Tundra Swans surrounded on three sides by wind turbines
This year, starting in mid-March, thousands of migrating Tundra Swans stopped at the Thedford Bog (a designated Important Bird Area) near Grand Bend, Ontario on Lake Huron and stayed for 13 days. This was some ten days short of their average stay of 23 days over the last 13 years, according to the Lambton Heritage Museum’s statistics (click on “Swan Migration/Discover More”). The Thedford Bog is an important staging area on their annual 6000 km round trip migration to the western Arctic from the eastern USA.
Migrating Tundra Swans flying over their Thedford Bog staging area
The reasons for their shorter stay could be manifold, but the question has to be asked: does some of it have to do with the fact that the resting and feeding swans are now effectively surrounded by industrial wind turbines on three sides, disturbing their rest and search for food?
Tundra Swans resting on the Thedford Bog close to dangerous industrial wind turbines
NextEra’s Goshen industrial wind turbines are thankfully not located directly on the swans’ resting spots, but are close enough and could pose problems for the birds as they fly to the corn stubble fields in the wider area to feed. We know that the lethal blades of wind turbines butcher millions of birds and bats annually worldwide (insects too). But if NextEra’s wind turbines slaughter Tundra Swans or Bald Eagles, the company and all Ontario wind facilities get a free pass, even for endangered species. Under Ontario law, the wind industry suffers no consequences if it “kills, harms or harasses a member of a species that is listed on the Species at Risk in Ontario List as an endangered or threatened species, or damages or destroys the habitat of such a species…”
Tundra Swans at the Thedford Bog flying close to the slicing blades of industrial wind turbines, scouting for food and rest
It is dispiriting driving on the Bluewater Highway (King’s Highway 21), which runs through one picturesque coastal community after another, along most of the entire length of the eastern shoreline of Lake Huron, for roughly 192 km from the Lambton Shores in the south to Southampton in the north until it turns east and inland to cross the Bruce Peninsula. Almost the entire way along the lake, drivers face a bristling phalanx of industrial wind turbine installations, kilometre after kilometre, despoiling the beautiful pastoral and shoreline landscape.
It hurts all the more when you know that industrial wind turbines have absolutely no redeeming value except for their subsidy-dependent, usually foreign, owners. They are dangerous, useless, ungreen, and both economically and environmentally destructive. The only saving grace is that the wind turbines along Lake Huron have not been situated between the highway and the lake. But that makes no difference when you look east or, for example, gaze northwest from the wonderful beaches at Grand Bend from where they ruin the view. Coastal beauty vistas, with huge tourist potential, ruthlessly despoiled for the fake planetary emergency of manmade climate change, the rationale for so-called green energy schemes such as the monstrously ineffectual industrial wind turbines.
Beach near Grand Bend looking northwest at long line of industrial wind turbines – not the vista you want to see on sunny, beachy days, or at any time
How did this happen? The scourge of industrial wind turbines has been inflicted on Ontario, including the breathtaking Lake Huron shoreline, because of the massive UN-led deliberate scientific deception that the carbon dioxide produced by man’s use of fossil fuels is a demon gas that will overheat the earth and kill us all. Actually, carbon dioxide, i.e. CO2, is a non-polluting trace gas that you cannot smell or see, without which there would be no life on earth. The manmade global warming/manmade climate change $1.5 trillion industrial complex is driven by a pernicious anti-human political ideology, with not one whit of care for the environment or the scientific method.
Tundra Swans resting on the Thedford Bog and flying about not far from the lethal-for-birds wind turbines
The UN’s malign objective behind this deception is a bid for unelected, unaccountable global governance, the abrogation of national sovereignty, of democratic freedoms, and of property rights, and anti-human plans for de-industrialization and wealth re-distribution (as detailed in the UN’s Agenda 21, the Millennium Project, Agenda 2030). Many of Canada’s governments at various levels, including the current “climate action”-obsessed federal Trudeau regime, have fallen in line and imposed economically-ruinous “green” policies and taxation schemes in order to obey the UN’s diktats.
It is beyond tragic.
Tundra Swans at sundown heading out over Pinery Provincial Park to cross Lake Huron on the next stage of their 6000 km round trip migration to the western Arctic from their US wintering grounds
Ontario PCs now have the power: “Put an end to this Green Energy Act once and for all”
Progressive Conservative MPP Monte McNaughton (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex) was elected for a third term yesterday, victorious again as part of the landslide PC majority win in the Ontario election.
Four years ago in a video on this blog, McNaughton was crystal clear on the PC party’s then plans for the McGunity/Wynne Liberals’ pernicious Green Energy Act, namely, to scrap it. The draconian legislation enacted in 2009 led to an ugly and invasive proliferation of subsidy-sucking, economically-useless, environmentally-destructive, democratic-rights-robbing, community-fracturing, health-depleting, bird/bat-slaughtering, ground-water poisoning, hydro/electricity-cost-rocketing, mostly foreign-owned industrial wind turbines that destroyed the rural way of life, devalued property, and drove people from their homes in many parts of Ontario.
Here’s what McNaughton said prior to the 2014 Ontario election (some wind noise).
Now McNaughton has reiterated that “It’s time to clean up the hydro mess.” Let’s see if he and the newly elected Doug Ford PC government will make it so.
Bloody wind turbine carnage: an emotional report from Germany
In the Märkische Allgemeine, March 12, 2018, as tweeted by Linda Rogers:
Wind turbine slays sea eagle
A sea eagle was slain by a wind turbine near Wernikow on the weekend. Workers at the wildlife sanctuary in Struck found the dead raptor. Whether it had a brood to take care of is unclear. In the state of Brandenburg 48 protected birds have already been killed by wind turbines.
Wernikow. A sea eagle was slain by a wind turbine near Wernikow on Saturday afternoon. The bird lay dead on the field when Uwe and Angie Löblich from the wildlife sanctuary in Struck (Prignitz) found it. They were actually looking for suitable spots to release swans. But they determined that the water was still frozen, thus deemed the area unsuitable.
Instead they found the sea eagle. The wind turbine had obviously hit its wing. It was broken, the blood still fresh. Had the eagle lain there any longer, scavengers would have eaten it.
Uwe and Angie Löblich from the wildlife sanctuary in Struck with the eagle found near Wernikow. Source: Björn Wagener
Ornithologist Jürgen Kaatz: Dangerous turbulence from the blades
Wind turbines always spell doom for raptors and storks. “They perceive the blades to be a veil,” says ornithologist Jürgen Kaatz. They cannot judge the speed of the blades at the tips. But the vortices are also dangerous – air turbulence behind the turning blades.
According to Kaatz, the donor card for the wildlife sanctuary of the state of Brandenburg points out that currently 144 sea eagles have been killed by wind turbines (as at January 11, 2018). Brandenburg claims the inglorious top position with 48 dead sea eagles. To compare: in Mecklenburg Vorpommern there are 39; in Schleswig Holstein 37. “These are only the official numbers. One can assume unreported cases,” says ornithologist Jürgen Kaatz.
The Löblichs confirm this: Every year they discover one or two wind turbine bird fatalities. How many birds are found and not reported or dragged off by scavengers no-one knows.
The brood would starve
It’s possible the slain sea eagle near Wernikow already had a brood to provide for. That cannot be determined with certainty. The male bird was not banded, but judged to be about four years old – just on the cusp of breeding maturity. Kaatz hopes that the bird had no young to feed, because in that case they would starve. Sea eagles breed as of mid-February.
According to Kaatz, Altkreis Wittstock is home to four known sea eagles. There could actually be six or seven. Eagles take a very long time to find a new partner, should something have happened to theirs.
Uwe Löblich: “You feel the animal’s pain”
Uwe and Angie Löblich know only too well the suffering that is behind the statistics. “I held it. And you feel the animal’s pain. It gets into your bones,” relates Uwe Löblich, when he had a stork in his arms whose beak was for the most part sliced off. Other birds were dismembered or had their wings torn off or their legs cut off. Some were dead, others half dead, report the Löblichs. Some injured birds drag themselves to the road, hoping to be found. “People should imagine that it was their kids involved. Maybe then they would wake up,” says Uwe Löblich. But as long the politicians do nothing, protected birds will continue to meet their death by the rotating blades.
Björn Wagener
Translated by FauxGreen
Bird and bat bloodbath sanctioned by the Ontario Liberals
The Ontario McGuinty/Wynne Liberal governments created special legislation and regulations for industrial wind turbine owners, granting them permits to slaughter species at risk without consequences. They have license not only to kill, harm or harass a member of a species that is listed on the Species at Risk in Ontario List, but also to situate the bird-killing machines in designated Important Bird Areas—and they take full advantage.
Ontario Regulation 242/08: General under the Endangered Species Act, 2007. S.O. 2007, c.6 states in section 23.20 that
Clause 9 (1) (a) and subsection 10 (1) of the Act do not apply to a person who is engaged in the operation of a wind facility and who, in the course of the operation of the wind facility, kills, harms or harasses a member of a species that is listed on the Species at Risk in Ontario List as an endangered or threatened species, or damages or destroys the habitat of such a species…
Fauna not at risk are fair game, no permit required.
The federal Liberal minister of the environment, Catherine McKenna, doesn’t see anything wrong with this. McKenna’s straw-woman response to Sen. Bob Runciman’s request to assess the cumulative effect the killing machines have on birds and bats is that “wind turbines kill relatively few birds when compared to cats, windows on buildings, vehicles and transmission lines.”
Bird Studies Canada, claiming to be “Canada’s leading science-based bird conservation organization,” and others of its ilk don’t seem to care about the wind industry’s bloody bird and bat massacres. In Bird Studies Canada’s Top 6 Ways You Can Help Birds web page, there is not a single word about it. Instead we are fed greenie kumbaya pap such as: “Reducing overall consumption, and making ‘greener’ choices generally, reduces your environmental footprint and benefits all wildlife over time.”
The save-the-planet environmentalist-pretenders sure don’t care. As Oxford biologist Clive Hambler pointed out in 2013 (emphasis added):
Wind farms are devastating populations of rare birds and bats across the world, driving some to the point of extinction. Most environmentalists just don’t want to know. Because they’re so desperate to believe in renewable energy, they’re in a state of denial. But the evidence suggests that … renewables pose a far greater threat to wildlife than climate change.
Over in the UK, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Birds (RSPB), as James Delingpole derisively called it in 2014, has also lost its way:
A wind farm in Scotland, which the RSPB was instrumental in easing through the planning process ten years ago has successfully destroyed all but one of the forty breeding pairs of golden plover in the region.
… birds are what the RSPB – originally known as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds – was established to protect.
… it appears to have decided that the “birds” in its name no longer have much relevance to its campaigning causes. In fact it appears increasingly to view their destruction with equanimity.
… the RSPB … made up its mind … that climate change was such an important issue that supporting renewable energy was more important than stopping birds being sliced and diced by gigantic eco-crucifixes … despite copious evidence from around the world of the millions of birds (and bats) killed by turbines each year.
As usual, it’s a case of follow-the-money. As James Delingpole reported, the RSPB “is making hundreds of thousands of pounds from the wind power industry.” Bird-protection mandate and charity status obligations be damned.
The wind industry worldwide is very good at hiding mortality rates, and governments and the mainstream media don’t care for the truth—it would ruin their save-the-planet-from-burning-up-with-green-technology narrative. Wildlife expert Jim Wiegand and other analysts estimated in 2013 that in the United States, the industrial wind turbines annually kill up to 39 million birds and bats, but the wind industry will never admit it.
The wind industry is hiding over 90% of the bird and bat mortality caused by their turbines. This statement is supported by the industry’s own data and reasonable adjustments for its manipulations.
The wind industry is … producing faulty, misleading and even fraudulent documents to hide the serious and growing mortality. This situation has continued for years but has been shielded by state and federal agencies and other supporters of wind power.
As the bird and bat mortality reports are slowly uncovered, the numbers just seem to get worse and worse. I never imagined it could get this low, but then again nobody was releasing this info to the public, so how were we to know?
As she implies, real news like this is hardly ever published in the mainstream media and certainly not advertised by bird protection organizations such as Bird Studies Canada. Not surprising when you consider that Bird Studies Canada partners with the Canadian Wind Energy Association, Environment Canada and Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources to maintain the Wind Energy Bird & Bat Monitoring Database and produce the Wind Energy Bird and Bat Monitoring Database Summary of the Findings from Post-construction Monitoring Reports, dated July 2016.
Of course, the Canadian Wind Energy Association, Environment Canada and Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources all have a vested interest in NOT broadcasting how many birds and bats the wind industry kills every year. That would be bad for the subsidy-sucking, taxpayer-gouging wind business, and really bad for public acceptance of government greenie, ”sustainable,” “alternative energy,“ “tackling climate change,” “decarbonizing,” “reducing carbon pollution,” “changing behaviour,” “economy and environment go together,” “saving the planet” policies.
It is therefore astonishing and laudable that the Wind Energy Bird and Bat Monitoring Database Summary concludes that there are serious problems with respect to the scientific validity of the bird and bat mortality estimates:
The mortality estimates presented here potentially underestimate true mortality as they are based solely on carcasses that fell within 50 m of the turbine base.
…the proportion of carcasses expected to fall outside of 50 m [estimated] to be up to 51.8% of birds, based on 4 studies that searched a radius up to 85 m.
For 80 m turbines, carcasses were expected to fall to a maximum distance of 156 m. These findings indicate that the mortality estimates presented here may underestimate true mortality…
The numbers in the FOI reports that Esther obtained, while shocking, are probably just the tip of the iceberg. And just imagine the numbers world-wide!
And for what are millions of birds and bats being sacrificed, with hardly a peep of protest to be heard from the many (co-opted) bird protection organizations around the world? It would be bad enough if their deaths were collateral damage for a greater good, but the terrible fact is that they are being slaughtered for nothing except a morally corrupt ideology—the massive scientific deception of manmade climate change, where the industrial wind abominations supposedly are a remedy for what is actually a non-existent problem.
The killer wind machines, these fake-green, bird-and-bat-slaughtering, taxpayer-robbing, corporate-welfare, crony-capitalist monstrosities, will never meet our energy needs, will never have any redeeming value whatsoever—not for the environment, not for the economy, not for our quality of life.
The biggest Fake News of the last 30 years: Manmade global warming
A sign in Queen’s Park, just steps away from the Ontario Legislative Building, proves the gargantuan fakery of manmade climate change. It reads in part:
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF QUEEN’S PARK
15,000 years ago, all of Ontario was covered by glacial ice measuring up to 1.5 km thick. Lake Iroquois formed when these glaciers receded…This glacial lake eventually receded to the level of Lake Ontario.
Climate changed naturally throughout the eons. Always has, always will.
The biggest lie central to the Fake Climate News narrative, devoid of scientific-method-derived empirical evidence, is that carbon dioxide, CO2, is responsible for manmade climate change, the cause of catastrophic extreme weather events that in reality have occurred only inside rigged climate computer models. None have been borne out by real-world observations and empirical evidence.
Carbon dioxide, the life-giving, invisible, odorless trace gas plant food, has been deliberately demonized and vilified as “carbon pollution,” “carbon emissions,” “GHG emissions,” where a deadly “carbon footprint” is every human’s original sin and which, according to the eco-freak pundits unchallenged on the “climate change” propagandist state broadcaster CBC, has “people dying by the hand of carbon emitters.“
Fake Climate News is the pretext for the draconian control-and-command “mitigation measures” of the Liberals’ fraudulent-green energy policies, enabled by anti-democratic and anti-human legislation such as the Green Energy Act in Ontario.
As JoNova writes:
The religious mission against plant fertilizer in the hope of holding back the tide by half a millimeter in 2100 is noxious, damaging, dangerous in so many ways. It deprives the poor of cheap energy, good jobs, and warm houses.
The evil climate fakery has spawned a massive, corrupt, $1.5 trillion worldwide climate change industry. In Ontario, the Liberals’ phoney-green energy policies have caused punishing electricity costs and plunged citizens into gut-wrenching energy poverty. Unmoved, the Ontario Liberals continue to oppress and impoverish Ontarians with their useless, destructive, pernicious industrial wind energy fiasco. To make matters worse, the Liberals have imposed what is effectively a callous, irresponsible carbon tax (on thin air) which itself is subject to a further Harmonized Sales Tax (HST)!
Just how useless and wasteful industrial wind turbines are is detailed in a December 2016 report submitted by Strategic Policy Economics (Strapolec) in response to the Ontario Ministry of Energy’s formal review of its Long-Term Energy Plan (LTEP). It provides a shocking analysis.
For the report, Strapolec developed a simulation to show how “supply options could interact to supply the anticipated demand.”
Key assumptions and findings with respect to industrial wind turbines (emphasis added):
Page 9:
- …intermittent solar and wind generation…sources require significant backup/storage and entail other integration costs.
Page 13:
- …wind generation…results in a surplus electricity.
Page 14:
- Wind generation production will be intermittent.
- Wind in Ontario tends to arise at similar and coincidental times across the province.
- Wind is deemed surplus to the hydro or nuclear generation.
- Imports are called upon to meet the winter ramp if there is insufficient wind production.
- …wind may be able to “fill in” with the future imports, but does not integrate well with baseload hydro or nuclear.
- This intermittency results in over 40% of the wind generation becoming surplus generation…
Page 20:
- The significant increase in wind capacity in the OPO [Ontario Planning Outlook] is questionable on three counts:
- Wind generation has not matched demand since its introduction in Ontario;
- Over 70% of wind generation does not benefit Ontario’s supply capability: and,
- Wind generation will not match demand in the OPO future projections as 50% of the forecasted production is expected to be surplus.
- Figure 16 compares wind generation patterns to Ontario demand for the period of 2013 to 2015. Over this three-year period, wind generation has increased in the spring and fall when Ontario doesn’t need the supply, and is at its lowest when Ontario needs it most in summer. Peaking in the fall, wind generation does not contribute to its full supply capacity throughout the higher winter demand period. Wind cannot be matched to demand. With the forecasted winter-heavy demand profile, the contrast between wind generation and demand in winter will become as stark as those in the summer.
Page 21:
- This mismatch leads to surplus energy.
- When wind generation is present in Ontario, it causes three distinct reactions of similar magnitude in the dispatch of Ontario’s supply resources:
- Curtailment (waste) of both nuclear and hydro;
- Export of wind generated electricity at prices well below cost of production; and
- Reduction of natural gas-fired generation.
Page 22:
- Total useful wind energy therefore represents 4.3 TWh, or 47%, of the wind generation in Ontario. Over 50% of wind generation in Ontario is not productively used by Ontarians. It could be viewed as being wasted through curtailments and/or via uneconomic exports to neighbouring jurisdictions.
- …historical surplus wind generation is reflected in the production forecast in the OPO D1 and D3 options. These results indicate that 40% to 55% of the planned wind capacity in the OPO may be surplus. This is a very important consideration given that the LTEP focuses on the lowest possible cost future. If wind generation can only be productively used 50% of the time, then its unit cost doubles to $172/MWh from the $86/MWh assumed in the OPO. This suggests that wind generation is the most expensive generation option for Ontario, not including the Tx related costs and other integration issues described in the OPO. Wind and imports represent the two most expensive options in the OPO, yet these options are given significant weight in the OPO. The LTEP process should address this contradiction.
Page 42:
- The limitations related to wind generation’s contribution to Ontario’s clean supply mix were discussed earlier in this report.
Page 56:
- …it can be argued that given the natural flow of…wind patterns, as described in Section 3.0, demand does not match these supply resources, and requires either large reservoirs or backup facilities to function.
Page 57:
- The wind and solar costs in the OPO are deceiving, as outlined earlier. The full cost associated with wind’s variable production profile is $172/MhW…
Page 58:
- Opposition to wind projects has been evident in Ontario and other jurisdictions. Specific concerns have been expressed about human health impacts, nuisance effects related to noise and the visual presence of the wind turbines on the landscape, bird deaths and disturbance to the habitat of rare fauna and flora.
- Research is underway in several jurisdictions e.g., Germany and Sweden related to the decommissioning, recycling and disposal of wind turbines and the associated infrastructure.
- No clear accountability and or funding arrangements are evident in Ontario to manage the decommissioning, recycling and disposal of components of existing and or planned wind projects.
The Strapolec report, damning as it is of the non-efficacy of industrial wind turbines, is predicated on the fiction that
the urgency to combat climate change is now fully acknowledged by all key actors. To reverse the impacts of global warming, deep decarbonization of the global economy is now a priority for government action. Electrification across all economic sectors is considered a critical enabler for transitioning Ontario to a low carbon energy future. The LTEP’s role is to provide for the energy infrastructure that will facilitate this transition.
The report provides an awful lot of technical analysis and deep thinking about how to craft an energy mix that will effectively “fight” what is actually a non-existent problem of manmade climate change. However, it is very valuable with respect to pointing out that the industrial wind turbine industry, as one of the climate industry’s fake-green energy “alternatives,” is utterly useless, actually damaging, economically speaking, not to mention destructive in every conceivable way for humans, communities, the land, and wildlife—birds and bats catastrophically so.
In December 2016, Ontario’s auditor general, Bonnie Lysyk revealed that
ratepayers forked out $37 billion more than necessary from 2006 to 2014 and will spend an additional $133 billion by 2032 due to global adjustment electricity fees on hydro bills.
Meanwhile, the provincial and federal Liberals, instead of addressing real environmental issues, kowtow to the UN-led massive scientific deception, by now a quasi religion, and stupidly, wilfully continue tilting at a deliberately concocted non-existent climate problem, betraying, oppressing, and impoverishing the people they are mandated to serve and protect.
Kafkaesque: Lawless loophole lets wind company endanger human lives
Another Kafkaesque industrial wind turbine nightmare in Ontario. A regional airport (Collingwood), with an aerodrome close by (Stayner), and eight 500’ (152 metres) air-space-invading industrial wind turbines (wpd Canada’s Fairview Wind Project) to be wedged between both airfields, posing grave danger to pilots and their passengers—and the whole thing approved by the Ontario Liberal government.
What could possibly go wrong when pilots, flying visually without instrumentation (as is the case in over 90% of the flights at these two airports), have to negotiate a safe take-off or landing through a blur of Georgian Bay fog, or lake-effects snow, and an indiscernible phalanx of gigantic 50-storey-tall white windmills?
All eight of the planned wind turbines will “penetrate” the safe arrival and departure airspace mandated by Transport Canada standards.
The Collingwood-Stayner airspace is a no-man’s-land of regulation, a lawless vacuum with respect to wind turbine installations. Ontario’s Green Energy Act deliberately has no safety provision for wind turbine setbacks near airports. All eight of the planned wind turbines will “penetrate” the safe arrival and departure airspace mandated by Transport Canada standards, as prescribed by the International Civil Aviation Organization.
If the turbines are built, and they thereby are found to create an unsafe situation, Transport Canada could shut the airports down.
However, here is the kicker. Transport Canada has no jurisdiction over where wind turbines are located with respect to the air space of registered, uncertified airports such as the Collingwood Regional Airport and the Clearview Aerodrome in Stayner. But, when the turbines are built, and they thereby are found to create an unsafe situation, Transport Canada could shut the airports down. The airports, not the wind turbines!
In this case, there is a dangerous jurisdictional vacuum. Neither Transport Canada, nor the Ontario government, nor the local governments, which the Liberals’ Green Energy Act stripped of their planning powers, have any legal say over the aeronautically-safe siting of wind turbines at registered, uncertified airports.
Wind companies—often foreign-owned—pretty well get to do whatever they want.
Such is the looney landscape of Ontario’s sickly “green” wind energy program that wind companies—often foreign-owned—pretty well get to do whatever they want, aided, abetted, enabled, financially rewarded, and legally defended by the Ontario Liberals’ Green Energy Act and their kangaroo court of (hopeless) appeal, the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT). Only two of the scores of wind turbine project appeals to the ERT have had partial success, with final outcomes still pending.
wpd Canada’s Fairview Wind Project between the Collingwood-Stayner airports is being appealed, with an ERT hearing scheduled for May 16, 2016 in Collingwood. What are the chances that the safety-minded appellants will prevail? The onus is on them to prove “serious harm” to human health. You’d think that this would be a no-brainer, logical, obvious. But the narrow terms of reference by which the ERT operates and the unfair burden of proof heaped on the appellants usually spell defeat.
For a mind-blowing overview of this particular Kafkaesque situation involving wind turbine approvals and appeals, watch the 30-minute media event held at Queen’s Park on April 21, 2016 (starting at 3:09). At the press conference, Simcoe-Grey MPP Jim Wilson, Kevin Elwood (the pilot owner of the Clearview Aerodrome), and Charles Magwood, area property owner, outlined chilling facts about the lawless loophole that could endanger the lives of pilots and their passengers, and potentially close down an economically vital airport and aerodrome for good.
The trio also discuss possible graft and corruption in this case: wpd Canada’s payments made to the Liberal party, followed immediately by government approvals for wpd Canada’s project, and wpd Canada’s creation of a shell company with no assets in order to evade liability for accidents and de-commissioning of wind turbines.
In Ontario: lawless loopholes, callous, criminal disregard for human health and safety, apparent bribes for wind project approvals, calculated liability evasion, democracy-robbing legislation—all for economically useless, environmentally-destructive, subsidy-sucking industrial wind turbines, ugly symbols of a bankrupt, immoral, dishonest, fake planetary climate emergency.
September 2017:
February 2018:
The same goes for Kevin and Gail Elwood, John Wiggins, and the residents’ group Preserve Clearview, after the Environmental Review Tribunal dismissed an application for costs related to their appeal of a decision to grant WPD a renewable energy application for the Fairview Wind Project.
Kafkaesque: Opposing an industrial wind turbine project in Ontario
(Scroll down for updates)
Take a look at what happens when Ontarians try to oppose an industrial wind turbine project.
Laws, regulations, and processes seem to have eliminated every conceivable obstacle for the mad rush of the (economically useless, environmentally destructive) wind industrialization of rural Ontario. At the same time they effectively, undemocratically block wind project opponents at every turn. The Ontario Green Energy Act (GEA) and its quasi-judicial complaints department, the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) pitch opponents headlong into a Kafkaesque nightmare.
An example:
- The government gives the Proponent permission to undertake an industrial wind turbine construction project, which includes granting a special environmental permit that allows the Proponent to kill, harm, and harass a Victim or two.
- Locals launch an appeal on the grounds that the project would, amongst other troublesome consequences, cause serious and irreversible harm to the Victims.
- The appeal is heard by a Tribunal, which issues a very rare decision favouring the Victims, finding that the Proponent’s project will indeed cause serious and irreversible harm to two classes of Victims.
- The Tribunal orders a further hearing to consider the Proponent’s proposed mitigations of this serious and irreversible harm.
- In the meantime, however, the Proponent is legally entitled (and signals the intention) to go ahead and begin the project site pre-construction work, and in the process kill, harm, and harass Victims, without first having to table mitigation plans at the next Tribunal hearing (see 4 above).
- Lawyers for the Victims file a motion to have the Tribunal issue a stay of the Proponent’s pre-construction on-site activity associated with the special permit to kill, harm, and harass.
- The Tribunal dismisses the Victims’ motion, with reasons for its decision to be given at a later time.
- Lawyers for the Victims then appeal to a Divisional Court with a motion for a stay.
- The Divisional Court also dismisses the appeal because the Victims’ lawyers, through no fault of their own, are unable to establish specific grounds for said appeal, given that they are in the dark about the reasons for the Tribunal’s dismissal of the motion (see 7 above).
- The Victims’ lawyers are entitled to renew their Divisional Court motion (see 8 above), if and when they ever receive the reasons for the Tribunal’s dismissal decision (see 7 above).
- Meanwhile, the circle is complete, with the Proponent apparently free to go ahead and kill, harm, and harass the Victims, even though there is to be a future Tribunal hearing (see 4 above) at which the Proponent is supposed to make proposals for mitigating the killing, harming, and harassing that probably will already have taken place by then.
That is the saga thus far with respect to the battle between the Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County and the wind energy company wpd Canada Corporation.
The ERT appears to be nothing more than a Kafkaesque-Potemkin-kangaroo-emperor-with-no-clothes court.
The GEA and its companion, the ERT have allowed wind energy companies, eager to cash in on the Ontario Liberal government’s 20-year-guaranteed, above-market returns, to ride roughshod over democratic rights of people and municipalities. The kleptocratic subsidy scheme is footed by the taxpayers, and consumers’ electricity charges triple as a result.
Wind project opponents are spending inordinate amounts of time and money to fight a losing battle, the contest rigged from the start. For wind project opponents, the ERT appears to be nothing more than a Kafkaesque-Potemkin-kangaroo-emperor-with-no-clothes court.
The ERT gives people the illusion of offering democratic equality and justice before the law. In reality, it forces them to accept the industrialization of rural Ontario against their will, while depleting their wallets and spirit.
What’s at play here is just one aspect of the insidious implementation of the UN’s one-world-government Agenda 21, a blueprint for an anti-prosperity, anti-democratic sustainable development and wealth transfer movement. It uses the cudgel of the massive scientific deception of manmade climate change to clobber and guilt people into phony-green-energy submission. It has them running in circles, looking in vain for democracy and laws to protect their rights.
UPDATES
APRIL 4, 2016 – Wind developer wpd Canada Corporation indeed started clearing trees in preparation for wind turbine construction, despite the fact that the entire project was under appeal.
This work began in areas known to be habitat for the endangered Blandings Turtle; the power developer is continuing even though there are reports that milder weather has resulted in the turtles emerging early from their winter hibernation, and are at great risk.
Vegetation cleared in Prince Edward County Blanding’s Turtle wetland area, while the White Pines project was and still is under appeal. [Photo: APPEC]
…Sylvia Davis, lawyer for the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, cited a ruling from over fifty years ago that only a panel of three judges could hear an appeal of this nature.
It became clear at that point that the motion would not be heard until after the legal matter of whether this was properly before the court had been dealt with, with a potentially unfavourable decision.
Rather than spend considerable time and money on legal wrangling the decision was made to withdraw our motion for a stay on all physical activity at the White Pines project site. The motion was withdrawn on consent of all parties and without costs.
We will immediately be going to the Tribunal to once again request a stay.
APRIL 8, 2016 – And then, mirabile dictu, the ERT granted a temporary stay!
Late this afternoon the Environmental Review Tribunal granted a temporary stay of WPD’s Renewable Energy Approval (REA). As a result of the stay all construction work at the project site has been brought to a halt. The Tribunal will schedule a written hearing at a later date to decide on the merits of a more permanent stay.
Ontario’s Premier Wynne throws Clearview Township under the wind turbine bus
The Ontario Ministry of the Environment (oh, and Climate Change) has just approved another industrial wind turbine factory, this time in Simcoe County, near the Collingwood Regional Airport, no less.
Once again Ontario Premier Wynne et alia have abrogated and sacrificed the democratic rights of municipalities and others on the UN’s altar of a non-existent global climate emergency and its misbegotten manmade climate change ideology: “…permission to construct the Fairview Wind Project would effectively eliminate any chance of the proposed $300 million dollar expansion proposed by the Clearview Aviation Business Park.” It won’t be “Fairview,” but rather “Unfair-Obstructed View” for pilots and their passengers.
The invasive, forced proliferation of useless and destructive industrial wind turbines continues apace, despite a shocking indictment of Wynne’s fiscal recklessness in the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario Annual Report 2015 (page 214):
Expensive wind and solar energy—We calculate that electricity consumers have had to pay $9.2 billion…more for renewables over the 20-year contract terms under the Ministry’s current guaranteed-price renewable program than they would have paid under the previous program…We found that the prices under Ontario’s guaranteed-price renewable program were…double the market price for wind and three and a half times the market price for solar energy in 2014.
For the uninitiated, here are two excellent films on the corrosive, toxic effects of the wind industry on the rural people and communities forced to live amongst the subsidy-exploiting, ineffectual, dangerous, towering monster machines:
– Watch Down Wind: “…the explosive documentary that examines Ontario’s controversial rush into industrial wind farm development.”
– Watch Big Wind: “…explores the conflict over the controversial development of industrial wind turbines in Ontario.”
Industrial wind turbines: the scourge of Ontario’s economy, farmland, and people
People living in the Ontario’s large urban centres may not realize to what extent the Liberals, by means of undemocratic fiat, have imposed massive, invasive industrialization on rural Ontario. In many cases it has happened against the will of communities and people.
The Liberals’ Green Energy Act and its companion, the Environmental Review Tribunal—a toothless kangaroo court for any person or organization NOT a wind energy proponent—rob municipalities and property owners of their rights and any fair chance to prevent wind companies, mostly foreign-owned, from riding roughshod over their land and property values, wildlife and environmental protections, and human and livestock health concerns, never mind from visually polluting and despoiling the natural beauty of the Ontario landscape.
To make matters worse, none of the Liberals’ totalitarian-like “green” “renewable” energy push has made any economic sense, as was again confirmed by the Auditor General of Ontario Annual Report 2015, and in fact would appear to be willful appropriation and squandering of taxpayer money and the deliberate imposition of astronomical electricity costs to consumers and business:
Expensive wind and solar energy—We calculate that electricity consumers have had to pay $9.2 billion…more for renewables over the 20-year contract terms under the Ministry’s current guaranteed-price renewable program than they would have paid under the previous program…We found that the prices under Ontario’s guaranteed-price renewable program were…double the market price for wind and three and a half times the market price for solar energy in 2014.
Watch this video—industrial wind turbines in southwestern Ontario, near Shelburne—and weep.
Health Canada—in spite of itself!—finds a significantly harmful relationship between human health and wind turbine noise
“The Scream” by Edvard Munch
See UPDATE further below.
From Health Canada’s November 6, 2014 news release of its $2.1 million Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study:
…the study did demonstrate a relationship between increasing levels of wind turbine noise and annoyance towards several features (including noise, vibration, shadow flicker, and the aircraft warning lights on top of the turbines) associated with wind turbines.
“Annoyance,” as a criterion within the context of a health study, is a recognized, significant health hazard:
A WHO epidemiology study assessed noise annoyance and documented significantly elevated relative risks exist both in the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, and the musculoskeletal system as well as by depression. The study concluded that for chronically strong annoyance a causal chain exists between the three steps [of] health – strong annoyance – increased morbidity. Other symptoms associated with annoyance from various noise sources include: stress, sleep disturbance, headaches, difficulty concentrating, irritability, fatigue, dizziness or vertigo, tinnitus, anxiety, heart ailments, and palpitation. Chronic severe annoyance induced by noise must be classified as a serious human health risk.
The Health Canada report is only a summary:
A more detailed presentation of the results will be submitted for publication in scientific journals. Results should only be considered final following peer-review and publication in the scientific literature.
The finding of “a relationship between increasing levels of wind turbine noise and annoyance” should have been big, game-changing news and raised serious alarm bells in Ontario, where the Wynne Liberal government is intent on continuing to destroy farmland, rural communities, families, livelihoods, quality of life, wildlife, the environment, beautiful landscapes, and property values with thousands more of the useless industrial monsters, against the will of most of the people and the communities affected, and to the despair of urbanites knowledgeable about the subject. But no—the finding of annoyance, an important health indicator which has an established “causal chain” of “health – strong annoyance – morbidity,” did not make the headlines and was barely mentioned in most media reports, or was dismissed in the “colloquial” sense of the word “annoyance.” Instead, most of the mainstream media dutifully reported a contradictory finding of wind turbine noise (WTN) and human health, which in Health Canada’s summary was detailed first and was helpfully highlighted in a box so as not to be missed:
The following were not found to be associated with WTN exposure:
- self-reported sleep (e.g., general disturbance, use of sleep medication, diagnosed sleep disorders);
- self-reported illnesses (e.g., dizziness, tinnitus, prevalence of frequent migraines and headaches) and chronic health conditions (e.g., heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes); and
- self-reported perceived stress and quality of life.
But further along in the summary, Health Canada does admit that:
- WTN annoyance was found to be statistically related to several self-reported health effects including, but not limited to, blood pressure, migraines, tinnitus, dizziness, scores on the PSQI, and perceived stress.
- WTN annoyance was found to be statistically related to measured hair cortisol, systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
Health Canada then qualifies these statistically significant findings of both self-reported health effects and objective, measured health indices with statements about how the same things were observed for road traffic annoyance, that the conditions may have pre-dated industrial wind turbine installations, and that community annoyance activities could play a role over and above WTN. Of course!
Health Canada’s study has been heavily criticized on a variety of aspects having to do with its design, methodology, and its unseemly hasty conclusions that favour the wind energy sector’s efforts to convince us that industrial wind turbines are safe and do not adversely affect human health. Find out how and why Health Canada’s Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study is deeply flawed:
- Denise Wolfe: Review of the Health Canada Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study
- Epidemiologist Joan Morris offers her thoughts on the Health Canada’s wind turbine and noise health study.
- Prof disputes wind turbine report
- Jane Wilson, President of Wind Concerns Ontario, describes her disappointment with the Health Canada report on the health effects of wind turbines.
- Dr. Robert McMurtry, the founding director of Wind Concerns Ontario, comments on the Health Canada Study of industrial wind turbines.
- Turbine health impact
UPDATE
- Get a sense of the extreme intrusion, disruption, and health havoc inflicted on rural people from the gut-wrenching video below of life amidst an industrial wind turbine plant in Ontario.
- Read Lawrence Solomon’s article, Ill winds blow from wind turbines, in the Financial Post.
- Read Wind Concerns Ontario’s expert analysis of the Health Canada study: Health Canada Study A Missed Opportunity To Find The Truth
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