However, their new book, Dirty Business, shows multiple links to Energy Probe, Lawrence Solomon's faux enviro group. From the EP website:
(September 9, 2011) Dirty Business, a new book that focuses on wind power’s impacts on Ontario’s power systems and rural communities, features three Energy Probe directors (retired banker Parker Gallant, economist Michael Trebilcock and Globe columnist Margaret Wente), and a past executive director (Tom Adams).
Given the obsessions of Wente and Co., it isn't surprising that they might have allowed some of their columns to be reproduced for the volume. More intriguing is Parker's Gallant's role as the book's "Contributing Editor", which suggests some kind of consultative role in its creation. He is also, as it turns out, on WCO's BOD.
As background, Energy Probe seems to have begun life as a kind of quirky, right-wing group devoted to promoting free market solutions to environmental problems. As you can see from the Star article at the bottom of the link, back in the 1990s Solomon managed to convince the right-wing Donner Foundation Canada to kick in several $100,000s (perhaps as much as $1.6 million) for various projects, and their name still appears on the Energy Probe Research Foundation's donors page. So these guys are pretty well-heeled
In any case, whatever EP might have started out as, it has in recent years degenerated into your standard-issue AGW denialist group, or at least serves as an outlet for Mr. Solomon's curious notions on the topic.
I'm not sure this gets us much closer to answering who funds Wind Concerns. But perhaps it will cause a few people--journos, maybe who are in a position to get answers--to at least ask a few questions.
PS. As of this mornin, WCO had not filed for third-party status here, which limits the manner in which they can spend money to promote their cause..
6 comments:
As the Editor of Dirty Business: the reality of Ontario's rush to wind power, I can tell you who is funding the publication of this book---donors from rural communities threatened with industrialization by wind power generation plants. There are no institutional funders, no links to any think tanks or anybody else.
As a city dweller, you have no idea how people in Ontario's rural communities feel about the inappropriate siting of industrial plants next to quiet communities. And, without having read the book, you aren't aware of the scientific concerns for health and safety.
That's the story told in Dirty Business. And your fellow Ontarians are hoping you read it.
Talk about "shooting in the dark"!..........this has to be one of the most blatant attempts of trying to discredit an organization I have ever read!
Too bad your so uninformed. WCO is now and always has been made up of true bi-partisan citizens of Ontario who are being attacked by the Ontario Government in their homes by the anti democratic legislations by McGuinty and Gang called Bill 150. Keep digging and you will eventually discover that you are being criticised by over 2,000,000 Rural Citizens who are really "pissed off"!
Dear Editor,
will WCO be filing as a third party election advertiser?
Poke the astroturf with a stick and little plastic bugs pop out.
But hey! It's snowing in Whistler! Take that, AGW, which argues that warmer air holds more moisture and produces more preciptation... oops.
Big wind is not a partisan issue. It is big energy–funded power politics against the people. Both right and left support wind, and both right and left are against it.
Industrial wind is not a partisan issue. It is big energy–funded power politics against the people. Both right and left support wind. And both right and left are against it.
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