The band called "The Vandals" states it is hard core punk.

Today is a great day for your small renewable power start-up. You started with a passion for clean technology, concern for the environment, and an idea. That idea became a business plan and in turn an artist's rendering. You located a prime property, found the best materials, and now your financing has come through. Your idea is a real business.

You want to shout it from the rooftops: tell your friends, tell your family, tell your other investors, vendors, and utility partners. But, what about the guy next door? The guy who will watch your contractors (and all their trucks) arrive and begin to dig, pour concrete, erect a monopole, raise the blades and set your turbine spinning. The guy who is concerned about what your pole will mean to his home's value, the quiet tranquility of his morning walks, the light that he gets in his favorite reading chair, and a host of other things: after all, he has never been neighbor to a wind turbine before.

Nah...you'll wait on telling him. Well, there is your first mistake.


Early Identification is the Foundation of Your Community Engagement Strategy

What have you got to gain by holding off on telling your new "neighbor?" Too often, project developers make the mistake of waiting for the time to be "right" before engaging project opponents. More on engagement is coming in tomorrow's installment, but early identification is critical to how you begin and manage the whole community process.

You have to know who is out there. Finding that out might tip your hand, but the fact is that you are not going to sneak your project by anyone anyway. Trying to keep the lid on for too long can be just as costly as taking it off to soon, because it creates mistrust and creates an atmosphere of conflict.

De Facto Opponents

The goal of your community engagement process will be to turn potential opponents into allies. Nonetheless, while it is pretty easy to guess at who might be opposed, you have to do the work. Going into any permitting or other post-conception phase of your project without having as much information as you can get on "where the bodies are buried" would be foolish and will be cos

- Start with public records and determine who lives nearby. Do they own the property? If not, who does? Also, it may seem obvious to some, but make sure you know the local political players. Whose district are you about to dig up? Are the abutters his most loyal supporters? Are they on the state party committee? Are they voters at all? All of that data is available in the public record.

- Next, take some time to reconnoiter local boards, committees, municipal bodies and other stakeholders. Who is on the conservation commission in town? Are there any particularly active or well-connected civic groups or business associations? How has the town responded to development proposals in the past?

Armed with this info, you can begin to formulate a communications and engagement strategy. One size does not fit all, so you need to have the whole lay of the land.

Broaden the Discussion

Too often, project proponents are focused on the downside of community engagement, don't forget the flip side.

- Who will build your project? Labor is often among the most well-organized and influential groups in community and political debate at the community level. We will touch on how you can leverage their support on Wednesday in our section on "third voice integration."

- Along the same lines, look for partners among burgeoning grassroots green groups. Across the country, climate action groups are making themselves and their key issue (climate change) more relevant in local political discourse.

[...] the article continues on: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2009/09/powering-past-nimby-

By Joe Walsh. Read more

As the financial crisis continues to take its toll on the global economy, another serious challenge looms large: preventing the planet from warming more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Policymakers are now faced with the daunting task of stimulating growth without using carbon-intensive practices and stabilizing the climate without dampening economic recovery. If the financial crisis has shown that the future is unpredictable and that the nations and people of the world are interconnected in ways we do not always perceive, the climate challenge reinforces these lessons and suggests the need for timely, global coordination. View Larger

In advance of the 15th annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen this December, world leaders will convene at a number of high-level forums in the hopes of building consensus around key elements of a post-2012 climate change agreement. These forums include the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh and an all-day dialogue with the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on September 22 in advance of the General Assembly meeting. World Bank President Robert Zoellick will bring together finance and development ministers in October emphasizing that climate change is not only an environmental issue, but also one that affects economic and financial stability. With the need to get policies right in short order, Brookings experts and colleagues from the public and private sectors offer a range of recommendations for policymakers to forge sustainable climate change solutions that revitalize the global economy and alleviate the adverse effects of a changing climate on the world’s poor.

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In the 21st Century NIMBY Marketing has become a common technique that political parties (the ones with no executive power) use to weaken the government. Their goal is to generate the conflict needed to damage the incumbent's reputation when an important poll is being held and that is why the party focus all its efforts on prompting hostile neighbors and enrage them against their representatives.
Nowadays the easiest way to do so is by introducing fear in a local scale and facilitating the emergence of NIMBY groups and, in consequence, today is very usual to see politicians facing hostile audiences in their daily work. 
Being ready to deal with these circumstances is not a trivial thing and that is why the work of some NIMBY experts like Debra Stein is so outstanding. A good example of  it are the 12 points that Debra shows us to know How to Maximize Community Support at Public Hearings. Read it and try to find all the mistakes Tim Bishop did in the meeting.

1. Find Out the Rules. First of all, you need to know how the commission, council or board conducts its public hearings.Is it a “cattle call” where speakers line up in the aisles for their turn at the microphone? Are witnesses called up in the order in which they signed up? Does the chairperson alternate between advocates and adversaries or are witnesses called in some other particular order?You can’t take advantage of the rules if you don’t know them, so talk with the appropriate staff person or the chairperson well before the hearing so you know what to expect.
2. Get the Good Seats. The early bird may get the worm, but early-arriving witnesses get front row seats. Stake out good seats so decision makers can see your allies and know that the audience supports you.
3. Space Out Your Speakers. If you can submit speaker cards or sign up your supporters before the public hearing begins, do it. But, don’t register all your supporters to speak consecutively.You’ll want to reserve some allies for later in the hearing to allow an opportunity for rebuttal and to ensure that hostile messages are interspersed with positive messages about your project.
4. Put Your Best Speakers First. You want your most compelling, golden-tongued speakers to testify early in the hearing so that later witnesses can be inspired and guided by their presentations.You also want persuasive witnesses to testify early so that reporters who must leave the hearing early to meet their deadlines can pick up quotable quotes from supporters — not opponents.
5. Provide Talking Points. Citizen advocates need to know what to say before they stand up to testify. Provide a one-page fact sheet or list of bulleted talking points so speakers can emphasize the messages you want decision makers to hear.If you have a lot of speakers, you can produce a variety of message sheets addressing different issues. Union leaders might be provided a fact sheet that focuses on new jobs, for example, while PTA members might be given talking points about new tax revenues that will help boost local schools.
6. Encourage Supporters to Look Supportive. Project allies and team members can express their enthusiasm even when they are sitting still. Encourage pro-project attendees to smile and nod at appropriate moments.If there is an impressive crowd of supporters in the room, you can ask them to raise their hands or wear buttons to identify themselves as project advocates.
7. Maintain Contact With Supporters. Hearings often last longer than expected, and supporters may try to slip out of the hearing room without testifying if they think they won’t be noticed.So, be sure to greet your supporters when they show up and remind them that you are counting on them to remain for the entire hearing and to provide testimony.Maintain eye contact with waiting witnesses during the hearing and talk to them during breaks. If necessary, be prepared to intercept bolting witnesses at the door and press them to stay for just a few minutes longer.
8. Give ’em a Break. Public hearings often start late or drag on for hours, so make it easier for supporters to stick around the hearing room for a long time, if necessary.Have an assistant on hand to feed quarters into parking meters to prevent supporters’ cars from getting tickets. Have extension cords available for allies itching to get back to work or, at least, back online.Provide bottled water or snacks for waiting witnesses. Bring crayons or soft soccer balls for parents who brought their kids with them.You want to make it as easy and as pleasant as possible for supporters to stick around as long as needed throughout the entire public hearing.
9. Read Testimony Into the Record. Do you have a couple of important supporters who cannot attend the hearing? If so, their brief testimony can be read into the public record during the hearing.Ask the absentee to recruit his or her own spokesperson, or ask an audience member who hasn’t approached the microphone to read out the missing speaker’s comments.If necessary, a team member of the development team can read the prepared statement on behalf of the absentee.
10. Remember the Press. You can increase the chance of getting pro-project messages into print by urging supporters to talk with the reporters who are covering the public hearing.Identify one or two community spokespersons ahead of time and provide reporters with their names and phone numbers. Encourage your allies to approach the press, introduce themselves and explain why they support your project.If your supporters have submitted written comments or prepared written testimony for the hearing, they also should provide copies to reporters.Remember that more quotes from supporters leave less room in an article for opponents’ quotes.
11. Try to Speak Last. You want to be the last voice the decision-makers hear before they cast their votes.By speaking last, you can rebut attacks made by earlier speakers and ensure that your own key messages are fresh in the officials’ minds when it comes time to make a decision.Ask for a brief rebuttal period. If necessary, reserve some of your originally allocated speaking time to provide a summary of your views after all citizens have testified.If you cannot secure rebuttal time for yourself, try to hold at least one persuasive supporter in reserve to speak at the end of the hearing to summarize your key messages.
12. Do Not Delay the Vote. If you see that the decision-makers are ready to vote your way and are getting impatient with too much boring, repetitive testimony, then do not irritate them with unnecessary additional testimony.Even if opponents continue to drone on with unpersuasive complaints, encourage supporters to waive their testimony in the interest of time so you can get to the vote as soon as possible.

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GLbonafont
Do not communicate, involve!

A historic blue-green union of interests between Democrats and clean energy “is already emerging, albeit in miniature form,” writes Ronald Brownstein in the National Journal. In the 2008 campaign, three-fourths of the alternative-energy industry’s contributions went to Democrats. True, that was just $1.9 million — chump change in Exxon terms — but Brownstein sees a long-term dynamic gathering momentum: “employment in the industry is trending toward blue (Democratic) states, partly because they are more likely to adopt the policies (renewable power requirements for utilities, for example) that nurture the industry.” Yet there is a potential fly in the non-petroleum-based ointment, writes Robert Gammon in the East Bay Express: liberal opposition to “smart growth” in cities. There’s a growing recognition that opposition to growth — in Berkeley and Oakland, for example — contributed to environmentally unfriendly suburban and exurban sprawl, and that “infill development” — dense urban housing near mass transit — is now the way to go.

By The New York Times. Read more

Dismissing people who oppose renewable schemes such as wind farms in their area as "Nimbies" is counterproductive and could damage public support for clean energy, researchers warned. A study found only two per cent of more than 3,000 people questioned about nearby renewable schemes fell into the Not In My Backyard (Nimby) category of strongly supporting low-carbon power in general but opposing their local project. There was substantial support for renewable energy, plus in the local area, but it could be "fragile" – particularly in the case of onshore wind farms and biomass – said lead researcher Dr Patrick Devine-Wright from the University of Manchester.

Researchers urged the Government and developers to address the legitimate concerns people had about the impacts of renewable schemes, to ensure targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions from energy are met.

The Government's renewable energy strategy plans thousands of onshore and offshore wind turbines by 2020.

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The ‘Nimby’ stereotype of an older person who supports renewable energy schemes like wind farms but ‘Not In My Back Yard’ does not exist, a new study has found.

The idea of the Nimby first emerged in the 1990s when protest groups in small villages around England began to stand up against wind farms.

With the Government set to build thousands more onshore wind turbines in Britain over the next decade the stereotype is often referred to when protest groups emerge.

Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, was recently reported as saying opposing a wind farm should be as unacceptable as refusing to wear a seat belt.

However a survey of 3,000 people living near renewable energy projects like wind farms, energy from waste generators and wave or tidal projects found just two per cent fitted the “Not In My Back Yard” or Nimby stereotype of someone in favour of green power but not in their area.

Dr Patrick Devine-Wright from The University of Manchester, one of six universities taking part in the study, said the public is largely supportive of renewable energy. Where there are protests he said people have legitimate concerns about visual impact, the planning application or environment.

“Our results show that people generally support renewable energy, but that this support can be fragile, particularly for biomass and onshore wind energy.

“Offshore marine energy projects are so far being largely welcomed by nearby coastal communities, but large offshore wind farms can still sometimes be controversial.

“We have identified what the key issues are that shape public concerns about new proposals. Developers and government should be acting to address these key issues, not labelling protesters as Nimbies.

“They need to pay more attention to how the benefits or drawbacks of a proposal are perceived by local people.”

Professor Gordon Walker of Lancaster University also said criticising people for opposing wind farms was counter productive.

“Just calling protesters ‘Nimbies’ and suggesting, as Ed Miliband recently did, that it should be socially unacceptable to oppose wind turbines, is just counterproductive,” he said.

“People have a democratic right to express their views, to scrutinise development proposals and to argue their case.”

Mr Miliband said planning rules are being changed to take more account of local concerns while pushing through more projects.

“The planning rules are being changed by the government from April next year. As we all know, the rules matter, but so does public opposition or support. We are unlikely to be a centre for onshore wind production, if up and down the country, onshore wind applications are consistently turned down. So we have to win a political argument that environmentally and industrially, onshore wind is part of the solution.”

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent

Read the whole article here

The familiar pattern of wind farm objections, Nimby protests, planning difficulties, and investment set backs have returned to the UK this week. By James Murray, from BusinessGreen.com, part of the Guardian Environment Network

Anyone familiar with the two steps forward, one and three quarter steps back world of the UK's renewable energy industry is unlikely to have been surprised by the past week, but that does not stop it being teeth gnashingly frustrating.

Just a fortnight on from the release of the government's much vaunted Low Carbon Industrial Plan and the familiar pattern of wind farm objections, Nimby protests, planning difficulties, and investment set backs has returned.

The most high profile slap in the face for the sector comes in the form of Vestas' plans to close its wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight, despite the brave efforts of staff to oppose the decision by staging a sit in at the plant, jeopardising any chance of redundancy payments in the process.

There have been plenty of suggestions that Vestas' decision to close the plant is short sighted and that the government should step in to nationalise the facility. But while the issuing of dismissal letters inside a food parcel sent to the protestors was crass in the extreme, it is much harder to fault the commercial logic behind the decision to close the plant.

The factory was building blades that were then being exported to the US. At the same time, the company has a plant in the US capable of delivering the same blades at lower cost. It makes sense from both a commercial, and indeed an environmental perspective for turbines for the US market to be built in the US.

Vestas did look at converting the Isle of Wight factory to produce blades for the UK market, but decided that the risk that demand for the new turbines would not be forthcoming was too high. Was this an unreasonable decision?

Well, The British Wind Energy Association is right to point out that up to 2,700 new wind turbines are expected to be erected by 2012 with over 700 under construction and nearly 2,000 having secured planning permission. Meanwhile, the additional £1bn of financing announced by the government this week should ensure that those projects that have planning permission are indeed built.

And yet Vestas would be forgiven for arguing that it has seen such predictions in the past, only for the pipeline of new projects to be blocked time and again by local objections to planning applications, followed by long winding appeals that in many cases ended in disappointment.

It could point to Greenpeace's recent report showing that between December 2005 and November 2008 Tory councils blocked 158.2MW of wind energy projects, approving just 44.7MW, while Labour councils fared only a bit better rejecting 62.6MW, while approving just 68.3MW.

If it wanted more timely examples, it could highlight the news today that the RSPB is to formally oppose plans for the UK's largest onshore wind farm on the Shetland Islands, after previously indicating it would support the proposal. Or the decision by RES to cut the number of turbines at its planned Minnygap wind farm in Scotland from 15 to 10 in an attempt to win planning approval. Or Ecotricity's recent appeal against a decision that saw plans for a 12MW wind farm in North Dorset rejected despite planning authorities recommending to councillors that the proposals should be approved. The list goes on and on.

It is horrible for the workers involved, but you can understand why Vestas has decided that it has had enough operating in an environment where the market it serves is at the whim of a small minority of locally-fixated Nimby protestors and popularity courting councillors. If staff, trade unions and green groups want to protest against Vestas' decision, it is the government, and in particular wind farm blocking councils, that should be the target.

The fact is Nimbyism is at the root of most of the clean tech industry's problems, and what's more it is only going to get worse. The conservationist campaign against the proposed Severn Barrage is already gathering momentum, the anti-wind lobby is if anything getting more vocal and has substantial support on the back benches of a Conservative party that looks destined to form the next government, objections to biomass and waste-to-energy plants are increasingly common, and if the recent opposition to planned carbon capture and storage plants in Germany and the Netherlands is anything to go by, even this technology could be hamstrung by people worried about living above carbon sinks....

By James Murray. Read more

Not in my back yard.

That’s the nexus of Russia’s outlook on the U.S. in Central Asia, and Kyrgyzstan is going right along with it.

A report in today’s Irish Times, linked here, elaborates on how Russia is exploiting regional hydro-politics to undermine the United States’ position among Central Asian states. As this piece reports, following Kyrgyzstan’s decision to oust a key U.S. base in Manas to receive a multi-billion dollar Russian aid package, they’re also getting some help developing their hydro-energy resources, a vital need for Kyrgyzstan.

Kyrgyzstan plays a dominant role in the supply of water and hydropower as it sits on the upside of the Syr Darya river that winds from the Eastern Kyrgyz Mountains down through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan again, and finally into Kazakhstan. Anyone downstream–farmers, tribal well-diggers, and would-be hydro-energy producers–are at Kyrgyzstan’s wims.

Hence, the underlying dynamic for a complicated web of local, regional, and international conflicts over water. These beefs range from regional political squabbles over electricity shortages and localized tribal ground water conflicts to assassination attempts by competing national governments, a topic discussed in an IWPR piece that ran yesterday, linked here. In a broader regional context, the boys over at Registan.net (Much Respect) posted a well-developed look at water issues in the Aral Sea basin, here.

Big water issues, little states.

Enter Russia.

We follow Russian subversion of U.S. influence in the region with keen interest, and can’t help but notice the role Russia wants to play in helping play these countries off one another through hydro-electric energy competition. (We’ve posted here, here, and here, about Russia’s attempts to subvert American influence in its perceived backyard.)

When Kyrgyzstan lacks the financing, technical resources, and engineering expertise to develop its hydro-energy resources, Russia sees an exploitable weakness. On the heels of Russia’s multi-billion dollar aid package to persuade Kyrgyz officials to eject the U.S. base at Manas, lesser-known deals are following to help the country’s Hydro development.

Ironically, Russia is learning from U.S. playbook on energy politics. The United States improved its position in Middle-Eastern affairs and global energy markets through Saudi Arabia’s need to develop vast crude oil resources and establish internal security in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

Russia caught-on. They see an opportunity to dominate Heartland Politics through regional hydro-energy development and competing political factions among neighboring states who...

By politicspeaksvalleys. Read the whole post