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Climate Progress

Wind Power In The UK And Ireland: Growing, Reliable And Making Donald Trump’s Hair Stand Up

By Ryan Koronowski on Mar 28, 2013 at 3:06 pm

No wonder Trump doesn't like wind!

While the U.S. wind market surged and GE Wind was the top producer last year, nations across the pond are finding success with wind turbines as well.

Over the last 20 years in Ireland:

  • More than 2,200 jobs have been created in developing wind power.
  • The wind sector has contributed a total €83m to councils, money which has been ploughed into the development of regional economies. Last year alone, up to €11.5m was delivered to local county councils through rates.
  • A total of €2.8bn has been invested in wind farms, a staggering sum by any standards. In 2011 alone the investment figure was €372m. A further €4bn is expected over the next eight years to meet domestic targets alone.
  • Wind is now no longer a niche product across Europe where wind capacity 23 times the national demand of Ireland has been installed. Last year wind energy accounted for more than 15pc of our electricity demand. Wind energy also has the capability to supply 1.3 million homes in Ireland.

In the UK, wind power has topped 5 gigawatts per day and is sufficient to power 10% of total electricity demand. This rough guide to the geology and geography of offshore wind shows that the British Isles have an enormous amount of potential in the North Sea.

In 2012, Scotland’s wind power generation totals increased 19 percent, to comprise 39 percent of the region’s needs. It will only get stronger as a wind farm offshore from a golf course moves forward despite the tweeted protestations of Donald Trump.

This week, the government of Scotland decided to go ahead with a large scale offshore wind farm. Scotland, which has been reffered to as the ‘Silicon Valley’ for wind energy, makes this move in spite of personal and business motivated pleas from Donald Trump.

Nevertheless, Trump vowed to bring a lawsuit to stop the $349 million (USD) development, which consists of 11 wind turbines planned off the coast near Aberdeen in northeastern Scotland. Trump declared: “We will spend whatever monies are necessary to see to it that these huge and unsightly industrial wind turbines are never constructed”, and frequently refers to wind turbines as ‘monstrosities’.

The wind farm, owned by Swedish energy company Vattenfall and a local business consortium, still needs to obtain a marine license and approval for an onshore substation.

And in this piece, EarthTechling notes that wind power is becoming more and more reliable, even during a cold snap:

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Alyssa

What Donald Trump’s DC Tax Dodge Means For His Brand At NBC

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jan 7, 2013 at 5:03 pm

Over the past several years, I’ve been alternately amused and horrified to watch Donald Trump’s antics as he’s tried to expand his franchise beyond the NBC reality television franchise, The Apprentice, that returned him to relevance after his real estate empire fizzled by turning to politics. His dabbling in everything from conspiracies about President Obama’s birthplace to the integrity of the 2012 election results has allowed Trump to tap into new veins of support. And he’s been so successful at it that for a brief time, Trump managed to keep both the Republican presidential primary and NBC’s scheduling department, which might have had to yank The Apprentice, on edge as he pretended to consider whether to run for president.

Since then, Trump’s continued to irritate both political observers and NBC. The day after the presidential election in November, Trump attacked his network colleague Brian Williams for covering Trump’s comments about the campaign on Rock Center. So it’s no surprise that, at the Television Critics Association press tour, NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt was asked how he manages Trump, and whether he’s asked his star—who didn’t appear for the panel presenting the latest edition of The Celebrity Apprentice—to tone it down.

“We live in this country where you can sort of say anything you want as long as you’re not harming other people,” Greenblatt said, sounding deeply unenthusiastic. “And he’s got a political belief system. And we talk to him all the time. But I really don’t think that what he’s doing kind of in his personal life is going to corrupt what is happening on the show. That said, if he sort of becomes somehow hurtful or says things or does things that cross a line, I guess we would figure out what to do about that.”

As much as I’ve long though NBC should fire Trump for not being a team player, it makes sense that Greenblatt wouldn’t pull the trigger unless Trump’s behavior made the brand he’s created unviable. And given that part of the brand of The Apprentice is Trump being an abusive, self-important blowhard, him applying his blowhardiness to politics doesn’t actually undermine the image that he’s sold as a product to NBC.

And as much as I wish Trump didn’t have airtime, it would be great NBC would get rid of him because he’s a terrible example of what a successful executive would actually look like. He’s filed for corporate bankruptcy four times, and he’s done so not because he’s made different errors, but because he keeps heavily leveraging his hotel and casino businesses. It’s true that bankruptcy can be a way to restructure companies, but it’s still a drastic way to get to that point, and one that can be damaging to Trump’s partners and investors. Trump’s frequently embroiled in litigation of one type or another relating to his business or his images. And now, he’s trying to get out of paying some taxes on the Old Post Office, a government building that is tax exempt, which Trump wants to turn into a luxury hotel. It’s not surprising that Trump would want to get out of the higher taxes, but it’s still a particularly craven move, given how much of the District is government property, and how much the city government needs to get tax revenue back when for-profit organizations take over government buildings.

But then, if NBC had wanted a business leader who is both effective and consistently ethical, they never would have hired Donald Trump in the first place. The show’s the thing. And Trump, no matter what you think of the quality of the show, always provides plenty of it.

Media

Donald Trump Partnership Ruins Macy’s Popularity

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Nov 29, 2012 at 2:31 pm


The old adage that “all press is good press” might not ring true with department store chain Macy’s. Their recent partnership with conservative billionaire oddball Donald Trump is causing a sudden drop in the brand’s popularity, particularly among women.

According to a YouGov Brandindex survey, immediately after the Macy’s-Trump partnership, women steadily became far less likely to recommend Macy’s to their friends. In the same period, other brands like JCPenney actually performed better than usual:

Nearly 675,000 people have signed a petition asking Macy’s not to partner with Trump, citing his extremist political positions: Trump called for revolution after President Obama won re-election, has been a leader in the so-called “birther” movement, and called global climate change “a concept created by and for the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

Or perhaps it’s the more overtly sexist things Trump is known for that make him such a terrible partner for Macy’s: He recently offered to expose his genitals to a woman, played “rate the women” with contestants on his reality TV show, and in 1991 he told Esquire magazine, “it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of [expletive].”

Macy’s has stood by its decision to partner with Trump, saying, “Macy’s marketing and merchandise offerings are not representative of any political position.”

Alyssa

Why NBC Should Fire Donald Trump

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Nov 13, 2012 at 12:04 pm

NBCUniversal has a relationship with Donald Trump, the long-time performance artist and host of its NBC reality competition show The Apprentice, that’s strikingly similar to the one between the Donald and the Romney campaign McKay Coppins described in one of what will be one of many post-mortems of the campaign:

Among the savvy sophisticates who populated the campaign headquarters in Boston, Trump was viewed as a joke and a blowhard — an outrageous figure whose fixation on Obama’s birth certificate was, at once, bizarre and off-putting, according to campaign sources. But he was also popular among the very voters Romney was most concerned about winning over. And the candidate’s aides believed — perhaps naively — that if they could win his endorsement, they might be able to win the hearts of his many conservative fans. “He played very well with blue-collar-type Republicans, and the campaign saw that,” said one source in Trump’s camp. “If you have no education, and you work with your hands, you like him. It’s like, ‘Wow, if I was rich, that’s how I would live!’ The girls, the cars, the fancy suits. His ostentatiousness is appealing to them.”

For NBC, The Apprentice is a product similar to a Trump political endorsement. It’s relatively cheap to buy, in part because it’s heavily supported by product placement. It channels the things that make Trump irritating, his presumptions of expertise, his abrasiveness, and his showman’s flair, towards reasonably amusing targets. And in its Celebrity Apprentice iteration, the show pulls in stars with their own followings. For this, Trump got a $130 million contract from NBC last year. But NBC handed down that deal to Trump at the end of an awful year for the network. And now that the ratings landscape–and the political one–are very different, NBC should seriously consider if they want to stay in business with Trump, or if both he and The Apprentice have reached the end of their usefulness.

The Apprentice is probably near the end of its natural lifespan as a show anyway. Its celebrity editions are drawing fewer than 9 million viewers per episode, a figure that isn’t bad, but also isn’t strong enough to use to launch other new shows. And it pales in comparison to The Voice, which both has given NBC a platform to boost freshman success stories like Revolution and Go On, and provides an alternate revenue stream to the network in the form of music sales. As NBC solidifies its revitalized brand, and as non-musical competition shows increasingly show their age, the network should consider Trump and The Apprentice both in the context of the larger primetime environment and with an eye towards the special headaches Trump brings in his wake.
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Media

Nearly 400,000 People Call On Macy’s To Dump Donald Trump

By Judd Legum on Nov 12, 2012 at 12:22 pm

A grassroots campaign for Macy’s to end their association with Donald Trump has caught fire. Nearly 400,000 people have added their name to a petition on Signon.org for Macy’s, which exclusively sells Trump’s clothing line and fragrance, to dump the controversial businessman.

Trump gained prominence during the 2012 election for relentlessly promoting the discredited conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the United States. He vocally maintains that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery.

On Tuesday, Trump tweeted that the election results were “a travesty, a total sham, a disgusting injustice” and “urged Americans to march on Washington.” He claims global warming is “a concept created by and for the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Trump also promotes dangerous conspiracy theories about vaccines.

Macy’s touts themselves as a “socially responsible” company. Nevertheless, they have continued to embrace their relationship with Trump and will prominently feature him in its holiday Television ads.

Update

As of Tuesday, more than 500,000 people have signed the petition

Update

On Thursday, the petition hit 600,000 signatures, but Macy’s was still resisting pressure to end their relationship with Trump.

Election

The 6 Best Overreactions To Obama’s Win

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Nov 8, 2012 at 10:36 am

Conservatives aren’t taking kindly to Mitt Romney’s loss. Indeed, the right wing freakout has been so extreme, and so hyperbolic, that Obama’s win has been heralded by many as the “death of America.”

Here are some of the best right-wing reactions to Romney’s defeat:

1. Neal Boortz compares Obama to a natural disaster. There’s no such thing as too soon for libertarian-leaning radio host Neal Boortz, who compared Obama’s win to Hurricane Sandy, a storm that killed 113 people in the US alone:

2. Victoria Jackson cries, says “America died.” The Saturday Night Live star who turned into an anti-gay right winger took Romney’s loss very, very seriously:

3. The Cincinnati Tea Party declares the death of America. Ohio was the state that pushed Obama over the 270 electoral vote threshold. For Tea Partiers in the state, that was hard to handle. One Cincinnati group’s website claimed America had committed suicide:

4. Rush Limbaugh blames women. Limbaugh, the conservative radio host who seems unable to stop himself from spewing misogny at every opportunity, blamed the gender gap for Obama’s victory, and women for falling into Obama’s trap: “He treats them like vaginas and they say he’s my man,” Limbaugh said on his show.

5. Donald Trump calls for revolution. Trump, whose role in the election has largely been scare-mongering on Twitter, tweeted out this call to arms, but deleted the tweet — and others — later. Perhaps he realized that Obama had in fact won the popular vote:

6. Glenn Beck tells people to buy guns. On his radio show, former Fox host Glenn Beck lamented the downgrade of the country, but promised “I won’t make a deal with the devil… I will tell you last week we purchased more farmland as a family. May I recommend if you have a chance to buy farmland, you buy farmland. If you live in the east may I recommend get the hell out of the east. Find a place where you are surrounded by like-minded people and the best way to find those people is, you should probably look at the maps on how counties voted… May I highly suggest you get grandfathered in to the second amendment today. Oh and don’t forget the ammunition.” Watch it:

NEWS FLASH

Donald Trump Is Robo-Calling For Romney | Real estate mogul and ardent birther Donald Trump has been asked to stump for Mitt Romney in the final week before Election Day. Trump will be doing robo-calls in Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Florida — crucial battleground states. The campaign also reportedly asked him to do campaign stops, which may conflict with the taping of his show, “Celebrity Apprentice.” Romney has embraced Trump’s support in spite of his widely ridiculed belief that the president was secretly born abroad. Trump most recently demanded President Obama’s college transcripts and passport application in exchange for a $5 million donation to a charity, though he extended the deadline to Thursday after Hurricane Sandy caused a national emergency on Monday. The billionaire also scoffed at the devastating storm that submerged New York and New Jersey, saying, “Hurricane is good luck for Obama again – he will buy the election by handing out billions of dollars. Not only giving out money, but Obama will be seen today standing in water and rain like he is a real president —don’t fall for it.”

NEWS FLASH

Donald Trump: Arianna Huffington’s Husband Left Her Because She’s ‘Unattractive’ | Donald Trump continues his string of Twitter diatribes against journalists he dislikes with this gem:


Trump, who seems to read every disparaging article written about him, recently called Salon’s Alex Pareene “a total joke in political circles” and Vanity Fair’s Juli Weiner his “third-rate stalker.” Though Trump’s appearance at the RNC was cancelled due to Hurricane Isaac, Romney has embraced his endorsement, even hosting a joint fundraiser with the birther mogul. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has praised Trump as “a good friend” to Romney and the GOP.

Update

Trump doubles down:


Health

Trump Spreads Dangerous Myth That Vaccines Cause Autism

By Zack Beauchamp on Aug 23, 2012 at 5:00 pm

Vaccines don’t cause autism — the science on the question is clear. But Donald Trump evidently thinks he knows better than the entire scientific community and took to Twitter to suggest otherwise:

The number of people who share of Trump’s view — which, again, is entirely unsupported by the relevant science — could be already be having pernicious consequences. For example, the U.S. is facing the worst whooping cough epidemic in 50 years, a disease easily prevented by vaccine. While budget cuts to state-level health organizations have exacerbated the epidemic’s spread, there are concerns that fears about the mythical autism-vaccine link are helping to increase the number of whooping cough cases as some children are not vaccinated.

This isn’t the first time Trump has expounded nonsense on vaccines and autism. However, the timing is especially sensitive given that Trump has been given a special “suprise” role in the upcoming Republican convention in Tampa by its organizers.

Politics

Republican Party Chairman: Americans Who Want Romney To Release More Tax Returns Are The New Birthers

By Igor Volsky on Aug 10, 2012 at 9:35 am

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus compared the overwhelming majority of Americans — including a growing number of Republicans — calling on Mitt Romney to release his tax returns to birthers, who sill claim that President Obama was born in Kenya.

“It’s ridiculous,” Priebus said Friday morning on CNN’s Starting Point, when asked to respond to polls showing that 63 percent of the public thinks Romney should release more tax returns. “I’m not spending any more time talking about this issue,” the Chairman informed the hosts, who then pressed him about Donald Trump’s role and the GOP convention.

Preibus praised the bombastic businessman as “a good friend” to the Republican party and said the is “thankful to Donald Trump for the work he’s done for us and for Governor Romney.” “He’s important to us and I know that he’s somebody that we appreciate,” Priebus said before dismissing Trump’s persistant claims that Obama was born and Kenya and comparing his conspiracy theories to the tax return question:

HOST: Is this a good message for a guy still a birther and still calling for the president to release his college transcripts?

PRIEBUS: I have been from the very moment very clear as far as where I stand on that issue. It’s just as much of a distraction as it is for people to ask for more and more tax returns and all of these other issues. The fact of the matter is, this election is coming down to one thing, are people better off today than three or four years ago?

Watch it:

While it’s unclear if Trump will speak at the Republican Convention, the top Romney surrogate is slated to be awarded “Statesman of the Year” honors by the Republican Party of Sarasota, Florida at a fundraising event a day before the festivities begin.

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