Big Wind: Threat to Air Navigation, Military Assets (Part III)
By Lisa Linowes -- February 16, 2017“By 2008, nearly 40 percent of U.S. long-range radar systems were already compromised by wind turbines. Today, with more than three-times the wind capacity installed, the problem of radar interference persists.”
“Proper siting of turbines, while politically cumbersome, is the only tried and true form of mitigation. But this means denying wind developers access to land areas covered by radar.”
[Editor Note: This essay, the third in a series aimed at correcting the most harmful wind energy-related policies of the Obama era, examines how pro-wind federal law enacted in 2011 compromised U.S. aviation safety.]
U.S. air space has been made less safe and our national security compromised because of a reckless policy of siting wind towers within 30–40 miles of radar installations. By 2008, nearly 40 percent of U.S.…
Continue ReadingWhy Trump Should Not Fund an Oroville Dam Fix
By Wayne Lusvardi -- February 15, 2017… Continue Reading“And yet, the federal government – not to mention the states – has invested shockingly little on such (flood repair) projects in recent years, spending about as much on flood recovery as prevention. Trump has vowed to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure, but it’s unclear if levees and dams will be included. Even in California, the center of “the resistance” (to Trump), we need help and cooperation from the federal government. It’s not about petty politics or about Trump’s twisted vision of loyalty, assuming he even honors it. It’s about saving lives.”
– Erika Smith (editorial writer), “There the Threat of Oroville Dam – Then There’s Trump,” Sacramento Bee, February 12, 2017.
“California passed a $7.545 billion Proposition 1 Water Bond in 2015 that includes $395,000,000 for “flood management.”
For Still-Poor China, Coal Pollution from Home Heating
By Greg Rehmke -- February 14, 2017Rapid industrialization spilled pollution across China’s cities, rivers, and skies. Market-reforms in the 1980s opened first agriculture and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) like Shenzhen to local enterprise and overseas investors. Market reforms and factories then expanded across China, bringing prosperity but also pollution from mining and manufacturing. Through the first decades of reform, pollution seemed far less important than jobs when wage rates even in 1990 yielded an average income per person (GNI) of just $330 a year. By 2000, average income had nearly tripled but was still just $940 a year, and by 2015, average income was nearly eight times higher than that–$7,930.
Hundreds of millions migrated from rural China to new assembly plants and textile mills. An estimated 200 million migrant workers still form the “floating population” of informal labor.…
Continue Reading