In addition to a steady diet of hype and hysteria, Sierra Club news releases (see “First Church of Chicken Little” in today’s TAS web) sometimes contain a touch of humor, though usually unintentional. Take the March/April issue of “Sierra Magazine” (please), which we’re informed will be the club’s “first-ever all-wind issue.”
Many of us have been saying that the upscale Sierra Club has been all-wind all the time for years, not to mention a couple of grains short of a trail-mix. But could it be that Chicken Little’s most reliable lieutenants actually have breaking news about wind?
Here’s just a bit of the gospel ”Sierra Magazine” readers will encounter: “Wind production has reached critical mass, and is now propelling us into a world beyond fossil fuels. Through rapid advances in turbine technology, wind already generates more than 10 percent of the electricity in ten states. ‘Anywhere it Blows‘ breaks down the numbers, eradicates wind myths and showcases the farms leading the wind renaissance.”
I doubt there will be any mention that wind would not be one percent of any jurisdiction’s energy supply (not even that of Washington, D.C., where wind is ever so cheap and available) without being heavily subsidized. And the chance of wind meeting more than a trifling fraction of the nation’s energy needs with current and expected technology is roughly the chance of Sean Penn being selected Miss Congeniality next year.
If the Sierra Club ever gets its way and America substitutes wind-based for fossil fuel-based energy, the most prosperous nation the world has ever seen will truly be gone with the wind.
