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CMAJ on PMRA, November 2023 |
EV as empty vessel in car sewers, Eric Reguly, Globe & Mail, May 20, 2023 |
Comic Piccini opera, Redux, Ontario auditor general Env Report, Globe & Mail, May 18, 2023 |
Venal or Venial? letter to Globe, May 16, 2023 |
"Cry me a river over a few bats", Redux, Globe & Mail, May 12,2023 |
Greenbelt "Scam": Barbarian Ford invasions, Globe & Mail, May 12, 2023 |
Barbarian Ford invasions case: City of Belleville Bell Creek dvlpt, Intelligencer, April 25, 2023 |
Road building projects in Wales, UK, cancelled as climate clangers, the Guardian, Feb 14, 2023 |
Unpublshed letter to Globe, 1996 opioids revisited, February 6, 2023 |
Cathal Kelly on climate charade, Globe & Mail, January 27, 2023 |
Ontario Bill 23, letter to the Premier, and Todd Smith MPP, Nov 24, 2022 |
Canola conundrum, letter to Globe & Mail, October 2022 |
3rd (Canadian) arm of U.S. Air Pollution Health Effects Study, the Guardian, Aug 12, 2022 |
Atomic awe and Boris blight, letter to Globe, July 11, 2022 |
Your !!*^%! car, Part II, Globe and Mail editorial, July 16, 2022 |
Your !!*^%! car, Part I, Globe and Mail, June 20, 2022 |
CAPE report on fossil fuels, Globe and Mail, June 9, 2022 |
Traffic Air Pollution Health Effects report, CAPE, April 2022 |
EU Bans Toxics, the Guardian, April 2022 |
Comic Piccini opera: Ontario Auditor General Environment Report, November 2021 |
......RIP Trillium...... November 16, 2021 |
Covid-19 Parlour Sessions 2020/2021, April 1, 2021 |
Mitch Podoluk, Obituary, Globe and Mail, September 2019 |
Notice to (Big Bay) Mariners, August 2019 |
Air Head, Globe and Mail, August 2019 |
Leon Redbone, RIP, June 2019 |
Ontario Endangered Species Act at risk, letter to Rod Phillips, April 2019 |
Slide to Extinction, Chris Humphrey, letter to Globe, October 31, 2018 |
Peter Galbraith, FRCP, obituary, October 2017 |
White Pines on Death Bed, Bruce Bell, Intelligencer, July 17,2018 |
Thucydides Trap, letter to Globe, May 2018 |
Great Lakes toxics down, SUNY Oswego/Clarkson U, April 2018 |
Machine subversion of democracy, letter to Globe, April 2018 |
Air Pollution overrides Ancestral Genes, Globe, March 2018 |
Olympian Cathal Kelly, letter to Globe, March 2018 |
Environmentalists seeking unemployment, letter to Globe, February 2018 |
Less is more on Bike Lanes, National Post, January 2018 |
Tramadol, 10 years on, Globe and Mail, November 2017 |
White Stripes: Belleville bicycle lanes, letters, November 2017 |
Occupational Cancers, CCO research results, Globe and Mail, October 2017 |
Big Pharmoney and Canadian Drug Use Guidelines, Globe and Mail, June 21, 2017, Kelly Grant |
Oxycontin, 20 years on, letter to Globe, May 2017 |
Lake Ontario wind turbines to remain on hold? Feb 2017 |
Obituary, Raold Serebrin, September 2016 |
Sartorial slip or signal? letter to Globe editor, October 2016 |
Weapons of mass distraction, letter to Globe editor, Oct 2016 |
Point O turbines 99% Down the Drain, CCSAGE, July 7, 2016 |
Point O turbines Dead and Damned, PECFN, July 6, 2016 |
Rabid diplomat, letter to Globe, May, 2016 |
More on bats: rabid rocker? letter to Globe, January 2016 |
Lighthouses of eastern Lake Ontario, new book by Marc Seguin, March 2016 |
Continuing corporate windpower malfeasance: Windstream and Trillium Corp, Feb 2016 |
Amherst Island: the next fine mess, Feb 2016 |
Valerie Langer: Thirty years of effort pays off on the B.C. coast, Feb 1,2016 |
Trillium log, 6th annual ELO expedtion, September 2015 |
Trillium Wind Corp intent on Spoliation of eastern Lake Ontario and Main Duck Isle, June 2015 |
Turtles rule? Ontario Court of Appeal Decision: Turtlegate, April 2015 |
Obituaries, Mary Terrance (Luke) Hill, January 2015; Valerie Ingrid (Hill) Kaldes, July 2015 |
Ontario Court of Appeal turtle hearing, December 2014 |
Trillium Log, 5th annual ELO expedition, September 2014 |
Planetary public health manifesto, The Lancet, March 2014 |
Ostrander Bioblitz, butterfly inventory walk, August 10, 2014 |
Victory at Cape Vincent: British Petroleum withdraws turbine proposal, February 2014 |
Stay of execution granted by Ontario Court of Appeal, March 2014 |
Never say die: Will the Court of Appeal let the Ostrander Phoenix fly free again? March 2014 |
Divisional Court ruling in Ostrander: turtles belly up, Trojan horses win, February 2014 |
Lafarge 2020, pushing the air envelope again, Hazardous waste as cement kiln fuel proposal, Jan2014 |
Another fine mess in Port Hope: municipal waste incinerator proposal, January 2014 |
Ostrander: fiasco, or snafu? you decide, December 2013 |
Ostrander rises again, Noli illegitimi carborundum, December 2013 |
British Petroleum backing off Cape Vincent after a decade of aggression? December 2013 |
Turbines best Bald Eagles in U.S law, December 2013 |
SARStock 10 years after, letter to Globe, August 2003 |
Trillium log September 2013: Surfin' USA: Hanging Ten in a Hughes 29 |
ERT Post mortem: Garth Manning lets it all hang out, August 2013 |
ERT post mortem: Cheryl Anderson lets it all hang out, August 2013 |
ERT Post Mortem: Ian Dubin lets it all hang out, August 2013 |
Great Lakes United turns thirty, goes down, RIP GLU, July 29, 2013 |
ERT decision, Ostrander turns turtle, goes down, July 3, 2013 |
PECFN Thankyou, and Appeal for funds, July 6, 2013 |
Minister of Env on Lake Ontario Off shore wind turbine status, June 2013 |
Lake Ontario water level control plan, June 2013 |
Play by Play, Part II, APPEC Ostrander ERT Appeal, June 2013 |
Ostrander ERT June 2013, Appendix VI, an indirect cause of human morbidity and mortality ? |
ELOERG Presentation to Ostrander ERT, Part II, Human Health, May 2013 |
The Dirty E-Word, Terry Sprague, Picton Gazette, April 2013 |
Toxics in Great Lakes Plastic Pollution, April 2013 |
Bill Evans on Birds and Wind farms, April 2013 |
Mayday, Naval Marine Archive, April 2013 |
Experimental Lakes Area, Kenora, Closing by Federal Gov't, March 2013 |
Fishing Lease Phase out on Prince Edward Point, March 2013 |
Windstream makes $1/2 Billion NAFTA claim, March 2013 |
Play by Play, PECFN Ostrander ERT Appeal, March 2013 |
Offshore Wind turbine moratorium 2 years later, The Star, Feb 2013 |
ELOERG ERT submission on Ostrander: Appendix V: Pushing the Envelope of the MoE SEV, Feb 2013 |
Wente on Wind and Bald Eagle mugging, Globe and Mail, February 2, 2013 |
Sprague on Wind and Bald Eagle mugging, Picton Gazette, Jan 25, 2013 |
Cry Me a River over a Few Bats: Submission to Env Review Tribunal, ELOERG, January 2013 |
Lake Ontario's Troubled Waters: U of Michigan GLEAM, January 2013 |
Letter to Minister of Environment re: Ostrander, January 2013 |
No Balm in Gilead: Ostrander IWT's as Trojan Horses, January 2013 |
Ostrander Turbines: another Christmas gift by the MoE, Dec 2012 |
Occupational carcinogens: Ontario Blue Collar breast cancer study, November 2012 |
Fresh water fish Extinctions, Scientific American,November 2012 |
Great Lakes Toxics revisited, November 2012 |
Frack the What ? November 2012 |
$ 2 1/4 Billion Trillium Power lawsuit knockback Appeal, November 2012 |
Canada Centre for Inland Waters decimated, October 2012 |
Birds, Bats, Turbines, and the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, October 2012 |
Ecological public health, the 21st centurys big idea? British MedicalJournal Sept1,2012 |
Trillium log, Sept 2012 |
George Prevost, Saviour of the Canadas, 1812 - 1814. June 2012 |
The Victory at Picton: Bicentennial Conference on War of 1812-1814, Differing Perspectives, May 2012 |
Carleton Island and the 1812, letter to the Globe, October 2011 |
Queen's Fine Arts Department Succumbs, letter to Principal, December 2011 |
Mr. Kumar and the Super 30, November 2011 |
Letters, Articles and Projects from the Nineties |
Alban Goddard Hill, web site manager |
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MCGUINTY'S LEGACY IS A GREEN NIGHTMARE
by Margaret Wente, Globe and Mail, February 2, 2013
On the morning of Jan. 5, workers with a fleet of heavy equipment mounted a stealth assault on a bald eagle’s nest
near the shore of Lake Erie. Their mission was to remove the nest – one of only a few dozen bald eagle nests in Southern
Ontario – to make way for an access road to the site of a new industrial wind turbine. As a pair of eagles looked on
from a nearby tree, the workers sawed off the limb with the giant nest and took it away to parts unknown.
Ontario’s environmental regulations would usually make this illegal. But the wind company, NextEra Energy, one of
the biggest operators in the province, had obtained special dispensation.
Wind power is supposed to be environmentally friendly. But a lot of environmentalists don’t think so. “People
couldn’t believe it happened,” says Scott Petrie, a waterfowl ecologist and executive director of Long Point Waterfowl,
a conservation group. “Cutting down bald eagle nests flies in the face of anything you would call green energy.”
Wind turbines have invaded many of Ontario’s most scenic and ecologically rich areas. They’re invading coastal
wetlands and spreading along major migratory flyways – up the Bruce Peninsula, west to Lake Huron, south to Lake Erie,
and east to Prince Edward County, where environmental groups are fighting a major wind development in Ostrander Point, an
important bird area. “We have no idea whatsoever of the cumulative impact of these things,” says Dr. Petrie. Turbines
chew up birds and other flying things, and they disrupt wildlife habitats.
But, in Ontario, nothing is allowed to trump Big Wind. Ontario’s Green Energy Act, the brainchild of outgoing Premier
Dalton McGuinty, gave the green light to rampant wind development. By 2016, the goal is to more than double the amount of
wind power being generated now.
Wind companies are not owned and operated by idealistic entrepreneurs. They are run by some of Canada’s, and the
world’s, biggest corporations, including pipeline and pulp and paper companies. Wind contracts are flipped like other
financial instruments. NextEra, the outfit that cut down the eagle’s nest, is the largest generator of wind and solar
power in North America. Because of a lucrative U.S. tax break for wind power, the company has paid no U.S. corporate income
tax for several years, despite billions in profits. Big Wind is among the biggest lobbyists in Washington.
Dalton McGuinty’s Green Energy Act was a spectacular policy blunder, based on a string of faulty premises: that coal
emissions were killing us (they weren’t), that we’d soon be running out of fossil fuel (we aren’t, and Ontario
doesn’t use much anyway), and that switching to green energy would help save the planet (not in our lifetime). As the
price of fossil fuels went up and up, the reasoning went, renewables would become more and more competitive. Just one problem:
The price of fossil fuels has plummeted.
In order to promote green energy, governments around the world have handed out billions in the form of subsidies and fixed
long-term contracts. A very generous Ontario became an international magnet for wind and solar companies. The money was guaranteed,
and the approval process was easy.
Today, the wind power generated in Ontario is both expensive and useless. The province actually pays hundreds of millions
of dollars to other jurisdictions to take surplus power off its hands. Energy-intensive companies are leaving because their
hydro bills are too high. And taxpayers are stuck with 20-year contracts that will add billions to their hydro bills (and/or
the provincial deficit). For the record, Ontario’s incoming premier, Kathleen Wynne, is a big fan of these arrangements.
But even a saner government wouldn’t be able to undo them.
Meantime, the wind juggernaut rolls on. “It’s ripping communities apart,” says Heather Sprott, whose
family owns a 300-acre farm near the Niagara Escarpment. Farmers in the area have been offered as much as $20,000 a year for
each turbine they allow on their land, meaning they could reap $60,000 or $80,000 a year by harvesting the wind. “That’s
a lot of money for a farmer,” she says. But she’s not tempted. She loves the views, and worries about potential
health effects.
In Britain, the tide is turning against wind power. The U.K. has 3,000 onshore turbines, with another 6,000 in the works.
Big Wind’s opponents include prominent environmentalists such as James Lovelock, best known for the Gaia theory, which
theorizes that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity. Mr. Lovelock is trying to stop a 20-storey wind turbine planned
for his neighbourhood. In his protest letter, he writes: “We never intended a fundamentalist Green movement that rejected
all energy sources other than renewable, nor did we expect the Greens to cast aside our priceless ecological heritage because
of their failure to understand that the needs of the Earth are not separable from human needs. We need to take care that the
spinning windmills do not become like the statues on Easter Island, monuments of a failed civilization.”
Every premier wants to leave a legacy, and Mr. McGuinty has left his – giant wind turbines stretching as far as the
eye can see. And a pair of bald eagles searching for their lost nest.
Comment: (unidentified reader)
My daughter took this video of the "take-down." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtF6TUYfj8c
...and
a week later she asked NextEra, "Why?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtF6TUYfj8c
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Enter supporting content here
Eastern Lake Ontario Environmental Research Group
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