Photo credit: Fernando Tomás de Zaragoza, Spain (Wikipedia)
This from Reuters: Exclusive: Sierra Club sues over California solar plant. Hat tip: DirkH.
These guys don’t even know what they want. They’re against everything – and now even the things they once said would save the planet – like windmills, solar panels and crops for bio-diesel.
The report starts as follows (emphasis added):
A leading environmental advocacy group is suing the state of California’s Energy Commission over its approval of a giant solar plant, underscoring the growing challenge to the nation’s renewable-energy goals from within the environmental community.”
I suspect it’s because they have come to learn that these things are in reality ugly, dangerous, inefficient, expensive, and will end up doing real damage to wildlife, environment and landscape.
Now all we have to do is to get them to realize that CO2 is nowhere near as bad as they think, and that it actually makes the planet greener. That’ll take probably another 10 years to do, or a full-blown ice age.
Not only environmentalists are protesting the construction of solar plants, but regular folks and landowners have already had real success. Reuters:
In December, the Quechan Indian tribe won an injunction blocking construction of the Imperial Valley solar project, under development near California’s border with Mexico by NTR’s Tessera Solar.
The Calico plant was also under development by Tessera until the company sold the plant last month to K Road Sun, a subsidiary of New York investment firm K Road Power. Tessera has been struggling to find funding for its plants, which cost about $2 billion.
With the huge areas of land needed and overall opposition, it’s getting more and more difficult to find investors. These projects are turning into hot potatoes.
Reminds me of the position wind farming is facing in the UK:
http://i.walletpop.co.uk/index.php?date=2011/01/10&slug=failure-of-wind-farms-in-cold-weather-to-cost-billions&a=show-post&commentspage=
Neatly reinforces the idea of cold weather having a negative impact on society as well, both financial and productivity.
Is ‘CO2…makes the planet greener’ a new coining? Certainly makes a good slogan.
CO2 for a greener planet – I like the sound of that!
‘CO2…makes the planet greener’ would be a nice bumper sticker! 🙂
placed just above the exhaust of my car..haha
Don’t you get it.
Environmentalists are waging war against humanity.
They think human kind is a pest to the planet and should be controlled.
Because the availability of power resources is what makes humanity prosper they consequently oppose any power project.
So environmentalists are against nuclear, coal, oil, gas, shale gas, wind,
tidal wave power, solar and waterpower.
They are also against any product to increase food stocks and fight pests.
They are against fur, the consumption of meat, air travel, cars, cities,
elevators, the production of concrete, steel, copper, computers, medical treatment, insurance policies and money.
But only for others, not for themselves.
This makes the environmentalists to one of the biggest hypocrites that roamed the planet ever.
And what’s worst, their ideology makes them extremely dangerous since they will support any form of genocide and smile doing it.
{-snip].
R de Haan… I have to say, it’s REALLY hard to not take offense at such statements. Take a moment to think of how you feel when people make blanket accusations about the right wing. Ultimately, from either side, these amount to nothing more that stereotypes that fit no one (save a very small number of individuals at the FAR extreme). Statements like these are merely ammunition aimed at the other side. I refuse to partake in these kinds of portrayals. Each person is a unique mix, a one-off product of the world around them.
I consider myself an environmentalist but I’m pro-nuclear (with limits and regulations).
I am a businessman and believe deeply in the power of the marketplace (again with limits and regulations).
I am left wing but absolutely detest the extreme greens like EarthFirst (as much as I detest Right-to-Lifers). No one’s cause is above the law.
I believe there is a better future ahead of us when we move beyond fossil fuels. I believe continuing on our current track is going to cause incredible misery for most of the world’s people. I believe the only way we can conceivably bring most of the world’s population up to near first world status is through renewable energy solutions. By making energy cleaner and cheaper. Anything else I believe, literally, will collapse most or even all of human society.
Do I accuse you, R de Haan, of being some kind of evil minion for rejecting what I believe? No. I do not. All I ask is that you consider the side that I present as a possibility. Every day I consider the possibility that I am wrong and you are right, and try to learn more. All I ask is that you do the same.
I do like it when warmist spokesperson gets hot under the collar.
..”In view of the above, one may reasonably ask why there is the current alarm, and, in particular, why the astounding upsurge in alarmism of the past 4 years. When an issue like global warming is around for over twenty years, numerous agendas are developed to exploit the issue. The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence, and donations are reasonably clear.”
http://thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/2229-richard-lindzen-a-case-against-precipitous-climate-action.html
You will only accept the falsity of AGW when K. Trenberth, J. Hansen or some other “credible climatologist” announces publicly that they’ve been wrong all the way.
You will have to wait a long time for that; they earn their money as long as they announce catastrophe. And sell books about it.
http://www.amazon.com/Effects-Changing-Climate-Activities-Instruction/dp/1891389149/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295301260&sr=8-3
(No, no “storms Of My Grandchildren”, too boring. This time, the mighty K. with “The Global Change Instruction Program”. Global Change, Hey! Leftism! Viva La Revoluzzione!)
It’s kind of irritating when people make such gross generalizations.
I’m an environmentalist, and I support this solar project. But the Sierra Club is a conservationist group. They’re concerned first and foremost about protecting endangered species. They feel that the location of this project hasn’t been sufficiently assessed for its potential impacts on local species, so they objected.
This doesn’t mean that environmentalists “are against everything”, or that the Sierra Club is against renewable energy. They’re simply objecting to the potential impacts on local species of this one specific project.
You don’t do yourselves any favors by making sweeping and inaccurate generalizations like this. It makes it very hard to take you seriously.
Typical splintering of a movement.
Actually, I don’t think it is a splintering. Like Dana says, The Sierra Club has a very specific role in protecting species. They have a directive stated within their bylaws that they must execute. That is their job. The people who give money to the Sierra Club give that money because this is what they do.
Ultimately, though, you’re right that the short term role of the Sierra Club is going to come into conflict with the longer term goal of protecting species by addressing the climate change issue. They will have to make a decision on which way to go. Either the Sierra Club is going to find a big supporter with Koch Industries (because they slow the development of renewable energy) or they are going to have to address the longer term structural conflict developing within their bylaws.
You can bet that this is the subject of heated discussions in the boardroom at the Sierra Club.
“… longer term goal of protecting species by addressing the climate change issue.”
Don’t you think a species might just have to move a hundred miles north if it gets warmer? Or south if it gets cooler? Like they always did?
Dirk… That doesn’t always work. Often what happens in species are pushed upslope and run out of habitat.
How often is often?
Dirk… If you are curious I suggest you research the issue.
“I don’t know”, spoken from authority.
I agree with Rob, I’m sure there have been some heated interior discussions within the Sierra Club over this one. I’ve donated to them in the past, but if they continue to take positions like this, I won’t in the future.
It’s a cost-benefit issue. Reducing carbon emissions and thus global warming has a larger benefit than the cost of impacting the local species in this area. If you block projects like this, as Rob says, in the end you’ll probably have a larger net impact on the biosphere via climate change. We need to build as much renewable energy capacity as possible as soon as possible.
I understand that the Sierra Club is trying to stay true to their mission, but I think they’re missing the bigger picture and doing more harm than good here. But the entire sentiment of Pierre’s post is just plain wrong.
Remember the Audi A2 that allegedly made the distance from Munich to Berlin with one battery charge?
It burned down in a factory hall fire.
Purportedly the record drive battery was not on board but a different one.
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Elektromobilitaet-Weltrekord-Auto-abgebrannt-1170822.html
Stiglitz, a guy to watch. Talks a lot the last weeks. Ex World Bank top honcho.
http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/articleprog.aspx?id=57258
This is a good news.
I hope Sierra Club will reconsider its strong support to wind power.
Why on Earth would they do that?
Who on Earth knows why the Sierra Club does or doesn’t something.
Anybody who understands the Sierra Club’s purpose. We’ve talked about this already.
Rob Honeycutt
17. Januar 2011 at 21:10 | Permalink | Reply
If you are in favor of Nuclear power, you don’t belong to the environmetalists that I described earlier and I would advise you never to make the mistake of drinking a beer with them.
So in short, you don’t have to feel insulted or ashamed.
As for your vision that you are in favor of nuclear power and against the use of fossil fuel I would like to beg you to think twice.
A nuclear power plant is produced of steel and concrete.
Impossible to produce without fossil fuels.
A nuclear plant runs on nuclear material.
Impossible to extract without the use of fossil fuels.
The same goes for wind and solar.
Impossible to produce without fossil fuels.
That’s why “clean energy” is a pipe dream and it’s sold because most people are just plain stupid.
hahaha. Cheers to that, R de Haan!
R de Haan… I’m not anti-nuclear because I think we need to utilize every possible technology available to generate energy without producing CO2. I do not see nuclear as a panacea the way many do. It has a long list of negatives.
And for your list of “impossible with fossil fuel”…. That is because that is the current state of energy production. When we move PAST fossil fuels we will do every one of those without fossil fuels.
Dana,
This is not the right site for you.
You have already made up your mind and there is no person here to convince you of our basic view that CO2 emissions don’t pose a problem and that the current EU policies which include carbon trading, the obligatory blending of gasoline and diesel with bio fuels made from food crops and the endless price hikes for energy due to the introduction of absolute useless wind and solar energy and eco taxes are wrecking our economies.
We have seen the deals made by the environmental movement and we know the political agenda that plays in the back ground.
So you tell me how you can ever take us serious and we you?
I don’t think we have a single subject listed above where we can make a compromise.
I agree. Too few users of this site are interested in learning basic climate science. Rob feels there are enough open-minded users here that explaining the science is worthwhile. I’m increasingly unconvinced.
Have a read at this blog Dana maybe it’s an eye opener.
http://green-agenda.com/