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Energy and CO2 emissions for one wind turbine is disturbing

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Wind Turbine Installation Cashton

Image: The base of a wind turbine – tonnes of iron ore, cement processing, and land destruction.

This very impressive research and analysis on the energy requirements and the CO2 emissions for one wind energy capturing device (wind turbine) should be sobering, and disturbing – just the rebar and concrete used for the base of a 2.5 megawatt structure! This, on top of enormous and ongoing land destruction for so-called wind farms. (And even “small” turbines do not return their energy or dollar investment during their entire life cycle, as reported elsewhere).

Though it would be elegant if wind and solar energy capturing devices could actually maintain a modicum of the wonderfully rich lifestyles many of us live, this is a delusional dream (“greenwashing”) that centers on perpetuating the industrial culture that got us into the mess we’re in. BAU (business as usual) is not sustainable or “green” nor really desirable for the future of the earth or even our species. The picture of the rebar base says it all – and the charts expose all the industrial profiteering and fossil-fuel exploitation involved.

Deep Green Resistance is opposed to ALL industry. We have faced the fact that A: there is no “clean” fossil-fuel derivative (which so-called solar, wind, hydrothermal, and nuclear are) and B: we are out of time, the biosphere is in its death throes. Industry needs to stop, and humans need to change the way we live with the earth.

If you are new to this subject, don’t worry – many DGR Members also had bright hopes for some “no-impact high-tech ecotopia” some years back. Check out our FAQs on so-called “Green” Tech.

Six Myths About Climate Change that Liberals Rarely Question

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Erik Lindberg of Transition Milwaukee recently posted a good deconstruction of several common “progressive” fallacies around climate change. Climate change is a systemic problem created by our high consumption way of life, and can’t be solved while maintaining that way of life. Liberals and progressives often blame Republicans or conservatives for getting in the way of solutions, but the solutions on the table are ridiculously inadequate to address the issue and constitute another form of denial.

Unfortunately, Myth 6: “There is Nothing I Can Do” only discusses personal reduction in consumption, not the organized resistance necessary to stop the destructive system of industrial civilization. For a much more thorough treatment of “what I can do”, read the Deep Green Resistance strategy of Decisive Ecological Warfare. Otherwise, though, this is an excellent analysis.

The upshot of the previous sections is that the comforts, luxuries, privileges, and pleasures that we tell ourselves are necessary for a happy or satisfying life are the most significant cause of global warming and that unless we quickly learn to organize our lives around another set of pleasures and satisfactions, it is extremely unlikely that our children or grandchildren will inherit a livable planet. Because we are falsely reassured by liberal leaders that we can fight climate change without any inconvenience, it bears repeating this seldom spoken truth. In order to adequately address climate change, people in rich industrial nations will have to reduce current levels of consumption to levels few are prepared to consider. This truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

Global warming is not complicated: it is caused mainly by burning fossil fuels; fossil fuels are burned in the greatest quantity by wealthy people and nations and for the products they buy and use. The larger the reach of a middle-class global society, the more carbon emissions there have been. While conservatives deny the science of global warming, liberals deny the only real solution to preventing its most horrific consequences—using less and powering down, perhaps starting with the global leaders in style and taste (as well as emissions), the American middle-class. In the meantime we continue to pump more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere with each passing year.

Read Lindberg’s full post: Six Myths About Climate Change that Liberals Rarely Question

Commentary: Climate Change Isn’t Fictional

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from http://www.postcrescent.com/

Time running out on our ability to preserve a livable world.

Is it just me, or has it been a little warm around here lately? Or warmer earlier? The early and unusually mild spring here in Wisconsin may be nature’s way of reminding us that the clock is ticking on climate change and we need to take action before it’s too late.

While stationed in Kangerlussuac, Greenland, 50 years ago, I noted my airbase was 4 miles west of the Russell Glacier grinding down from the ice cap. Looking at today’s satellite images, this glacier has retreated to the east toward the ice cap, easily noted from the satellite. The retreat averages 1,000 feet per year, producing a torrent of melt water that flows down the fjord and to the sea.

Glacial retreat is one indicator that global warming is taking its toll. Today, in more populated areas of the earth, disappearing glaciers are responsible for drought, loss of irrigation water and less drinking water. As much as 54 cubic miles of ice disappear each year in Antarctica, 24 cubic miles per year in Greenland. As this ice melts, ocean levels rise and coastal regions flood.

Centuries of rising CO2 levels and other greenhouse gases have raised the Earth thermostat. Irish scientist John Tyndall discovered CO2’s threat as a heat trapping greenhouse gas in the mid-19th century. In the 1950s, Dr. Charles Keeling began meticulous measurement of atmospheric CO2 levels at Mt. Muana Loa Observatory in Hawaii. Keeling and his son, Ralph, documented the steady buildup of CO2, which stood at 315 parts per million (ppm) worldwide when they started and is now 392 ppm.

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