Decoding Dyslexia
David Williams, President of Taxpayers Protection Alliance, contends
that the Solar Investment Tax Credit and other state and local
incentives to install rooftop solar installations are schemes that
enrich politically connected and favored solar companies and their
Wall Street investors at the expense of homeowners and taxpayers in
California and nationally. Even worse, customers who are enticed to
sign onto these leasing programs are finding they actually reduce
the value of their homes.
For years Washington has subsidized rooftop solar installations for
customers in the form of the Solar Investment Tax Credit, which
allows homeowners who install rooftop solar panels to receive a tax
credit of up to 30 percent of the cost.
The subsidy has been one of the many ongoing ways in which the feds
insert themselves into the energy marketplace. And while it has
hampered efforts to achieve real energy independence in the U.S.,
and has therefore caused real harm to our economy, it nevertheless
has met a legitimate need for homeowners desperate for some relief
from high energy costs.
But rooftop solar companies – most of which, like SolarCity, Corp.,
are political connected and favored – have created a scheme to claim
the tax credit for themselves. These companies discovered that if
they lease the rooftop solar systems to homeowners, the companies
themselves can claim the federal tax credit as well as all state and
local incentives. Evidence is now pouring in that this scheme
enriches these companies and their Wall Street investors at the
expense of homeowners and taxpayers. Worse still, customers who are
persuaded to sign onto these leasing programs are finding they
reduce the value of their homes.
Read the article:
http://townhall.com/columnists/davidwilliams
Leighton Steward
is a geologist, environmentalist,
author, and retired energy industry
executive. He has written about the
reasons for the loss of much of the
Mississippi River delta (Louisiana's
National Treasure) and has given advice
on how the nation can achieve "no net
loss" of wetlands in the future; advice
that has been accepted by the EPA and U.
S. Corps of Engineers. Leighton was lead
author on a book about nutrition and
health (Sugar Busters) that gave advice
on how to lose weight and prevent and or
treat diabetes. The book became a #1 New
York Times Best seller for sixteen weeks
and made a significant contribution to
the changes that have occurred regarding
the availability of no-sugar-added,
higher fiber, and low-glycemic products
in the super markets. More recently, he
has written a book (Fire, Ice and
Paradise) that is an endeavor to educate
the non-scientist about the many causes
of global climate change so that the
reader will be better prepared to
understand what they hear, see, and read
about in the media and from the
politicians. In recognition of his many
environmental efforts, Leighton has
received numerous environmental awards,
including the regional EPA
Administrator's Award for environmental
excellence.
There
are competing points of viewregarding
the causes of climate change in our current
environment. One group has concluded that human
activities in the burning of fossil fuels have
increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere which
has caused a recent acceleration of a 300 year trend
of global warming. This point of view is usually
called "Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming" (AGW.)
The most prevalent alternative point of view is that
natural variations account for most, if not all, of
changes in climate. The professional conflict
between the advocates of these two hypotheses
generally comes down to a debate between AGW
advocates attempting to predict future climate
change
through unproven computer models, and the AGW
skeptics point of view based on observed data and
effects of CO2 on temperature changes in Earth’s
present and past climates. In addition, there is
often disagreement about how the existing climate
data is interpreted, and the conclusions drawn from
these interpretations.
continued
Leighton Steward's
significant work with a team of former NASA scientists known as “The
Right Climate Stuff” who have looked carefully at the science of
climate change. Their report concluded that there is no convincing
physical evidence of catastrophic human caused global warming. And
they’ve recently taken this message to the International Conference
on Climate Change.
Leighton Steward is a leading scientist, environmentalist, and New
York Times best-selling author. He contends that this global warming
alarmism is dishonest and should not be used as a scare tactic to
propose radical environmental policies. He argues that true
environmentalists should recognize that modestly rising carbon
dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere have fueled a “greening” of
the earth that is good for plant life and human life.
President Obama has vowed to “respond to the threat of climate
change.” But a team of former NASA scientists with expertise in
physics, chemistry, geology, climatology, engineering, biology, and
other fields has carefully analyzed the evidence for global warming,
and has concluded that there is no evidence of catastrophic global
warming. They determined that current models are un-validated and
clearly deficient for climate forecasting, Earth's sensitivity to
CO2 is much less than commonly claimed, empirical evidence does not
support a catastrophic warming scenario, calling CO2 a "pollutant"
is scientifically embarrassing and we should not be spending huge
sums to reduce CO2 in light of the above. In fact, the team leader
projects a maximum of one degree Celsius of warming by the end of
this century based on a look back at empirical evidence.
Leighton Steward: “There is no convincing physical evidence of
catastrophic man-made global warming…This is not settled science and
this group supports more government-sponsored climate change
research to remove critical areas of prediction uncertainty.”
Leighton Steward: “Instead of attempting to make costly public
policy decisions of dubious effectiveness based on un-validated
computer simulations predicting earth’s future surface
temperature—we strongly recommend taking our time to improve our
knowledge of the critical factors driving temperature prediction
uncertainty…There is no impending climate disaster that requires
immediate action. We need to get the science right first, and then
determine the proper public policies. Forcing our nation to
prematurely use the most expensive energies in the world will kill
jobs and is a recipe for economic suicide.”