Free Republic

A few weeks ago, 42-year-old Jared Bossly ventured out into his farm to plant alfalfa. Bossly’s farm in Brown County, South Dakota has been owned by his family for four generations. They grow corn, beans, and alfalfa in addition to raising cattle. They also plant trees all over the property as a windbreak to protect the herd. Bossley has put his entire life into his work, and has passed those values along to his children. He and his 17-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son work on the farm daily to do the right things for the land. Every spare penny the...

History of the U.S., Europe, the U.K. and its former dominions — repeatedly shows that environmental protection is a luxury good. When per-capita income reaches some threshold, the citizenry tire of opaque air and sleazy waters, various agencies and permanent bureaucracies sprout, and, as long as times are good, regulation is good. Our friends in the U.K. and Europe are especially green. Just hop off the plane in London and pick up the papers. Global warming is everywhere, and, for decades, the religion’s been that carbon dioxide reductions are fine, virtuous, and they’re going to make everyone rich. I have...

Former President Bill Clinton said Tuesday that the success of the alternative energy movement is hampered by a lack of financing. His comments came as world leaders attending his annual philanthropic conference expressed fears about rising seas. The ex-president's three-day Clinton Global Initiative for VIPs with deep pockets began Tuesday with a frank discussion about addressing global climate challenges, co-hosted by Mexican President Felipe Calderon and South African President Jacob Zuma.

In December of 1966, Lynn White, Jr. (1907-1987) delivered a controversial speech in Washington, D.C. entitled "The historical roots of our ecological crisis." White charged that Christianity "bears a huge burden of guilt" in helping to foster the present-day "out of control" degradation of the environment. White singled out Western Christianity as being primarily responsible for the wedding between science and technology that has left a devastating ecological scar on the modern landscape ...

These pointless monstrosities will continue to proliferate until the Government sees sense. Three separate news items on the same day last week reflected three different aspects of what is fast becoming a full-scale disaster bearing down on Britain. The first item was a picture in The Daily Telegraph showing two little children forlornly holding a banner reading “E.On Hands Off Winwick”. This concerned a battle to prevent a tiny Northamptonshire village from being dwarfed by seven 410-foot wind turbines, each higher than Salisbury Cathedral, to be built nearby by a giant German-owned electricity firm. The 40 residents, it was reported,...

<p>This calls for a $243,000, three-year study, of course.</p> <p>Iowa State University researchers are checking to see whether birds are dying in collisions with the wind turbines that are popping up in the Iowa countryside like prairie grass. Bats and birds, even golden eagles, have died after colliding with wind turbines across the West and Midwest.</p>

Bankrupt Europe has a lesson for Congress about wind power. Wiwo...wiwo...wiwo.   The sound floats on the winds of Ka Le, this southernmost tip of Hawaii's Big Island, where Polynesian colonists first landed some 1,500 years ago. Some say that Ka Le is haunted -- and it is. But it's haunted not by Hawaii's legendary night marchers. The mysterious sounds are "Na leo o Kamaoa"-- the disembodied voices of 37 skeletal wind turbines abandoned to rust on the hundred-acre site of the former Kamaoa Wind Farm. The voices of Kamaoa cry out their warning as a new batch of colonists, having...

Inconvenient Truth: Wind Energy Has Killed More Americans Than Nuclear By Lachlan Markay Created 03/17/2011 - 1:43pm By Lachlan Markay | March 17, 2011 | 13:43 There has been quite a bit of hysteria among some major media outlets in the past few days regarding the potential dangers of nuclear power. Some have even suggested that the benefits of nuclear energy do not outweigh its potential dangers to human life. The dangers of nuclear power, while serious, need to be put in perspective. To that end, here's an interesting fact you won't be hearing from the mainstream press: wind energy...

A solar energy company that intends to file bankruptcy received $535 million in backing from the federal government and has a cozy history with Democrats and the Obama administration, campaign finance records show. Shareholders and executives of Solyndra, a green energy company producing solar panels, fundraised for and donated to the Obama administration to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser, a key Obama backer who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for the president’s election campaign, is one of Solyndra’s primary investors. Kaiser himself donated $53,500 to Obama’s 2008 election campaign, split between the DSCC...

Mark Duchamp writes in with this news from the Lerida, Autonomous Community (state) of Catalonia, Spain:A judge ordered the removal of 45 wind turbines on the grounds that planning laws were violated. There was no “general municipal plan” establishing a “reserva del suelo” – i.e. the land was not legally declared appropriate for the erection of wind turbines.The wind farm in the Serra del Tallat, located between Passanant i Belltall (Conca de Barbera) and Vallbona de les Monges (Urgell) ACN / Núria Torres Spanish Version:http://www.lavanguardia.com/medio-ambiente/20110517/54155159411/un-juez-de-lerida-ordena-desmantelar-un-parque-eolico-de-45-molinos.html English Version: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lavanguardia.com%2Fmedio-ambiente%2F20110517%2F54155159411%2Fun-juez-de-lerida-ordena-desmantelar-un-parque-eolico-de-45-molinos.html According to another article going back to January 22nd, Spanish architects from...

General Electric, the U.S.-based industrial giant and leading manufacturer of wind-power turbines, is scaling back efforts to expand its presence in the offshore wind power market. The rationale: there is no meaningful offshore wind market to speak of – at least not yet. Given slower-than-expected industry growth, the offshore market may not mature as rapidly as many wind boosters once believed.

The Mojave Desert—last seen on our virtual pages when the SpaceShipTwo was unveiled—has leapt into the news again today, thanks to Senator Dianne Feinstein's legislation which will stop 13 solar plants and wind turbines from moving in. It'll certainly be a hindrance to California's plans of generating a third of their electricity from the renewable energy made from the million acres that had been slated for the eco-friendly wind-traps. Feinstein's reason for blocking the move is due to the national monuments which were promised to the area a decade ago, the land having been donated by an environmental group. Sure,...

In the salons of the coastal elites, it is a given wisdom that renewable energy sources are “the answer” - the answer to perceived climate change, the answer to our foreign oil dependency, the answer to how to feel good about yourself…the Answer. In Washington, politicians can’t throw tax breaks at people and businesses fast enough, prodding them to install all manner of solar, wind, and geothermal devices. Indeed, these energy sources are seductive. The wind blows, it’s free. Harnessing it, while not free, is certainly clean. Good stuff. The sun shines on us, why not use it? And so...