BLM Reverses Solar Moratorium in 6 Western States
The Bureau of Land Management has reversed it’s 22 month moratorium on new applications for solar power development on public lands.
In a statement issued today, the BLM said it will continue to process the applications while, “continuing to identify issues during public scoping underway for the programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS).
In the statement, BLM Director James Caswell said:
“We heard the concerns expressed during the scoping period about waiting to consider new applications, and we are taking action. By continuing to accept and process new applications for solar energy projects, we will aggressively help meet growing interest in renewable energy sources, while ensuring environmental protections.”
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A storm of protest arose last month when the BLM said it was suspending applications pending processing of the 125 applications previously received.
Public scoping continues through July 15th, when the public has the opportunity to comment on the PEIS, either through the online comment form, or by mail to; Solar Energy PEIS Scoping, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Ave. – EVS/900, Argonne IL 60439.
Details about the three public scoping meetings on July 8 in Tucson, Arizona; July 9 in San Luis Obispo, California; and July 10 in El Centro, California; are available on the project website.
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Image Source: www.scienceclarified.com
Liberals? Yeah, because everybody knows the BLM is a hotbed of liberal activism.
Anybody that wants to transfer blm lands or it resources to private hands should be arrested for theft and treason.
Insults aside, you still offer no solutions, just the usual bumper sticker about oil being wrong. Indeed, you have reacted in the usual manner - insult the detractor while citing pseudo-facts.
Its clear that you have succumbed to the rather powerful “group think” about global warming and evil oil and I am incapable of changing your mind.
But to change mine, I suggest you start by offering some proof that man made global warming enjoys a consensus, because I have yet to see that it does. In fact, I believe the opposite is true.
Critical thinking…
Not just for double wide bubbas, but something we should all do. Even carrot munching, tree hugging liberals.
By the way, its “Bus to Abilene”. Google it.
Well, if nothing else, this discussion disproves (at least a little) my contention that all of us in here have been preaching to the choir. At least one person in this discussion is *not* on the same train.
Tom, you want “proof”…
“But to change mine, I suggest you start by offering some proof that man made global warming enjoys a consensus, because I have yet to see that it does. In fact, I believe the opposite is true.”
You want us to disprove your “belief”?!? You believe that the opposite is true, but you want us to prove that is is not? Please, let us take more care with our use of the language, even of idiom.
What sort of proof do you want? Citations for articles? Lists of scientists who ascribe to the theory (i.e. model) that human activities have greatly increased the atmospheric ingredients that cause global temperatures to increase, regardless of natural causes? That is, in fact, what the discussion is about, is it not? We all, on all sides, bandy about meaningless terms, mainly because scientists try to come up with simple names that the general public can grasp, and then the mass media take those terms, ignore the given definitions, and toss them around like so many ping-pong balls. So, let us get back to basics. And as for citations and lists, they are in abundance, on the internet and in print. But which ones will *you* accept? The Union of Concerned Scientists? NASA? Fermilab? CERN? Tell us what you want, and it can probably be provided for you.
On a couple of other topics, it should be noted that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), while part of the Department of the Interior (as is the National Park Service, unlike the US Forest Service, which is under Commerce), has been given a Congressional mandate which is contradictory by its very nature. It controls lands which are not quite scenic or historic enough to be a National Park or Monument, but which are also not forested, in most cases. It provides and expedites both recreation and commercial programs, which is, at its base, dichotomous. Much of the BLM land in Southern California that is open for recreational uses (not all of it is “public”) also has open mining claims, as well as energy-production facilities. Much BLM land is already out of public use; that is the whole point. The fact is that much BLM is already in the control of private hands, because that’s the way it was set up.
While I’m not really a big fan of large-scale energy-production facilities, the fact is that the windmill farms at Tehachapi and Cabazon/White Water, and the solar facilites at Kramer Junction, Harper Dry Lake, and Sterling’s SES Solar One are all pretty fascinating, and they do not detract significantly from the scenery. I actually stumbled across the Solar One facility while rockhounding a few years ago, and was very impressed at its remoteness and comparative compactness. Done right, they can work very well and be minimally invasive, a fact which I’ve also made many times about nuclear power, as the OP of this article knows only too well
My tone obviously was needlessly brusque - perhaps some have taken offense. Accept my appologies.
However, back to the discussion…
“Proof of man made global warming”, in my opinion is when the full measure of scientific method is applied, such that observations about the affects we’re causing are fully observable and repeatable. We must also understand, through scientific rigor, all the variables that go into heating and cooling our atmosphere.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but none of our science has reached that point. We are still in the theory and prostulating phase.
However, instead of proving anything through experiment and observation, we instead, plotted a few rather telling trends, by applying a navigator’s dead reckoning course. And in doing so, we discovered “an inconvenient truth.”
Look. If we search the web, we’ll find scientists both for and against; we’ll find scientists complaining that they’ve been gagged against disagreeing one way or the other. We’ll learn of scientists with financial and business interests that are influencing their stated opinions… We’ll see politicians vying for votes and saying what they must; and lastly, we’ll see people like all of us taking sides in an argument, whose facts we had to rely on others to produce.
All I’m saying is - lets use some healthy scepticm and get the truth about all this. Cut back on Carbon? invest in solar, wind, and so on? Good idea regardless. See the disruption of important insitutions, thus causing a chain reaction that makes heating too expensive for people this winter - well, I think we need a better idea.
Again, regret my ranting; this could be interesting to discuss if we wanted it to be.
Tom
http://www.dare2believe.com
A) I discovered an error in my previous post. I stated that the USFS was under the Department of Commerce. This is incorrect; it is under Agriculture.
B) Science is *not* solely about “facts”. Yes, there are facts in science: 1+1=2; F=mA (in Newtonian Mechanics, anyhow); the sun uses hydrogen to produce heat and light by fusion, with helium as a by-product. But what far too many people do not understand is that even these “facts” became known by the very process that you are decrying. Plotting trends is part of the deal; that is one method used to analyze the data that has been gathered. When I was a college student taking First Year Mechanics, we swung weights on strings and plotted the time they took to complete a set number of arcs. This “plotting” is a basic tool of the Scientific Method. That is what is going on now in regards to the phenomenon which is called Global Warming. We take measurements, we plot them over time, we compare them with the past, and we make conjectures about the results. This is Science at its most basic. There is no doubt that the conjectures about Global Warming could be wrong. We might not have enough evidence, enough data; we might be making incorrect assumptions, or incorrectly comparing past numbers with the current ones; we could be making other errors as well: but are you willing to look at the mountains of data collected and say that it *all* is junk? If so, there is no way that we can continue any sort of discussion, because we will have to leave the area of Science and enter the world of Faith. Nothing wrong with that world, but that’s not where one goes to collect data and analyze it.
C) Science has done nothing to cause the price of heating oil or gasoline to rise. Environmentalists has done very little to cause the rise in the cost of these products, although I suppose that we *could* take some (some! not all!!) of the blame for the rise in food prices, now that seemingly every farmer in Iowa and Kansas (and elsewhere) has decided to plant corn while the prices for ethanol are so good. The prices for heating oil and gasoline have gone up for three basic reasons: the petroleum producing countries have a good thing going and they know it, and more power to them while it lasts; speculators have bid the futures in petroleum so high that there is no way that anyone can fractionate the stuff at reasonable prices; the oil companies are (to use a wacky analogy) making hay while the sun shines. Oil company profits are at record levels; Exxon-Mobil, in particular, has had record profits for several quarters. Why not? We keep buying, despite the cost. Of course, they could lower prices; what’s a billion dollars in gasoline rebates against a *PROFIT* of 13 Billion? Where is the opprobrium that should be heaped upon the Shells and Conocos?
You make good comments about skepticism. FWIW, I was a skeptic (despite belonging to more environmental groups than I can keep track of) for many years. I came fully on board perhaps five years ago, when the weight of the evidence became too much for me to disregard any longer. Skepticism is a fine and noble thing, when it is well-informed. Yes, there are still scientists of good character and strong background who are not yet convinced, but they truly are in the minority. I can state with some assurance that the number of informed men and women of Science who dispute the basic conclusions (yes, they are conclusions, not “mere” conjectures) that human activity has at least influenced the measured rise in over-all worldwide temperatures are less than 10% of all those who have made a public statement. There are many who have kept silent, and that is their right, especially if they are not proficient in the areas that come into play. I’m not proficient in weather science. Oh, I know the math; that’s the easy part. I trust those working in the field, on both sides of the issue, to be honest in their work and reporting on same. I can follow what they come up with. It isn’t a pretty picture being painted, and even those who disagree that humans are a main cause rarely state that there *is* no change.
Ultimately, that is the bottom line. There are changes being measured; no one with any basic education in Science can look at the data and reject all of it. My contention, at this point, is that we’ve had two centuries of uncontrolled industrial growth, with more than half of that period strongly fueled by petroleum. I am not able to look at the numbers and reach any other conclusion other than we have soiled our nest to the point where we might not be able to clean it up before we kill ourselves. And it isn’t worth it, to me, to leave things as they are for my children and grandchildren. We, Humanity right now, is paying the price for the last five or six generations of waste. So Be It. If we don’t start paying now, the cost in a decade will be higher. And it won’t make a bit of difference where the blame lies when we all are choking to death.
Jim, I’ll grant that you came to your conclusions honestly and with an open mind.
Let’s start with A…
Plotting works when you understand all the forces acting upon the subject of your plotting. But when you don’t…
I used to drive large ships for a living as a Naval Officer. We plotted our ships course ahead using “dead reckoning”, that is, we drew a line on a chart in the direction we wished to go and ticked off the time along this line as a function of speed.
Simple.
At ten knots, we knew we’d be at a certain point along this line, at 15 knots a different point and so on.
But there was more to it. And its the reason locating your ship’s position via GPS was so important. You see, forces acted upon the ship that caused it to slow or speed up; or to vere left or right. These forces, which we identified as “set and drift”, varied by day, by climate and by position.
I know, a rather tedious analogy. I just wanted you to know that dead reckoning doesn’t do it for me; not until science knows what contributes to heating and cooling in the atmosphere.
I’d also suggest you read this report: http://www3.hi.is/~oi/Nemendaritgerdir/Ice%20core%20evidence%20for%20past%20climates%20and%20glaciation.pdf
Apparently this temperature spike is normal.
Tom
http://www.dare2believe.com
A comment for Tom D.
I doubt you are ever at a loss for words.
I looked at your website, and I dont know if we’re losing a sense of humor, but your style certainly lacks civility. that does suck, and its a major reason people dont laugh as much anymore…
I would point out taht the biggest sector of Liberal i observe in today’s USA is that youth demographic of folks who have FAR less than the $50k income you mention. And althought the thrust of your comment seems to be the desire to insult “liberals” I want to offer a comment about that family of four making 50k and needing several tanks of oil to heat the home. Well, I know of a few families of four, or more, making less than 50k, in Vermont and upper Michigan, who installed basic solar systems for around 15,000 and now don’t buy any oil. And they are comfy in the blizzards.
More important for me, and them (more dirty liberals who happen to be pig farmers, barley farmers, truck mechanics and iraq vets) is that they arent exporting their hard-earned US dollars to America’s most determined enemies.
Tom, as you fizzle and rant, consider this: The stone age didnt end for lack of stones. it was the fact that some people discovered better ways of doing things… better ways of thinking. (note, not my words, they were spoen by the Saudi oil minister) Of course, there are still stone-age people on earth. Some are smart folks who prefer primative tools for whatever reasons, and others are people who can handle tech, but whose minds are better suited to the simplicity of the stone age, such as your blog cearly demonstrates.
renewable energy is homeland security. get a clue: the oil industry is not your friend. By the way, not sure if you were aware of the background for this story. BLM just couldn’t handle the 400+ applications from big companies wanting to move into solar-thermal field. They have 125 apps in process already. Much of this investment comes from the brighter minds in the oil industry (note that arab countries invest 50X more in solar tahn USA does)… The huge global move away from oil (because too much fluctuation in prices, and all profits go to anti-democratic players, etc…) is in part based on good-ol capitalistic smarts. The future of renwables is bright, and the furture of oil (like the past) is very dark.
But rant on, on your blog, and those who can’t see more clearly will stay with you in the stone age…
bye bye, relic Tom, we’re movin on : )
(oops, taht sounds like liberal code, he he…)