The two ugliest meetings I’ve been to in regard to siting solar energy were in Cohocta and Conway townships, in Southeast Michigan.
In Cohocta, residents stood on their chairs and shouted down local officials. One protester had a side arm strapped to his waist. Not sure what he had in mind for that at a public meeting, and didn’t want to find out.
In Conway, one of my colleagues had to be escorted out by local police after officers heard chatter in the crowd about a plan to “jump him” when he left the meeting.
Nearby Howell, Michigan has long been known as a hotbed for the Ku Klux Klan, and Cohocta was home at one time to the local Grand Dragon.
No connection, I’m sure.
Many historians believe Klan membership was commonplace among automotive union workers throughout the state for decades, Castanier said.
That suspected link was confirmed by one of the group’s most notorious leaders, Robert Miles, in 1991.
The KKK recruited new members amid the working class, Miles, a former grand dragon of the Michigan Klan, said during an interview for the documentary “Blood in the Face.”
“That’s where our strength is even today,” Miles said. “When we had 2,000 members of the Klan in Michigan back in 1970, the bulk of our people came out of the auto factories. They were the workers at Buick, Saginaw Steering, Chevrolet Gear and Axel, Cadillac, Ford. That’s not the upper class. That’s the working class.”
Miles lived on a 70-acre farm in Cohoctah Township, northwest of Howell in Livingston County, and rose to prominence in the Klan in the 1970s.
He was attention-seeking and had a violent reputation. Miles was among five people convicted in 1971 of planning the bombing of school buses that were to be used for court-ordered desegregation in Pontiac. A few years later, he was convicted on a conspiracy charge related to the tarring and feathering of Dr. R. Wiley Brownlee, a high school principal in Ypsilanti who supported desegregation.
“The whole time I was in Livingston County he was the most evil person I met,” said longtime Livingston County journalist Buddy Moorehouse. “He couched his racist talk. He quoted the Bible a lot and he did it in a way that people who talked to him might think, ‘This guy makes sense.’”
Miles sought out the press, Moorehouse said, stopping by The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus offices regularly when Moorehouse was the editor to pick up a copy of its latest edition.
“Miles was very, very savvy when it came to public relations,” Moorehouse said. “He wanted the word out about what he was doing.”
He also wanted to keep Livingston County white and preached that message publicly.
In 1989 Miles lashed out at a Howell group pushing back against the community’s racist image. During a Michigan Civil Rights Commission meeting that fall, he called the group “a bunch of hypocrites.”
Moorehouse was there and remembers Miles telling the commission he was responsible for “keeping the community white.”
Absofuckinglutely brilliant textbook case of weaponized projection: Screaming at people to protest the noise solar panels make.
And the toxicity of replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy.
“A Reality Check About Solar Panel Waste and the Effects on Human Health”
The coming surge in photovoltaic panel waste is tiny compared to other categories, and most health concerns about solar equipment are unfounded.
Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, October 12, 2023 https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12102023/inside-clean-energy-reality-check-solar-panel-waste/
“Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic module toxicity and waste are slowing decarbonization”
Heather Mirletz, et al. Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-023-02230-0.epdf
“…several US state health department websites provide a list of potential toxins in PV modules…However, the vast majority of PV modules are either crystalline silicon or cadmium telluride (97% and 3% global market share, respectively, in 2022). …these two most common types of PV contain almost none of these harmful materials. Crystalline silicon PV modules are 77% glass, 10% aluminium, 3% silicon and 9% polymers, with less than 1% copper, silver and tin, and less than 0.1% lead. CdTe modules are 80-85% glass, 14% aluminium, 2-4% polymers, less than 0.4% copper, and less than 0.1% tellurium and cadmium.”
Of course all efforts should be made to both further contain & further reduce the tiny amounts of toxic materials used in once-every-40-to-60-year manufacture, but let’s understand that this is already a vast reduction & containment compared to fossil or fissile fuels’ spewing of large amounts of lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, PM2.5, radiation, & other poisons into air, water, soil, bodies, & minds. In fact I attribute protests like this not only to mental illness of the ideology but to the scientifically confirmed IQ-reducing aggression-causing thought-disturbing effects of fossils’ lead, mercury, particulates, CO2, & heat.
“Solar Waste Stream is Tiny, Compared to Current Fossil Fuels”
This Is Not Cool, October 9, 2023
“A Reality Check About Solar Panel Waste and the Effects on Human Health”
The coming surge in photovoltaic panel waste is tiny compared to other categories, and most health concerns about solar equipment are unfounded.
Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, October 12, 2023
“New Video: Clean Energy = Less Mining”
This Is Not Cool, September 15, 2022
“Mining quantities for low-carbon energy is hundreds to thousands of times lower than mining for fossil fuels”
Hannah Ritchie, Jan. 18, 2023
“Low-carbon tech needs much fewer materials than it used to; this matters for resource extraction in the future”
Hannah Ritchie Nov. 11, 2024
“By 2042, Chinese Battery Maker Will No Longer Need Mining as Recycling Takes Over”
This Is Not Cool, May 22, 2024
“NREL: How Much Land for Renewables?”
This Is Not Cool, March 1, 2023
[The RE land figures given here should be cut in ½ to reflect already-advanced RE energy & end-use efficiency, ½ again for further rapid advances, ½ again because the US could do it all with offshore wind & rooftop solar. Even though it won’t, those will save enormous amounts of land.]
“Solar Much More Efficient Use of Land vs Ethanol”
This Is Not Cool, January 22, 2022