John Toedtman's July 26 anti-offshore wind farm letter showed that he did not get the message. On the other hand, Jim Paterson, the Cape Gazette's cartoonist, did get the message. He showed, in the May 21 issue, the sea-level rise graph, titled "High water marks" (Thanks, Jim).
Despite some opposition, many and large offshore wind farm projects are being rapidly built all over the world to reduce the carbon dioxide footprint of power generation. The offshorewind.biz website has progress reports almost every day.
Delaware is on track for increased climate change damage in three ways: 1. Sea-level rise becoming significant by 2050; 2. Increasing storm and other damage from extreme weather; 3. Larger secondary effects (e.g. food price increases) from primary events taking place inside and outside Delaware. Recent studies I have found are now estimating food cost increases of up to 3% per year from future extreme weather-induced crop damage (www.ewg.org).
Record extremes in temperature, rainfall, flood, drought, storm, crop damage, power outages and wildfires have ramped up in recent years. Just use the search string "wildfire FAQ" on an internet search to see this getting much worse too. Extreme weather has recently impacted the storm damage insurance industry. The most authoritative reference I have found can be located by internet search on the keyword "w32579.pdf." It is a free download economic study of insurance rate increases in recent years. The average increase is over 30%. The maximums are around 300% in high-risk parts of the USA. The article is more than 40 pages long, including many graphics, and includes four pages of references.
U.S. coastal areas are going to be impacted by 2050 from an expected 1- to 2-foot sea-level rise because high tides and storm surges will cause peak flooding to even higher levels. In addition, Delaware beach replenishment costs may yet become prohibitively high. One should think about the effect on tourism of significant beach erosion compared with the effect of minor horizon viewshed intrusion by offshore wind farms.
I read both the GOP and Democratic platforms for the 2024 election. The Democrats have a whole paragraph acknowledging the need to fight climate change. The GOP had nothing on fighting climate change. They do not see the elephant in the room.
But, another part of the GOP platform plans to massively expand the fossil energy industry. I wondered, what were they thinking? Almost all countries in the world – including a lot of companies in the U.S. (there are dozens of industrial websites on this) – are expanding as fast as they can on renewable energy, and shrinking as fast as they can on fossil energy. So, who is going to be buying up all of the extra oil, coal and gas that the GOP expansion will give us? And, in addition, every other country will think badly of the U.S. for not helping to fight climate change. That's two more elephants in the room they do not see.
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