Scotland has exceeded the target they set for last year of 30 percent electricity from renewables. (for comparison, Iowa gets about 20 to 25 percent of its electricity from wind, Texas almost 10 percent)
What Koch fueled WindBaggers and climate deniers scream is “impossible” in this country, is already being done elsewhere around the world. By 2020, the sturdy, sensible Scots expect to gather 100 percent of their electricity from renewables with a large portion coming from wind energy –
In this interview from Robert Llewellyn’s terrific “Fully Charged” series, we find out that, in Scotland, the more people see of wind power, the more they like it. In that regard, they are a lot like Iowans, more than 80 percent of whom favor expansion of wind energy.
Freeing themselves from the bonds of limited, expensive, dirty fossil fuels, and the economic and political control of greedy Koch Brothers and Coal Barons is also one of the great benefits that the Scots see in renewable energy. This, of course, is a nightmare scenario for WindBaggers. They seek to make the United States a fracked, blasted, strip mined, pipelined, polluted and pulverized energy extraction colony for the fossil fuel few.
But pushing back against the tyranny of the powerful is in the blood for Scots – and since that’s my heritage, it does my heart good to see that defiant tradition carried forward into the technological age.
Scotsman newspaper headline: “Wind farm targets may be hit by no-go zones”
http://tinyurl.com/d95lpwm
Select text:
“If you want to limit onshore wind it is going to make it very difficult to achieve the Scottish Government’s target of 100 per cent renewables by 2020. The two things are more or less in direct contention. I think these proposed planning restrictions do put in doubt the ability to reach that target.
So they might miss the target a little. Big deal. A lot better than US anyway
One comment from a viewer on that top video on youtube goes like this:
“I went to look up why wind turbines are spaced they way they are, and Google’s top queries for wind turbines are why they are bad, and why wind farms are bad. Disturbing.”
My reply was like this:
“Yes its because the anti-science and anti-AGW groups like Koch funded Marshall Institute and denier sites are using classic spam like methods for getting high on e.g. Google searches. You have the same with e.g. images for “global temperatures” and you get a ton of denier site graphs with manipulated data and false conclusions (even pasted on the images themselves). Its a well executed mis-information campaign. Read e.g. “Merchants of Doubt” by Naomi Oreskes to see the people behind this.”
But I have been very disturbed by the same thing. Often when I search on any global warming related thing or even “global temperatures” I get just crapload of these WUWT nonsense page hits as well as stuff by this Dr Roy Spencer denier. I have been actively trying to figure out how we can get e.g. Google to take a stand on how they rate pages for searches, perhaps asking if they have an opinion on AGW and their position in giving out all these search hits for denier sites. In my eyes the denier sites use probably the same tricks as the classic spam sites with cross linking and fake sites just to get high results. The information war is clearly visible everywhere with the Mashall Insitute and later Koch Brothers wanting to buy big newspapers. Perhaps its possible to start a petition or some kind of movement on the web to get Google to look into this so that the world isnt constantly bombarded by the ignorance from the denier blogs?
Other than that I am very thankful for the blog (and excellent videos) you run here to counter all the nonsense we get from the other side. I am just amazed at how rooted they are in the fossil industry and that any change is bad. Even if you dont believe AGW there is still so much we can do on the planet for a better energy future – so there is a very odd stance they have taken in opposition. Its also frightening to see the shift that a whole part of the science has suddenly become a “leftist” thing – and the utterly stupid socialism = communism kind of comments that they throw around.
Its important that we also fight this propaganda machine they have started, which is exactly the same we witnessed with relation to health dangers related to smoking.
Google has a big investment stake in one of the solar companies: SunRun or SolarCity – I forgot which one.
That being said, they make tons of cash of Google Ads and such, so they’re position is probably to side with whichever websites are turning over the most consumers from click-through ads (i.e. popular websites, in terms of number of visits)…
Scotland’s Wind power
And . . . unlike gas oil and coal, Wind is renewable, perpetual, eternal power – yes, it really does last forever. So does anaerobic humanure/manure digestion which gives methane gas – stores in standard propane bottles, for a very very long time without degrading. These energy forms do not present in the amounts or at the rates required for the American dream, V-8 SUV, lifestyles at all. Only Oil and nuclear can do that. my question: Is the American dream lifestyle, born of the 20th Century Golden Age, which was supported by the Cheap Oil Era, absolutely necessary for human happiness?
Must See Video on this page – a new perspective on energy here.
electricity does not equal happiness, but certainly civilization as we know it depends on electricity. The last 30 years have shown that electrical consumption is now decoupled from economic growth.
I hope Trump ain’t reading this, cos it looks like he just got himself Trumped!
If you had a hairpiece like his, you’d hate wind, too.