{"id":26140,"date":"2013-06-17T19:51:12","date_gmt":"2013-06-17T23:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/static\/?p=26140"},"modified":"2013-06-18T12:14:18","modified_gmt":"2013-06-18T16:14:18","slug":"wind-energy-companies-bully-threaten-and-intimidate-those-who-oppose-this-monumental-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/2013\/wind-energy-companies-bully-threaten-and-intimidate-those-who-oppose-this-monumental-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Wind energy companies bully, threaten, and intimidate those who oppose this monumental fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
.<\/span> Since 2007, household electricity prices in Australia have risen by more than 40 per cent and by next year are projected to rise by around about 30 per cent. \u00a0If this bothers you then the place you should be today is Canberra, joining the people’s revolution against what Alby Schultz MP says is the “biggest government-sponsored fraud in the history of our country.”<\/p>\n Schultz was speaking to parliament about Big Wind, an industry so rife with “intimidation, manipulation, lies and cover-up” he believes there’s enough evidence “to justify a royal commission.” \u00a0So how come, you may be wondering, so many of us have been kept in the dark for so long?<\/p>\n The short answer seems to be that money buys both silence and public ignorance. For just one large-scale wind turbine, a developer can make nearly $500,000 in taxpayer subsidies called Renewable Energy Certificates. \u00a0Under current government carbon emissions reduction plans, some $50 billion of these RECs are to be issued, every cent of them funnelled out of your pocket and into the (often offshore) bank account of your friendly neighbourhood Big Wind outfit. \u00a0Meanwhile your energy bills (part of which, by government mandate, must come from “renewables”) skyrocket.<\/p>\n With all this free loot, Big Wind has more than enough money to hide its secrets. \u00a0It does so in three main ways: first by hiring silver-tongued lobbyists; second with lavish propaganda campaigns ranging from brainwashing programs at schools to misleading claims on their websites about all the wonderful benefits wind farms supposedly bring; third by being able to afford the world’s most expensive lawyers.<\/p>\n I got a taste of what I saw as this legal bullying the last time I wrote about wind farms in The Australian. \u00a0A stiff, threatening letter swiftly came winging its way from a high-end Sydney law firm, followed by a complaint to the Press Council. \u00a0This complaint was upheld, even though my facts were correct and the supposedly “offensive” phrase came not from me but from a sheep farmer understandably incensed that his little patch of NSW paradise was about to become a Golgotha of bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco crucifixes.<\/p>\n But I got off quite lightly. \u00a0Around the world, anyone who dares to take on Big Wind may endure a campaign of smears and character assassination. \u00a0It’s bad enough in Australia—just ask Sarah Laurie<\/a>—but even worse in Canada, where a young environmentalist called Esther Wrightman<\/a> is being sued by a $32bn wind developer called NextEra energy. \u00a0Why? \u00a0For creating a website in which she protested against the ugly, noisy 120m-high turbines NextEra planned to erect in her part of Ontario.<\/p>\n At this point some of you may be thinking: \u00a0“Oh come on. There’s got to be another side to this.” \u00a0And I would concede that on the surface the case for wind looks quite compelling: \u00a0it’s “free”; it’s carbon-neutral; it’s eco-friendly; it boosts the economy.<\/p>\n Except when you examine the details you realise that none of these claims stands up.<\/p>\n Being intermittent, unreliable, unpredictable and enormously expensive, wind is a very poor substitute for the cheap fossil fuel in which Australia abounds. \u00a0It doesn’t create real jobs just heavily subsidised Potemkin jobs. \u00a0(In Britain every wind industry job costs the taxpayer pound stg. 100,000 a year in subsidies.) \u00a0And that’s before you get on to the terrible health problems that can be caused by the low-frequency noise of those giant whupping blades; and the devastation they cause wildlife, especially bats and birds of prey. \u00a0Tony Abbott’s business adviser Maurice Newman calls wind farms “an obscene wealth transfer from poor to rich” and a “crime against the people” and wants the renewables target scrapped.<\/p>\n He’s dead right, but if anyone has the guts to do it they’re going to face a lot of entrenched resistance from the pollies and big business alike.<\/p>\n The ALP, as I’ve written here before, is heavily involved, not least because of the vast sums of industry super-fund money that have been pumped into it. \u00a0And if you think Big Wind’s crony capitalists are going to give up without a fight, you clearly don’t know the kind of people you’ll be dealing with.<\/p>\n God, I wish I could be there at the barricades with the protesters in Canberra today! \u00a0If ever a cause was worth fighting for, this is the one.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" . How Big Wind blows away its opponents . —James Delingpole, The Australian (6\/18\/13) Since 2007, household electricity prices in Australia have risen by more than 40 per cent and by next year are projected to rise by around about 30 per cent. \u00a0If this bothers you then the place you should be today is Canberra, joining the people’s revolution against what Alby Schultz MP says is the “biggest government-sponsored fraud in the history of our country.” Schultz was speaking to parliament about Big Wind, an industry so rife with “intimidation, manipulation, lies and cover-up” he believes there’s enough evidence “to justify a royal commission.” \u00a0So how come, you may be wondering, so many of us have been kept in the dark for so long? The short answer seems to be that money buys both silence and public ignorance. For just one large-scale wind turbine, a developer can make nearly $500,000 in taxpayer subsidies called Renewable Energy Certificates. \u00a0Under current government carbon emissions reduction plans, some $50 billion of these RECs are to be issued, every cent of them funnelled out of your pocket and into the (often offshore) bank account of your friendly neighbourhood Big Wind outfit. \u00a0Meanwhile your energy bills (part of which, by government mandate, must come from “renewables”) skyrocket. With all this free loot, Big Wind has more than enough money to hide its secrets. \u00a0It does so in three main ways: first by hiring silver-tongued lobbyists; second with lavish propaganda campaigns ranging from brainwashing programs at schools to misleading claims on their websites about all the wonderful benefits wind farms supposedly bring; third by being able to afford the world’s most expensive lawyers. I got a taste of what I saw as this legal bullying the last time I wrote about wind farms in TheRead More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[171,157,167,16,170,173],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n—James Delingpole, The Australian<\/a> (6\/18\/13)<\/p>\n