To the editor: Is industrial renewable energy really ‘green?’
The Chester Telegraph | May 18, 2020 | Comments 3
A few weeks ago I sent the following email regarding the recently released documentary Planet of the Humans to our state representatives and senators. I sent a similar email to our congressional delegation: Rep. Peter Welch, and Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders. Not one of those seven politicians who represent Windham-3, Windham County and the state of Vermont has replied. Sen. Leahy’s office sent an acknowledgement of receipt of my message.
Surely the issues that are raised in the documentary about the efficacy of renewable energy are worthy of a full and open debate, especially since Vermont’s Climate Caucus has indicated that it will proceed apace on the policy measures of the Global Warming Solutions Act. At a time when the state along with the rest of the country and most of the nations on Earth are battling the challenges of getting people back to work and reigniting slowed economies, Vermont’s Climate Caucus plans to push its “green” agenda. If many members of the state’s legislature are prepared to prioritize climate issues over the immediately pressing economic issues facing us, surely we should be having a full discussion about how feasible and effective renewable energy sources are.
Citizens of Vermont, have the discussion, please. And to my representatives, at all levels, please engage the issues raised by Planet of the Humans. You owe the people of this state and this nation no less.
Respectfully,
Anna Vesely Pilette
Grafton
Greetings Senators Balint and White, and Representatives Partridge and Tully,
As you are aware, a number of communities in our little state of Vermont have wrestled with industrial scale renewable energy projects. In the process of researching the potential impacts of these projects many of us have learned that industrial wind, solar and biomass industries are in fact perpetrating a scam in which they enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers and residents who have these projects inflicted on their neighborhoods. And all this scallywaggery for “renewables” that are, in fact, neither green nor renewable.
I urge you to watch Michael Moore’s documentary Planet of the Humans which illuminates well the deception of renewable energy industries and their supporters. The link to the film is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
I also urge you to not extend any tax breaks or subsidies to renewable energy industries including solar, wind, and biomass. The time is long past that these industries should stand in the market on their own — if they can. Please be wary of legislation that claims to contribute to Vermont’s “green-ness.” The measures the “green” legislation calls for rest on faulty assumptions and downright falsehoods. Please be wary of the many “renewable” energy proponents who dominate your committee meetings. They represent their own self-interest or that of those who pay them. Please protect the people of this state, not particular business and institutional interests that claim to be green and defenders of the environment when, in fact, they are neither green and nor do they defend the environment.
Vermont is the Green Mountain State, green because of its forests, pastures, fields, wetlands, and meadows; not because it’s a good place for renewable energy companies to make greenbacks, and not because it’s being hoodwinked into a false “green” while being destroyed by renewable energy industries and their supporters in federal and state government.
I wish you and yours good health and safety through this pandemic.
Respectfully yours,
Anna Vesely Pilette
Grafton, Vermont
Filed Under: Commentary • Letters to the Editor
I’m really glad to see those numbers for wind power. Thanks for sharing them.
Also from Forbes magazine, in 2016, American oil companies alone received over $21 Billion in federal and local subsidies. This does not include any of the cost in tax dollars or lost lives due to the need for our military to provide security to cover the foreign extraction and transportation of oil. Nor does it factor a single dollar to the ongoing damage the oil industry perpetrates on our environment through pollution, from source to transportation and through consumption of the product. The true costs to us with those included, while difficult to calculate, are vastly more than the tax subsidies alone
Extrapolating just the $21 Billion over a nine year period, as you’ve done for wind, works out to nearly 200 BILLION before any defense or environmental costs are added. This money is all going to a mature and highly profitable industry which should not need it and… there are no sunset provisions on oil subsidies as there are on renewables.
Yes, it’s time for a Green New Deal.
In a recent article in “Forbes Magazine” Robert Bryce reported that “between 2020 and 2029, according to projections from the Treasury Department, thanks to the PTC, [Production Tax Credit] the wind industry will collect another $33.7 billion. The subsidies being given to the wind industry are larger than any other energy-related tax treatment.” I repeat, “The subsidies being given to the wind industry are larger than any other energy-related tax treatment.”
Since it’s clear that we need to: a) Transform our energy production away from fossil fuels and nuclear power has repeatedly proven to be unsafe and, b) We must create good paying, local and regional jobs in order to help drive the recovery of our economy, some form of Green New Deal is precisely what’s needed now. That cannot happen without government support and since we live under a capitalist system, it won’t happen unless those investing in these projects can realize a profit on their investments.
I wonder how the writer feels about the billions of taxpayer dollars that go to oil and gas companies each year to subsidize those highly profitable industries.