Windpower Propaganda: At A School Near You?
By Sherri Lange -- February 11, 2013“The misconceived greening of children calls for a major grassroots pushback to entirely de-list wind power from curricula. Rip those wind power pages out of textbooks. Or one day soon, tell the truth about industrial wind, NOT story book bucolic tales of wind ‘farms’ or ‘parks’.”
Any parent involved with their children’s homework or school knows that “green” is in. But too often more than that, “green” notions are presented as self-evident truths where there should be critical thinking and discussion. Also too often, federal and state funds are being dispensed to create the ‘greenest’ possible hearts and minds for tomorrow.
Such is the case with an industry that is economically useless and environmentally destructive: industrial wind power.
A website of the U.S. Department of Energy, Wind Powering America, describes how schools can receive taxpayer funding for wind projects. The site provides links to wind-friendly educational materials from Canada, California, Idaho, the Dakotas, Montana, and Arizona.
Alaska is on this list, where the U.S. Coast Guard assisted and provided a wind turbine for Mt Edgecumbe High School. “The options for education are really limitless,” states Kat Keith of the Alaska Center for Energy and Power. “Using wind energy as a hands-on tool, students can learn about physics, math, and other energy applications.”
Yes, the applications are limitless.… And that is a problem.
Classroom Cronyism
Wind companies and their trade groups are also involved. In Ontario, my province, teachers are asked how they feel about corporate logos in schools in exchange for such “benefits” as free computers. The response is often negative, but industrial-wind propaganda abounds in textbooks, learning materials, and kid-friendly websites.
Take a peak at these corporate “green” programs all around you. Here in Canada, there is Lego, and his/her treats, Dad’s Cookies (now Kraft).
Eco Logo products for kids abound. Spin Master, third largest toy manufacturer in the USA and the largest in Canada, now advertises that it uses Bullfrog Power, thus luring young purchasers further into green propaganda.
Is such really social corporate responsibility if consumers pay more for so-called green wind power and unwittingly contribute to economic inefficiency and environmental losses? Form, or substance?
But for now the battle ground to reflect truth, although up and running, is up against some rather large obstacles: Websites abound to provide teachers hungry for materials: One example, www.kidwind.org has wind favorable lesson plans, teacher friendly, and handy information for State “challenges” such as wind turbine design (see Pennsylvania 2013, Harrisburg: Two divisions, 4-8 and grades 9-12).
For a rather frightening look at the infiltration of the industry in our schools, see the lengthy lists of first, second and third tier donors here. Naturally, the big hitters are here: Acciona, NextEra, NYSERDA, IBERDOLA, AWEA (American Wind Energy Association) and yes, the University of Guelph is also a donor. So is Ireland. This is quite the map of infiltration at high levels, with deep pockets. Do kids have a chance?
Curriculum Aids
Rob Bradley in “Teach the Children Well: Six Thinkers for a New Generation,” warns us about dumb-down education that does not awaken students to the real debates and the “conflict of visions” behind them that inspire true understanding and learning.
“World views and critical thinking skills are formed early,” he reminds us. Understanding that kids may well be better equipped to hear messages that their teachers may not be willing or ready or knowledgeable enough to deliver, Kinkaid School (Houston) now has a clearheaded, advertising-free space, www.freekinkaid.org that could easily be a template for other schools. The site is a resource for
- Students to see what they may be missing;
- Parents to learn what is missing to discuss with their children-students (and even teachers);
- Teachers to see what many students, parents, and alumni believe is missing.
This kind of site can obviously do much to enlighten entire teaching communities about propaganda-drenched curriculum in a variety of areas, and introduce new thinking (such as free-market environmentalism and the contributions of Julian Simon).
Pushback Time for Parents, Citizens
The popularization of wind power for children is all part of maintaining the huge appetites of a corrupt parasitical green machine. In the above referenced website (Wind Powering America) the author admits that the programs they espouse are also addressing “opposition to wind” or as they call it “addressing public resistance.”
The misconceived greening of children calls for a major grassroots pushback to entirely de-list wind power from curricula. Rip those wind power pages out of textbooks. Or one day soon, tell the truth about industrial wind, NOT story book bucolic tales of wind “farms” or “parks.”
————————–
The battle has been joined. Public resistance ran especially high last week internationally with news that children as young as five, “political pawns,” were handed wind promo materials to deliver to their parents, in the hopes of spreading optimism and support for a wind project.
Ben Acheson (see Appendix) responded with this terse statement/article that is going viral. The audacity of this particular advertising via rather young children, some five, to deliver a green turbine message to parents was especially egregious.
Appendix: Scotland Example of Wind Propaganda
“There are few words which adequately capture how disgraceful it was of North Ayrshire Council to use young children to try and influence a planning decision which is tied to a politically-sensitive issue. ‘Morally reprehensible’ is the best phrase I can think of.”
Forget School Dinners, Pupils are Now Being Fed Propaganda by Ben Acheson, Energy and Environment Policy Adviser and Parliamentary Assistant to Struan Stevenson, MEP at the European Parliament in Brussels.
NORTH AYRSHIRE [Scotland] Council has been using primary school children to distribute ‘green’, pro-renewables propaganda on behalf of a wind energy developer. What else is there to say? Is there any need to argue that this is unacceptable, downright deplorable behaviour? Surely that one sentence sums up the ethics of wind farm developers.
For anyone who is still ‘on the fence’ about wind power, this astounding news should help to make up their minds once and for all. For the renewable lobby, it is damning evidence that illustrates how developers are nothing more than subsidy-hungry profiteers.
Last weekend, the news broke that primary school pupils from Dalry Primary School and St Palladius Primary School in North Ayrshire had been handed a letter written by Community Windpower Ltd, which encouraged their parents to endorse a planning application for an extension to Millour Hill Wind Farm. The children, some as young as five years old, were given the material as part of North Ayrshire Council’s attempts to distribute material on behalf of the developer.
A turbine in North Ayrshire catches fire in high winds. (Presumably not shown in the developer’s propaganda.)
When asked about the story, North Ayrshire SNP Councillor Tony Gurney, Cabinet Member for Education, Attainment and Achievement, said that the authority sanctioned the distribution of the letter on the basis that “There is no cost to the school in doing this and it encourages the schools to play a more active role in the community.” He added that “We [the Council] are currently reviewing guidance to headteachers to allow distribution of materials which play a role in supporting the local community and encouraging local people to play an active role.”
But even Edward Bernays, Alistair Campbell and Karl Rove together couldn’t spin North Ayrshire Council out of this one. Forget that children were used as political pawns for a second; the simple fact is that a branch of a local authority has chosen to distribute pro-development publicity on behalf of developers, while another branch of the same authority is tasked with scrutinising the same plans. Democracy does not exist in North Ayrshire. It is completely unreasonable to expect local stakeholders and residents to have faith in the local authority’s capacity to deliver objective, evidence-based planning decisions, if the council’s own policies and the preferences of individual councillors allow developers to campaign using school time and resources.
There are few words which adequately capture how disgraceful it was of North Ayrshire Council to use young children to try and influence a planning decision which is tied to a politically-sensitive issue. ‘Morally reprehensible’ is the best phrase I can think of. Even Scottish Renewables said that “We would discourage developers against using such indirect means of contacting adults to support an ongoing planning application.”
The fact that North Ayrshire Council saw fit to spread a political message through primary school children is inexcusable, but the real issue here is the lack of concern by politicians, the media and the general public. Sure, a handful of outspoken politicians voiced their concerns and some media outlets covered the story, notably the Sunday Post and the Daily Telegraph. But just a few days after the story broke, it has almost been forgotten about.
If children in the UK were exploited so blatantly to further any other political cause, there would be a popular uprising. What if countryside organisations had spread pro-fox hunting material in schools? Think of any examples of children being (mis)used for political and propaganda purposes and it is communist and/or fascist movements that spring to mind. Since the First World War, the politicisation and (mis)use of children for political purposes has been one of the defining characteristics of many ethnic wars.
But in Scotland, the majority says nothing because the government has convinced us that we are facing impending doom unless we support the unbridled development of ‘green’ wind power. Catastrophe theories have taken over. Rational and logic has ceased to exist. Climate change is a very real threat which must be properly addressed, but does anyone really believe that a lot of windmills will undo the effects of civilisation and change the climate of a planet that has survived much worse than humans over its 4 billion years?
More importantly, it is time we realised that the word ‘green’, which has wrongly become synonymous with ‘clean’, is nothing more than a shameless political marketing slogan. It reflects personal biases and opinions as much as objective and measurable criteria. The word ‘green; won’t be found in any leading science journals or ecological studies. Nothing is measured by how ‘green’ it is. It is not a technical or scientific word. It is merely used interchangeably with other inoffensive words such as ‘renewable’ and ‘sustainable’ to promote services and products that are supposed to be environmentally friendly. Most ‘green’ initiatives, such as wind farms, are purely money-making schemes for greedy developers; the same developers who are now turning to young children to spread their messages.
Using the schools to indoctrinate children and influence teachers and parents is an old ploy. What is even more striking is how wind has franchised itself, much like the Harry Potter phenomenon, through self promotion, using product placement and embedded, leveraged marketing techniques a la GE/NBC/CNBC. A quick Internet search revealed the following items, under “Wind Marketing:” mugs, t-shirts, boxer shorts, thongs, back packs, lunch boxes, posters, tote bags, hats, aprons, yoga mats, license plate frames, wall clocks, keepsake boxes, greeting cards, buttons, decals, gym bags, desktop wind turbine, Lego?s wind turbines, a Lionel wind turbine cargo car and O gauge wind turbines. And, from our good friends at Greenpeace, there’s the Wind Farm Game. In fact, for nearly every product used to leverage the Potter Syndrome, there is a counterpart for wind.
Some years ago, in response to a science teacher at a tony prep school in Maine, who encouraged his students to write letters to the editor in support of wind to a local paper, I sent the following to the school’s administrators:
“In the interests of effectively parsing such rhetoric and injecting epistemological rigor, here are a few questions that the faculty might consider asking, the answers to which should complement the entire curricular experience as it engages students at the intersection of history, civics, science, mathematics, engineering, and economics.
Although it is possible that such inquiry may, perhaps, spoil the happily-ever-after quality that evidently permeates the curriculum at institutions like Wayneflete, students would be required to actually use the knowledge and skills one hopes they were taught in their individual academic subjects.
* Why did the Dutch stop using their windmills to grind their grain and pump water to reclaim their land from the sea–as soon as the steam engine was invented?
* Why are sailing vessels used almost entirely for recreation today, rather than for commercial purposes?
* Why aren’t gliders and dirigibles providing a substantial percentage of commercial air transport?
* What is the difference between energy and power? What would be the likely consequence if all our gas pumps were wind “powered?”
* What is the percentage of oil used in the production of electricity, nationally and in New England?
* Why must electricity supply be matched to demand at all times?
* What are the implications for wind technology given that any power generated is a function of the cube of the wind speed along a narrow range of wind velocities (that is, a wind turbine doesn’t begin to work until the wind speeds hits 9-mph and maxes out when the wind speeds hit around 34-mph)? Explain how a fluctuating source of energy could, by itself, “power” any city.
* Why has steady, controllable, precision power been the basis of modern life?
* If constructed on a forested mountain ridge, how many acres of woods must be cut to support a 100MW wind project, consisting of 40-2.5MW turbines, each 460-feet tall? Account for the requirement to accommodate the “free flow of the wind” for each turbine, staging areas for construction, access roads, substations, and transmission lines. Also account for the number of miles the wind project would extend downrange, assuming five turbines per mile. Finally, account for the amount of concrete necessary to provide a sturdy base for each turbine.
* Examine four New York wind projects, asking how many permanent jobs were produced, the amount of local taxes and revenues received, and what the promises of such were beforehand?”
It was the perfect squelch….
Well squelched, Jon! I heard recently of a college science prof whose eyes had been wide opened, who introduced his program on energy with the video of the vulture at Crete. Apparently, the room fell very silent. “This is the new green,” he told them. OR as you mention, ask about jobs, and how many of our kids will suffer from that malady. Your reference to Harry Potter type marketing is bang on. And how many courses in media at every level include the dethroning of wind as a classic example of manipulation?
Climate alarmism is also part of the curriculum as covered in this February 6 piece in the Washington Times:
“Teaching climatism in schools: Next generation science standards.”
“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted. ” …… Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich
[…] Windpower Propaganda: At A School Near You? […]
Thanks, Rob. And I found this article from 2011 very revealing, too. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2039797/Global-warming-twisting-childrens-minds.html#axzz2KbxvRgBr
Global Warming and the Twisting of our Children’s Minds.
The Times Atlas of the World, the most prestigious Atlas purportedly, mistakenly printed (with nice maps) that Greenland’s area was being gobbled by rising oceans.
“The new atlas shows the ice in Greenland — the northern hemisphere’s largest ice cap — to be melting so fast that, since 1999, nearly a sixth of it has vanished. An area the size of Britain and Ireland combined, once covered in ice and snow, has now become ‘green and ice free’.” False, completely false. Changes were “negligible.”
Another quote: “One of the most disturbing features of this (Atlas’ misreprentation) is that copies of the new atlas may soon be found in school libraries, where it will be cited by teachers as yet more evidence that climate change is now dramatically changing the world we live in.
With active encouragement from the Government, whole generations of school-children have now had the apocalyptic threat of climate change pushed down their throats — not just in science classes, but in almost any subject you can think of (questions on the need to fight global warming have even cropped up in English GCSE papers).
In geography, the present curriculum no longer concentrates on countries, continents, rivers, mountains or cities. Instead, it insists that pupils should learn about global warming and climate change and the likely effects of rising sea levels.”
AND the comment by David P. at the bottom end of this article speaks volumes:
“The whole thing was a fraud from beginning to end. Governments don’t want a post-mortem on the debate – as far they are concerned it is dead, and hopefully buried. They have what they want- green taxes, carbon taxes, wind taxes, electricity taxes, and raised taxes on everything else because of the high fuel taxes. They have the money to swan around the world and excercise patronage and power via our money.”
The Washington Times cartoon you reference depicts some great Kid Commentary: “And when my Grandmother grows wheels, she’s roll down the street!”
[…] wind makes such economic sense. The fact that subsidies (and, in some places, the indoctrination of children) are required to support wind development tells you just how much economic sense it makes. It is […]
[…] Master Resource […]
Next, the yokels of Maryland will be subjected to a full-blown assault on their pocketbooks by a demagogic, none-too-bright, blowhard Governor O’Malley, aided and abetted by the gullible accessories of Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-11/maryland-ocean-turbines-seen-powering-offshore-energy.html
John Garrett:
As one of the yokels of Maryland, allow me to say that you’re far too generous in your characterization of Mr. O’Malley. His abilities lie somewhere between those of Joe Biden and Charles Ponzi. And his Maryland Energy Administration, whose “mission is to promote affordable, reliable, clean energy,” is one of the nation’s oxymoronic wonders. O’Malley, as he desires, would be a worthy successor to Mr. Obama.
I have seen a number of videos touting wind turbines as quiet. However they don’t indicate what percentage of the maximum rated power output the wind turbine is generating at the time. Without such information the videos are meaningless.
Thank you for sounding the alarm!
This one sided, self serving infiltration of our world education curricula by the wind industry is a base case in propaganda in its purest form. Given the economic implications of driving electricity prices to uncompetitive levels, it is akin indenturing children to unwittingly dig their own economic graves. Shame on the politicians and educators that are too lazy to get the full story, and as such are the drivers of this wind propaganda truck.
With all these blizzards and gale-force winds, our trusty wind farms must be supplying most of the power needed by those freezing people in the northeast, right?
On a related subject:
Solar Panel Makers Fail to Report Waste
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2013/02/12/solar-panel-makers-fail-to-report-waste/
[…] the applications are limitless.… And that is a problem. (To continue reading, click here) Share this:TwitterFacebookEmailPrintLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. Tags: near, […]
More reading on another duped school:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/06/wind-turbine-fail-school-left-holding-the-bag-for-53000/
and….re solar: another green mystery lie:
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/sep/17/faulty-solar-panels-removed-san-diego-schools/
There’s no fool like a green fool!
Yet another way to bamboozle the kids! And in a fire, the fire dept may or may NOT decide to enter the building. No way to turn off the power, and toxic fumes abound.
I can’t help wondering what the effect would have been if the meteor that exploded over Russia had exploded over the Mt. San Gorgonio pass instead.
[…] Propaganda: At A School Near You?18 Feb 2013JonBy slange “The misconceived greening of children calls for a major grassroots pushback to entirely […]
[…] http://www.masterresource.org/2013/02/windpower-propaganda-high-school/#more-23891 […]
[…] Windpower Propaganda — at a School Near You? […]
[…] in place for many turbine related matters and schools. 1. No propaganda for kids! No bribes. http://www.masterresource.org/2013/02/windpower-propaganda-high-school/ 2. No threshold for small turbines on site or near. http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/9238 […]
[…] http://www.masterresource.org “The misconceived greening of children calls for a major grassroots pushback to entirely de-list wind power from curricula. Rip those wind power pages out of textbooks. Or one day soon, tell the truth about industrial wind, NOT story book bucolic tales of wind ‘farms’ or ‘parks’.” […]
I remember the outrage I felt upon discovering that the Girls Scouts had a ‘wind patch’. “Wind Wisdom” is the name of the accompanying manual, which is downloadable. Check out the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association: http://www.nesea.org.
This industry and the governments which shelter it know no bounds and it appears, nothing is sacred. No ONE is sacred, not even our children. Brainwashing, exploitation…you name it, they’re attempting it.
Thanks for this important and illuminating article.
Yes, Karen, and thanks for commenting. Did you see the letter from Superintendent Mulvaney, Armstrong Township, IL? He alludes to kids that can’t concentrate, appear to be having jaw problems, headaches, lack of sleep. Then there are many examples of principals and kids being duped/bribed, with free T-shirts, maybe an improvement to the play yard, etc., in exchange for a turbine or two. You are absolutely right. Total exploitation, “you name it, they’re attempting it.”