In most technical or scientific fields, the response to self-proclaimed experts who are claiming everyone else has got it wrong should be cautious skepticism. Doubly so when they have little or no actual expertise in the field. Double again when this technical area is anything to do with climate change, which seems to attract self-styled "expert skeptics" like moths to a flame. Unless of course, you are a certain newspaper, then these sorts of claims need to be taken very seriously indeed and given lots of space, even if, for example they contain obviously nonsense, like claiming a huge drop in global temperatures that never actually happened.
Luckily we have journalists at The Climate Spectator and Renew Economy prepared to do a bit of fact checking. And from the latest stoush about wind power two things seem fairly clear.
1. Wind power does decrease the overall carbon footprint of electricity.
2. The growth of renewables (of which wind is a big part) and gas electricity generation, have coincided with a fall in coal power production as the squeeze is put on the most marginal coal plants. According to one energy analyst the combined effect of this and falling demand has been to reduce carbon emission from electricity generation to their lowest levels since 2003.
Thank heavens for natural resources controlling the release of emissions. The wind power plus carbon offsets can make a difference indeed.
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