“Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once stated that ‘The right to swing my fist end’s where the other fellow’s nose begins’. If the State of Ohio deems wind development a worthy prospect, then– at bare minimum — Ohio’s rural residents should first give consent and then receive compensation for the ‘bloodied noses’ from the loss of amenity pervasive wind development brings.”
“By creating siting guidelines that protect private property rights at the property line rather than forcibly donating unleased property to utility scale wind developers, each landowner can determine for themselves what their loss of amenity is worth to them…. Wind developers claim that such reasonable regulations raise the cost of wind energy. So be it.”
My name is Kevon Martis. I am the Executive Director of the Interstate Informed Citizens’ Coalition (IICC) of Blissfield MI.…
Continue Reading“This decision not only protects the Blanding’s turtle but also the staging area for millions of migrating birds and bats and the Monarch butterflies.” – Cheryl Anderson, PECFN
In an unprecedented decision, Ontario’s Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) ruled against the nine-turbine Ostrander Point project sited for a prime sensitive and environmentally rich area. Cheryl Anderson, the lead appellant on behalf of Prince Edward County’s Field Naturalists (PECFN), stated:
… Continue ReadingThe Tribunal in the Ostrander Point ERT hearing has found that “the remedies proposed by Ostrander [Gilead] and the Director are not appropriate in the unique circumstances of this case. The Tribunal finds that the appropriate remedy under s.145.2.1 (4) is to revoke (emphasis, Ms. Anderson) the Director’s decision to issue the REA [Renewable energy Approval]”.
The Tribunal decision says that no matter how important renewable energy is to our future it does not automatically override the public interest in protecting against other environmental harm such as the habitat of species at risk.
“Understanding government failure in the quest to address market failure could result in an optimal government policy of doing nothing in the face of a postulated negative externality from business-as-usual. But an activist policy expanding economic freedom in order to improve adaptation to climate change, natural or anthropogenic, qualifies as climate policy change too.”
Richard Mueller of the University of California at Berkeley is an important voice in the polarized climate-change debate. At the Huffington Post in mid-April, the physicist and philosopher posted “The Classifications of Climate Change Thinkers” with six categories (schools?) of thought.
His useful categories shortchange the political economy side where the scientist or citizen or politician must assess government failure along side market failure before deciding that the government should “do something,” as in pricing carbon dioxide or enacting a slew of surrogate regulation.…
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