we take into account the bitter cold fronts, early winters, short and cooler summers, and last year’s winter, “one of the snowiest, coldest, most miserable on record.”http://www.Newsmax.com/Headline/dark-winter-cold-global-cooling/2014/11/16/id/607672/#ixzz3Jd4gFgJR

Dr. Klaus L. E. Kaiser described in his latest article the colorful NASA computer simulations of CO2 in the world’s air seen on the National Geographic website.  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141118-nasa-video-carbon-dioxide-global-warming-climate-environment/

While visually arresting, the swirls are just pretty pictures. Dr. Kaiser explains that the swirls are produced by a computer model, similar to 50 other computer models created by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), all of which were wrong because they did not predict the 18-year “warming pause.” http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/67702

Dr. Kaiser says, “The narrative of the video is self-destroying the claims to the ‘global warming’ theory of CO2. It claims (and shows) the highest concentrations of CO2 over the northern polar (Arctic) fringe of the simulation – in the depth of winter. Then in summer the CO2 in the northern air returns to normal levels due to photosynthesis converting it to biomass both on land and in the sea.” If there truly was a greenhouse gas effect of CO2, Dr. Kaiser explains, it “would be most noticeable in the Arctic winter.”

“What do the swirls show that isn’t obvious? With most of the world’s population living in the northern hemisphere and most of the world’s consumption of carbon-based fuels also there, should it be a surprise to anyone to see more carbon dioxide in the air over the northern than the southern hemisphere?” http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/67702

What is morally repugnant to real scientists and logical thinkers, are the lies and deceptions surrounding the manufactured global warming crisis, created for political and financial gain at the expense of millions of people around the globe, who must suffer the consequences of treaties, laws, rules, and regulations controlling their lives and economic activity, so that a small number of global elites can enrich their bank accounts.

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2014

Climate Change Causes Everything So Let's Fundamentally Change Our Economy

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2014

As the global warming alarmists tell us that the science is settled, there is no debate, and government bureaucrats are going full-speed ahead with taxation plans that will further weaken our already suffering economy, honest and wise politicians like Delegate Scott Lingamfelter of Virginia ask, “let’s see the physical science, not the political science before we strap Americans with huge taxes as the Obama Administration wants to do.” We should not formulate public policy such as carbon tax when the real science is constantly changing.

Hurricane Central has reported that “The 2014 hurricane season has fallen into a slumber heading into the final days of the season’s peak month.” http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/atlantic-hurricane-season-2014-update-quite-20140922

However, we don’t want to mix catastrophic weather events with climate as the global warming alarmists do. We could have a late arrival hurricane like Sandy.

The planet’s climate has been changing for millions of years yet, if you ask a climate change alarmist, they are unable to tell you what the appropriate temperature of the planet should be or what it was 200 years ago. As it stands, the earth has been in a cooling period for the last 18 years. It explains why the enviro-globalists have changed the name of their taxation and control agenda from global warming to climate change.

Scientists are constantly revealing the negative and dirty cost of clean energy promoted by enviro-bureaucrats; renewables like wind, solar, and biofuels have negative effects on humans and animals who happen to exist in the vicinity of such sources or depend on food produced from corn.

The Smart Meters controversy is finally reaching a fever pitch with the battle moving into the mainstream. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader called smart meters a “step toward technological despotism. http://www.takebackyourpower.net/news/2014/10/02/ralph-nader-smart-meters-a-step-toward-technological-despotism/

The Wall Street Journal stated that “one in 10 cell/grid towers violate FCC’s safety guidelines.”  According to the FCC,  radio frequency radiation is a serious problem since at very high levels, “RF can cook human tissue, causing cataracts and temporary sterility and other health issues.” http://online.wsj.com/articles/cellphone-boom-spurs-antenna-safety-worries-1412293055

The FCC set two limits “to buffer people from these ’thermal’ effects, limits on how much radiation frequency people can absorb—one for the public, and one “occupational” limit five times higher for people who are trained to work near antennas. “ Perhaps their skin cooks five times slower? “A German study in 2013 found higher emissions from 4G antennas.” http://www.mcf.amta.org.au/newsletters/Mobile.InSite.May.2013?Article=39384

Cash-strapped families in Ireland had to pay water bills in excess of 240 euros a month thanks to smart water meters. http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/politics/outrage-revealed-politicians-wont-pay-4354752

Citizens who refuse smart meters for health reasons and privacy issues have to pay higher upfront fees and monthly reading fees that vary from state to state, anywhere from $35-$95 per month. Other customers are abused by a system that uses the police state to force citizens into compliance.

Customers who had their traditional meters replaced by smart meters are now paying much higher electric bills although their consumption has not changed. Some customers lost their homes to smart meters that caught fire or exploded.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Malia “Kim” Bendis of Naperville, Illinois, after being arrested on January 13, 2013 for filming the installation of a smart meter at Jennifer Stahl’s home, was recently acquitted of the charge of “misdemeanor of resisting or obstructing a peace officer.”  http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-lisle/chi-jury-gets-naperville-smart-meter-case-20141001-story.html

While we are trying to be conscientious protectors of the environment and want clean air and water, we are not interested in destroying our economies and our way of life for the unfounded fears and exaggerations of those who stand to gain from their draconian environmental agenda.

The World Council for Nature’s mission statement explains, “But our interest in the conservation of nature does not mean that we forget about people: we shall also defend human populations against aggressions that have the same origin.” http://wcfn.org/

Mark Duchamp, President of WCN, fights in particular against the health damage that wind turbines and solar plants cause animals and humans. In his October 6, 2014 press release, Duchamp stated that “health authorities refuse to measure accurately infrasound and low-frequency noise emitted by wind turbines; they are obviously protecting the wind industry.”

Wind turbines blast nearby residents non-stop with low frequency sound (LFS). Lack of restful sleep causes exhaustion coupled by, according to testimony, a “deep, drumming, rumbling sensation in the skull behind my ears which is like pressure and often a pulsating, squeezing sensation at the base of my skull. I also experience irregular heartbeat while I am trying to sleep and while I am relaxing (sitting or reclining) in our house. I did not have any trouble sleeping before the turbines started operating.” http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/david-mortimers-statement-cherry-tree-hearing-at-vcat-jan-2013/

Mark Duchamp cites Dr. Marcus Drexel of the University of Munich whose study found that “low frequency sound can affect the active micromechanics in the human inner ear.” http://en.friends-against-wind.org/doc/140166.full.pdf

As much as 30 percent of the population is sensitive to LFS. Some individuals have persistent headaches, insomnia, and depression.  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2775222/Could-living-near-wind-farm-make-DEAF-Low-frequency-hum-damage-inner-ear-experts-warn.html#ixzz3FQeQO7B3

Mark Duchamp said that we live in “a world where the wind/climate coalition has successfully blocked official research on LFS emitted by wind turbines since the Kelley Studies in 1985-1987.”

It is hard to understand why governments subsidize and investors throw money into bigger and bigger wind farms and solar plants when the energy is unreliable, expensive, insufficient to satisfy our large economy, a health hazard to humans and to wildlife, and it requires the use of such vast swaths of land.

The thermal flux from the solar panels fries millions of birds in mid-air and even evaporates them completely. Birds mistaken the huge mirrors for water and dive to their deaths. The huge wind turbine blades chop up millions of birds and bats.

Dr. Klaus Kaiser described how Germany’s Bard 1 wind farm became finally operational in March 2014 following years of delay. After connecting to the grid and beginning to deliver energy, the AC-to-DC converter station experienced a “meltdown.” The replacement converter was shut down a few days later. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/print-friendly/66002

The EPA is closing our coal power plants with their outrageous regulatory demands while China, India, France, and Hungary are building new power plants and nuclear ones. We are destroying our economy in order to satisfy the environmental lobby’s ever more onerous regulations to protect Mother Earth which is already pretty clean in the U.S., while other countries like China and India are polluting away.

©Ileana Johnson 2014