By Heather Boa, Huron News Now

Options on how Huron County’s land use planning document can be changed to give the Municipality of Central Huron greater control on renewable energy development on its agricultural land are being drafted for presentation to council next week.

Once council settles on an option, its lawyer, Valerie M’Garry, a private practice lawyer from Delaware, Ont., will prepare a list of issues that will be dealt with in the legal appeal of Huron County’s land use planning document.

Planner Allan Ramsey, of Allan Ramsey Planning Associates, told Central Huron’s committee of the whole this week that options include: prescriptive wording in the county’s official plan related to the development of renewable energy facilities, or extracting policies on renewable energy from the county’s official plan and inserting them into the local official plans of the nine lower-tier municipalities, which would be able to develop their own…

By Shelley Miller-Cameron Blackburn News

The ‘Not A Willing Host’ for industrial wind turbines stance is now unanimous in Perth County. County Council is throwing its formal support behind the four lower-tier municipalities that have already made that declaration.

Warden Vince Judge applauds the Province’s apparent desire to limit the projects to willing communities.
Judge suggests new projects do not appear to be moving through the process very fast but is concerned the Province is not looking at others very closely.

He is pleased Perth County and its member municipalities have declared themselves ‘Not A Willing Host’ for industrial wind turbines and hopeful the unified message will make a difference. He admits it may have little impact on existing plans including a proposed wind turbine development involving properties in North Perth and neighbouring Perth East.  Read article

The UN’s Climate Secretariat will get free PR advice so it can inspire politicians to take action. But the UN’s own survey says the public ranks climate change last among 16 priorities.

I’ve observed previously that the public relations community plays a disturbing role in the climate change debate.

PR companies specialize in selling us things – ideas as well as tangible products. They’re guns-for-hire. Their job isn’t to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They’re not interested in playing fair. Rather than encouraging debate, nuance, and independent thought, they push simple-minded sound bytes. They’re experts at blanketing the airwaves with a select point-of-view.

The fact that the board of the David Suzuki Foundation is chaired by the president of a PR firm tells us something about the David Suzuki empire.

The announcement, two days ago, that the UN’s Climate Secretariat will receive pro bono

(From EPAW)

With great anxiety many citizens in our country are observing the progressive destruction of the countryside and the cultural-historically grown phenotype in the environs of towns and villages through the constantly increasing number of wind turbines. In addition, there are unacceptable worries for human-beings as well as a heavy depreciation of immovables and a danger to the animal world.

With the exploitation of the wind energy a technology is being promoted which is completely insignificant for the power supply, the preservation of natural resources, and the protection of the climate. The public promotion funds could be far better spent on the increase in efficiency of the power stations, on the economical consumption of power, and on the scientific basic research in the field of energy.

We demand that all direct and indirect subsidies should be withdrawn from the wind energy technology. As we may not any longer pass…

Recently, our paper ran an article discussing wind plants and how wind could provide jobs and keep farmers and ranchers in business. The article completely ignored how much of wind has nothing to do with providing a service but rather the government taking money from some people and giving it to others, by way of subsidies, grants and requirements for utilities to purchase expensive “renewable” energy. I am sure some people will say “But jobs were created.” Yes, they were, like this:

Your neighbor Kevin decides he wants to run a bakery. He knows nothing about baking and has no funds, so he goes to the government to ask for assistance. Since Kevin is only baking sugarless products that are low in calories made with organic ingredients, the government eagerly gives him as much money as he needs.

Kevin buys a building, equipment, and sets out selling healthy bakery products…

STT has been celebrating the fact that – with the Coalition’s win and its promised RET review about to kick-off soon – the chances of any more giant fans being erected in Australia are slimmer than a German supermodel.

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With the threat of any further turbine terror from new wind farms fading fast, we turn our attention to the victims of Australia’s greatest planning and public health disasters.

The nightmare that is AGL’s Macarthur wind farm began operating in October last year – the first 30 fired up then.  All 140 giant 3MW Vestas V112s kicked into gear in about February this year.

Ever since, the locals have been driven absolutely insane with incessant low-frequency noise and infra-sound.

AGL (aka “Australia’s Greatest Liars”) have been running interference in relation to noise problems from the very start.

The incompetent bunch of goons that they hired to do the acoustic work…

(and to National Trust members, come to that)

Britain’s birds are under threat from every side: habitat loss, urban sprawl, agricultural policies, domestic cats, and so on.  So I commend you, as an RSPB member, for your commitment to conserving and supporting bird populations.  Your concern does you credit.  And equally, I commend members of the National Trust for their efforts to preserve our heritage and our wonderful country houses.

I’m sure you’ll be aware of the threat posed to birds by wind turbines, as I am.  But recently, reading Matt Ridley’s wonderful essay on shale gas, I was shocked to read about the scale of the damage that turbines do to birds.  Of course it’s difficult to get accurate figures, but an academic from Oxford, Clive Hambler, has done a study showing that in Spain alone, millions of birds and bats are killed every year by turbines. …