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.
