Over the past three weeks the “science” of “global warming” received a mortal blow – the coup de grace stunningly symbolized by Al Gore’s abrupt decision to cancel his scheduled Dec. 16 appearance at the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. We should all have some questions for Al Gore, chiefly “why have you not yet been prosecuted for fraud?” But Loudoun County residents and particularly those in Potomac District should also have some questions for Supervisor Andrea McGimsey.
Man-made global warming has now been revealed as a massive fraud, which
never existed except in the minds and hearts of grant-seeking scientists and academics, ratings-obsessed television networks and their misinformed viewers and opportunistic eco-activists.
[For a complete understanding of exactly what happened during the past three weeks, first read this excellent overview of the "ClimateGate" e-mail scandal, and then read this more detailed analysis.]
[To browse the smoking gun e-mail messages from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, click here.]
[For objective reporting and actual scientific analysis of the global warming scam, visit Climate Skeptic, Climate Audit, Canada Free Press, and JunkScience.com.]
The fraud attempted on American taxpayers is a series of stupendous tax increases – both direct and indirect – penalizing use of our major energy sources, all in the name of saving our planet from the effects of supposed man-made global warming. Energy conservation is a valid and worthwhile goal, but the climate alarmists are attempting to ram through unprecedented new “cap and trade” fees for using the only sources of energy that American consumers and businesses currently have access to. This household-budget-crippling and job-killing agenda is being justified via a ginned-up emergency to reduce carbon emissions.
Potomac District Supervisor Andrea McGimsey has been a foremost proponent of the effort to move Loudoun County in a “greener” direction during the past year. As chair of the Board of Supervisors’ energy and environment committee, she has led the effort to develop the County Energy Strategy (CES) which includes a cap and trade provision at the local level. (Click here to review proposed draft energy strategy document.) The Loudoun Independent reported “Despite objections from others, she said, cap and trade will remain in the plan until it is fully vetted.”
Ms. McGimsey is a participant in a Loudoun County “Green Enterprise” discussion group. At the January 2, 2009 meeting, she addressed the group on the topic of “A Climate Prosperity Strategy for Loudoun.”
A source for background information on her talk is listed as Climate Prosperity Alliance, which describes itself as follows:
The Climate Prosperity Alliance, a volunteer, global network of financiers, businesses, economic development authorities, scientists and NGOs is based on earth systems science, showing the widespread evidence of destruction caused by the now-obsolete technologies of the combustion-based Industrial Revolution and its extraction and exploitation of the Earth’s capital: oil, coal, gas, minerals, forests, water, land and biodiversity. Human societies are now gradually re-industrializing our economies using the Earth’s income – the renewable energies of sun, wind, ocean/hydro, geothermal and non-agricultural biomass – based on human capital: new knowledge of planetary processes and ecosystems, designing our economies with Nature.
Leaving aside the questions of whether it is economically or rationally defensible to consider the technologies of the Industrial Revolution “obsolete,” or whether “earth systems science” should be a foundation for public policy, it is worth noting that Ms. McGimsey’s reference to “climate prosperity” in January 2009 was fortuitous.
Because in June 2009 this note in a press release appeared on Reuters regarding the St. Louis, Missouri based Climate Prosperity Project, Inc.:
Andrea McGimsey has been named as Climate Prosperity Project’s Executive Director. McGimsey has an extensive background in environmental and regional planning issues, currently serving on the Loudoun County, Virginia Board of Supervisors, chairing their Energy & Environment Committee. She previously held senior management positions with America Online (AOL), and owns a Virginia-based consulting firm. She is based in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Sterling, Va.
Climate Prosperity Project, Inc. is self-described as “successor” to the Climate Prosperity Alliance, having significant personnel overlap with the earlier group’s principals.
Supervisor McGimsey’s new employer states in its mission
The urgency of the climate challenge calls for greenhouse gas reductions across the United States as soon as possible. Localities and regions control or directly influence many of the policies, laws, personnel, and infrastructure needed to move forward on opportunities from renewable energy to building codes to transportation. People at the local level know how to encourage innovation and economic development.
We look forward to working with our many civic partners in fulfilling the potentials of Climate Prosperity, Inc.
We can assume that Climate Prosperity Project, Inc. is not seeking to do business in Loudoun County, and that if it did Ms. McGimsey would recuse herself from any discussion or votes on the matter. Conflict of interest is not the issue.
But it is fair to ask the obvious question of whether running a Missouri-based organization has any effect on Ms. McGimsey’s ability to represent the residents of the Potomac District of Loudoun County. She became a Loudoun supervisor in January and was announced as taking the job with the Missouri-based company in June: How has she performed on our Board of Supervisors? Is she plugged in here, or is she a nominal “resident” whose main livelihood is halfway across the country?
A further and probably more important question to ask is whether the now-discredited climate alarmist ideology regarding “greenhouse gases” that seems to underly the Climate Prosperity Project is part of Supervisor McGimsey’s plan for Loudoun County’s taxpayers. Are we going to see massive new expenses for electricity, services and fuel because our county government is rushing blindly to save the Earth from a man-made warming trend that has no basis in reality?
With the current economic situation in our country we need to be very careful about measures that would make it more difficult for people to get by and for businesses to grow. Government-sponsored financial penalties on our struggles to live day-to-day life should be ruled out of order, immediately and with no further discussion. When we’re all fat and sassy and the revenues are streaming in we can discuss fine tuning.
Anyone who would disagree with the above must be either incredibly wealthy, totally unfeeling and obtuse toward the common citizenry, or living in another jurisdiction – like St. Louis – and not giving a fig about those of us who live in Loudoun County.
Following is some background information you might find of interest.
Loudoun County received a grant of $2 million from the U.S. government as part of the “stimulus” plan, for green initiatives. So far the grant has resulted in exactly one job, that of Peter Garforth, a consultant who was paid $250,000 to explain that residents of Loudoun County use more energy than people in Europe – while ignoring the inconvenient fact that Europe produces far less products and services than America and therefore needs far less energy.
The next time you get to take an 8-week vacation, you should regret the fact your carbon footprint is larger than that of your European brethren.
News report on Peter Garforth’s work for Loudoun County:
While preparing the plan, the consultant determined that Loudoun produces about 15 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per resident annually. The average is 23 tons nationally and 10 tons in Europe. The objective in Loudoun’s plan is to reduce that amount to seven tons per resident over the next two decades.
“It’s a challenging goal, but not in the realm of fantasy,” said Peter Garforth, the consultant behind the plan.
To lower Loudoun’s output of greenhouse gases, Garforth is suggesting the county turn to more renewable power, such as biofuels, solar and wind.He also suggests the county encourage greater residential density in mixed-use communities and around future rail stations; urge builders to construct homes that are at least 30 percent more energy efficient; and create a program for selling emissions credits in Loudoun, otherwise known as cap and trade.
Devised as a means to control pollution and used widely in Europe, cap and trades set limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Companies can exceed those limits by purchasing credits that are equal to one ton of emissions from companies that pollute less. Critics charge, though, that companies that do this will simply pass the cost on to consumers….
Here is a presentation by Galforth – note the reference to the now-discredited “ice core data.”
An article published by Loudoun County consultant Peter Garforth on November 2, 2009, inconveniently just before the ClimateGate scandal was revealed:
The evidence is increasing that added greenhouse gases caused by human activity have produced an average increase in Earth’s temperature, in turn affecting climate. Some people hold the view that this isn’t the case. About 30% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions are caused by changes in land use by agriculture and forestry, about 60% from energy and the balance from non-energy related industrial processes and waste management.
Legislation aimed at reducing man-made greenhouse gases by about 80% from current levels is in discussion in the United States. In other industrialized countries, similar legislation is in place or in discussion, and increasingly China and India are open to some mandatory limits on emissions. The next round of global negotiations will be in Copenhagen in December 2009.
If the U.S. legislation passes, plants producing more than 10,000 tons of emissions probably will have to cap their emissions against an annual target. If they fail to do so, they’ll have to buy emission credits from others; if they beat the cap, they can sell credits to others. Other emitters might be required to report their own emissions. The details of how both the reporting and the cap-and-trade will operate are still in flux. The effects of the various proposals on energy prices and other costs are unknown.
“These uncertainties give rise to a wide, some would say wild, set of opinions ranging from neutral or positive effects to extreme cost increases and loss of global competitiveness. All too often, the degree to which an individual accepts the science of climate change is reflected in the opinions they listen to. So what should a company do to be sensibly prepared?
If one assumes that climate change is underway, some places might become vulnerable to extreme weather events. This can include raised flooding risks, wind and rain damage, energy supply unreliability and unavailability of critical employees. Insurance premiums also might rise as the underwriting effect of climate change grows. At a minimum, your plant should be assessed for changing weather effects and appropriate precautions taken. Some, such as on-site generation, might both reduce overall emissions and address reliability.
Looked at this way, without the emotional baggage that surrounds the climate debate, most of these activities fall into the category of common sense. They shouldn’t overburden professionally qualified teams. If they do, there might be other issues beyond climate change risks that need addressing.
Here is what the Loudoun County Energy Strategy proposes ( more here:
To both educate the market and to raise the market transparency of the actual energy
performance of homes and buildings, voluntary Energy Performance Labeling (EPL) is
recommended. A current EPL would be available anytime a building is sold or leased.
Wherever this approach has been adopted, a steady improvement in energy efficiency occurs over and above the expected gains from changes in construction codes …The plan outlines ways some of those projects could take advantage of the more than $2 million that could be awarded by the DOE. One example is the Moorefield Station and One Loudoun projects, which the plan suggests could utilize a Decision Grade-Integrated Energy Master Plan, which would be created in conjunction with the developers to become a future energy system operator for the two sites.
Each IEMP would cost between $150,000 and $250,000 but could in turn reduce energy costs by as much as 40 percent and greenhouse reductions by almost 50 percent. The CEP suggests that IEMPs could become a normal part of the permitting process for similar projects with the two key developments serving as models.
So imagine you run a business or want to sell a house in Loudoun County: that IEMP of “$150,000 or $250,000″ is your new little contribution to saving the Earth from greenhouse gases.
Are you on board with “climate prosperity?”
Finally, a glimpse into the world view of the climate alarmists. If you have an opinion, tell Supervisor McGimsey what you think about this.
Joe, this is excellent.
Re Ms. McGimsey’s “consulting firm”, does it exist yet anywhere except her campaign literature?
She was listed as the founder and CEO of “Sidewalks and Cyberspace”, which still has no website, btw.
The only reference to “Sidewalks and Cyberspace” I’ve ever seen was her old bio on the PEC staff pages, which describer her as having developed PEC’s “Sidwalks and Cyberspace Strategy” for the Campaign For Loudoun’s Future, during that year when she claimed to be a simple citizen activist (2004), but was listed (filed in 2005, when she appeared as a staffer on the website) on the PEC 990s for 2004 as having made $65K to run the CLF in 04.
I don’t think there IS a “consulting firm”, at least not one that does business outside of a very very few clients.
Also recall that the ad hoc Energy Committee was disbanded in December 08 for lack of attendance, then magically added to the tightest budget yet seen in spring 09 as a standing committee.
Glad you posted this, and glad you did it today.
Excellent piece Joe, I’ll have to digest it all at home – and I will share it.
Andrea “we have trees!” McGimsey has put herself out there professionally and personally on climate change and deserves much scrutiny.
Joe
Very well done. Thank you for exposing McGimsey as stuck on an issue that is not in her purview to be worried about as a local supervisor. We are in an economic downward spiral and this member of the board is trying to find ways to impose local taxes under the guise of Global Warming and energy savings. Like those in Washington Supervisor McGimsy is offering solutions grounded in economic ignorance.
Excellent work – I’d add the following:
“The Board of Supervisors will hold a public input session on the proposed strategy, Monday, December 14, 2009, at 7:30 p.m., in the Board Room of the Loudoun County Government Center, 1 Harrison Street, S.E., Leesburg.”
http://www.loudoun.gov/Default.aspx?tabid=2363
This thing reeks of another “greenhouse” emission – the smell of cash and hypocrisy.
This whole thing smells like something that will, in the end, lead to cash leaving our pockets to line certain politicians and their friends pockets.
[...] Check out what Joe Budzinski has dug up on Andrea McGimsey. She has been the Executive Director of something called the Climate Prosperity Project, Inc. [...]
Some things about Loudoun that you may not be aware of, notably the metro route, and Old Sterling Railroad Park.
http://www.co.new-castle.de.us/countycouncil/home/fileuploads/images/keynote%20climate%20prosperity%20delaware.pdf
Is she going to Delaware to promote Loudoun County or herself and this cockamamie “climate prosperity” bullshit? Looks like she’s mixing up her roles pretty good.
Obama admin strikes while the iron is cold:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/07/AR2009120701645.html?hpid=topnews
Dan, Did you see the prizes for energy savings suggestions? Maybe the person that wins the bike can ride around and change all the lightbulbs?
Hilarious :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiLgbBGKVk
BS,
She can’t promote herself here as we know what is fact and what is fiction.
Cmac,
Yes, I saw that. Also noticed the “calculated”, and “estimated” results. I would call these “virtual benefits”.
Note, I am all for reducing pollutants, but we don’t need to create a boogeyman under the bed to do so. We have made much environmental progress in the last few decades, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Hilarious graphic, Joe! I put up a follow-on to this, I see the link appeared automatically above. I can’t believe she could be this clueless about how this would look when it came out.
My curiosity was piqued by Old Sterling Railroad Park. Found some further info :
http://biz.loudoun.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=Y1HIIGk%2FNXU%3D&tabid=121
It’s interesting her job, where she’s worked since June, does not appear anywhere in her bio information at the Loudoun government Web site.
Seems like her entire public persona is pretty … McFlimsey.
Thank you, thank you very much. Actually one of my writers came up with that one but I pay him very well so I will take the credit.
Us Mc’s are used to the Mcwhatever jokes…..really Joe, don’t blame your writers:)
So, because a company has no public website, you morons leap to the conclusion that she’s up to something dirty? As an elected official, she must follow the law, but she does not owe you a daily brief on what she is doing in her career. Get over yourselves.
And there may be very good reasons why the organization is St. Louis based. I happen to work for a company that does a lot of work here that is *gasp* not based in Loudoun. Shocker.
You guys sound as bad as the wingnuts who want to string up ol Eugene because he works for a non-profit that *gasp* objects to the homosexual agenda.
Why don’t you ask Andrea what she is doing, instead of speculating about it. I’ll bet you a cold beer that she might even tell you…
Yup, the lack of a “public website,” as evidenced by my link above to the CPP public website, is actually what this post is all about. Congratulations for reading between the lines.
You’re full of it Blazing Saddles! This whole thing stinks.
There is an outstanding report on the current climate of climate nonsense at Bruce Bawer’s blog:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-warming-faithful-gather-in-copenhagen/2/
Joe, just recalled something from before the Iraq War: the BoS and a few town councils were presented with resolutions (to pass imeediately, no process, and amazingly enough by some of the same people who belong to the discussion group you reference in your post–the former Loudoun County Committee for a Sustainable Society, now called Sustainable Loudoun, as they were when I moved in, before which they were Loudoun Sustainable Committee–gee, the Missouri group rearranges the NAME it uses, but not the people too, huh? funny.) to urge that all opportunities for peace be exhausted before proceeding to war.
Sounds fine, right?
Devil’s always in the details though, ain’t it?
Buried under several “whereas”’s worth of fine stuff was a “be it resolved” that the locality passing the resolution didn’t support any action taken by the US without UN approval.
I recall wondering at the time whether the object was to get enough parts of a whole to sign on, so that if say, a senator voted one way, somebody could jump up and say “but these six cities, 27 towns and 42 counties in your state said they do not support your action!”
I wonder if this is a similar pattern with cap and trade?
And how does that work at the local level with the Dillon Rule?
IS there enabling legislation in VA to allow a local cap and trade action?
McG is basically a cutout for some really wacky stuff.
Wacky may be a pleasantly funny word, but she is a true believer and soldier for some seriously unfunny stuff.
Thanks, excellent point about the Dillon Rule, Barbara. The thought crossed my mind but I neglected to address it in the post – I am going to look into it. So maybe the rush to pass the CES is to get it done before AG Cuccinelli takes office?
I’m wondering how many emails from similar well-placed cutouts/cutout groups are flying to Copenhagen to show the commitment of the little people like us to the big agenda.
Interesting point about the AG, which makes me wonder–will the states stand up to the fed?
Will Congress stand up to the EPA?
Nice thing about the EPA move is…a Republican President can rescend the Exec Order to establish the move by the EPA. Congressional acts are not so easily undone.
The Governor Elect has stated prior to the election results that we may look into opting out on a number of these initiatives, and I believe we would stand with Texas on the 10th Amendment if and when it comes to it.
I hope so!
The EPA wants to curb that big pollutant “carbon dioxide”. Any average 5th grader can tell you that our (human/animal) oxygen bi-product is carbon dioxide which the “green things of nature” need to survive so that they can produce their bi-product of oxygen so that WE can survive. Vicious circle isn’t it. Now if CO2 causes that much temp change then I would look at planting more “green things” or abating of the destruction of that there of. This could all come to light and cutoff the government at the knees if that one moron who thought “trees” should have their rights and say in court would now come forward and fight to SAVE the “green things” life-blood before we turn this planet into Mars part deaux!
Al Gore should be made to produce his own energy for his house so that he may lead us by example. Andrea McGumby should not live in a sub-division if she really believes in “green”. I’m in favor of personal ridicule at public meetings againest idiot supervisors but, then again, who would listen? I guess every nation has a part in their history which shames them. This must be ours!
I’m waiting for the CO2 doctrine to barnacle on to healthcare.
We already have the tobacco suit history, which led the same lawyers to the trans-fat and fast food lawsuits, and where we may end up first is the regulation of those who, through poor choices, “overbreathe”, and last, the elimination of whole segments of the population on the grounds that they breathe at all.
We are People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables, and we are here to remind you that CO2 is the life blood of not only vegetables, but all plant life. Less CO2 will result in not only vegetable death, but disease, stunted growth and marginal reproduction.
PETV, I keep thinking of what my daughter wanted to do when Richard Branson offered $20-some K to anyone who could come up with a method of removing CO2 from the atmosphere: she wanted to send him a potted plant.
My own unease is fed by the “circle of commitment” and its “danish text”, apparently causing an uproar at today’s circus festivities:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/more-leaks-copenhagen-in-disarray/
Is anyone but me having a twinge of a Grosse-Wansee White Paper moment when they read this:
“The document also sets unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.”
That bit about “per capita emissions” could get quite personally ugly in one hell of a hurry.
So, I guess doing a government audit of our property is step one at the local level, and once that is a matter of course, we too can be audited.
“Per capita emissions”.
Some people would be “allowed to emit” more, or less, under “the proposals”.
That language is horrifying.
p.s.–read a great new joke that really isn’t funny, but quite perfect:
Global warming IS man made: as in Mann-made. And Jones-made. And Hadley CRU-made. And UN-IPCC made…
The Danes also gaming the system, to make a handsome profit from climate mongering ?
Oh no! Another climate scam scandal, this time in Denmark
November was a horrendous month for global warming propagandists, what with somebody hacking into the computers of East Anglia University’s Central Research Union (CRU) and exposing thousands of emails detailing how climate change data had been systematically cooked.
Now it looks like December could be another bad month because the Copenhagen Post Online brings word of an exploding scandal in the Scandanavian nation involving massive fraud in the trading of the Danish CO2 Quotas Register. That’s Denmark’s cap-and-trade system in which companies buy and sell carbon emissions credits.
The Obama-Waxman-Markey and Boxer-Kerry global warming cap-and-trade bills now before Congress are modeled in part on the Danish CO2 Quotas Register. But things don’t look good for the Danish climate change initiative, according to the Copenhagen Post Online:
“Police and authorities in several European countries are investigating scams worth billions of kroner, which all originate in the Danish quota register. The CO2 quotas are traded in other EU countries.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Oh-no-Another-climate-scam-scandal-this-time-in-Denmark-78510842.html
Gore, EPA, Copenhagen, Obama, cap-and-trade, Andrea McGimsey — the season for fruitcakes is truly here. Someone comes to my place to check on my EPL and I’ll instruct them on how to do it — take this metal fork and stick it into one of those two slots in that thingamajig down low on the wall just above the baseboard.
Wolverine, will you film it?
And then put it on YouTube?
Please?
Professor Henrik Svensmark, a physicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen, said the recent warming period was caused by solar activity.
He said the last time the world experienced such high temperatures, during the medieval warming period, the Sun and the Earth were in a similar cycle.
The same medieval warming period that the climate alarmists are ignoring perhaps ?
Copenhagen climate summit: global warming ’caused by sun’s radiation’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6762640/Copenhagen-climate-summit-global-warming-caused-by-suns-radiation.html
He must be silenced!
Has anyone noticed the huge rollout of global wamring stuff on the news and in the papers since climate-gate broke?
This is so much bigger than simple science – it is a movement that must continue no matter what the facts are or aren’t. And of course dissenting opinions must be squashed. idiot Lowell Feld actually deletaes comments from anyone who dares to question it. So much for being convinced of the validity of your argument.
LI,
This is the new science, where hypothesis and theory are accepted as fact because it is politically desirable. Where science creates it’s own dogmas, with it’s own corresponding pilgrimage to the GW holy land of Copenhagen.
Excellent op-ed by Sarah Palin :
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/08/AR2009120803402.html
[...] than the courthouse displays, could it be that one Supervisor has a conflict of interest? Novatownhall Blog has the [...]
[...] in light of the effort by Supervisor McGimsey to put Loudoun taxpayers on the hook for a new “energy plan” justified in part by the [...]