Been clicking through to those ads for Smarter New York Energy
Been clicking through to those ads for Smarter New York Energy, a website put together by the the Warm Thoughts Communications firm, a communications organization out of New Jersey that has been contracted by NYS Propane Gas Organization to oppose the Climate Leadership and Communication Act.
I did a little more digging using the property tax records and the listing for the NYS Propane Gas Organization’s address on their website (5315 Perry City Rd, Trumansburg, NY 14886) is the home address of Bill Overbaugh, Vice President, of Ehrhart Propane in Trumansburg. Nice 50 acre property though with a lake. That said, looking at their website, it looks like they are under new leadership.
The NYS Propane Gas Organization has a webpage asking for contributions:
Donate Now to Fight the CLCPA!
Give your financial support to our CLCPA Battle Fund so we can pay for crucial advocacy efforts that are not fundable with our PERC dollars. We are asking smaller companies to support with $5,000; larger companies $10,000. Make your donation via the form below.
For details on how we plan to spend the money, here is a video presentation. Contact our Executive Director for the password.
Warm Thoughts Communications is an interesting firm, as it looks like they are mostly made up of former heating oil and propane company staffers, and their work is mostly communications for the home heating industry. The CLCPA Battle Fund effort is probably a side job, with most of their work more mundane, putting out marketing websites for local heating oil and propane companies.
It’s interesting how concerned about that heating oil and propane dealers really are about the Climate Leadership and Communication Act to be putting out such a big media effort. It’s not like oil heating or propane heating is going to disappear tomorrow — it will take decades to replace home heating systems with heat pumps. But they have to also see the the writing on the wall. Maybe they have hope they can turn the political tide, but climate change isn’t going away nor is electrification going away.
14 Comments
Thanks for your research. Something just did not feel right about their posts.
Saw their advertisement and immediately went to see who they were and who was really funding them.
Thanks for tracking down this thread of deception. Their posts were over the top and filled with half-truths and lies. I all seemed like it was backed by existing energy companies afraid of losing their monopolies.
Pretty much what it is. I think it’s stupid campaign, because propane heating isn’t likely to disappear overnight, especially in areas where it’s most popular, namely rural New York not serviced by natural gas. Ground source heat pumps might work well there, as it’s relatively easy to install ground-source heat on rural properties under lawns and pastures, but there aren’t a lot of new homes being built in most rural areas, so there not likely to loose a lot of customers. Plus it’s going to give their industry a black eye. But I have feeling a lot of propane industry is dominated by grumpy old men, who at one level can’t imagine a different world, but at the same time feel threatened by change.
Thanks for posting this
Corporate globalists are using big media propaganda and censorship to manipulate what most believe about many issues, for the sole purpose of increasing their totalitarian control over every aspect of our lives, and to make their elitist selves richer at the expense of ordinary people, to turn us all into a powerless undifferentiated slave underclass. They introduce elaborate fictions like climate change among other things to do this. So called climate scientists won’t receive funding if they don’t rig their experiments to yield results that parrot their intended narrative. Using monetary reward and punishment to further their ends is known as social engineering. There is no carrot in this case, only stick. Electricity is outstanding in translating mechanical force as in motors, but is dreadfully inefficient when converted into heat by any scheme. Further, from a practical standpoint, solar energy may work great in deserts, but here, clouds and snow make them grossly ineffective. Wind turbines and a vastly expanded distribution grid are an environmental blight more than anything else, but most importantly, aside from the environmental destruction and energy consumption required for the manufacturing of such equipment, it cannot ever meet more than 15% of expected demand. So where will the other 85% of electricity generation come from, rats on treadmills? Those are the facts, and systematically ignoring them is purely insane and criminal. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Those are valid concerns. I would push back a little though on concerns that electric heat pumps are a poor choice for heating – especially if you are sourcing the heat from the ground. Pumping heat when the differential between the source and the desired temperature is relatively small is quite energy efficient. Even air source heat pumps are very efficient, when the outside air is above forty. Even if a combined cycle gas power plant is only 40% efficient, the heat pump can be 200-400% efficient depending on the source temperature. 40 x 200% is about 80% efficient – equal to an older oil burner – and plus you also have nuclear, hydro and some wind and solar in the grid.
Is the technology perfect? No. In cold snaps it can be very inefficient to pump heat especially from the air. Often heat pumps heat a room slower than fossil heaters.
I also agree there are serious questions to be asked about renewables. Often it seems like environmental reviews aren’t fully evaluating the impacts of large scale renewables. Activists are often way too optimistic about how fast we can replace fossil energy with renewables. But like anything there is a place for them. Rooftop solar can take loads off of local power grids, and even make them more stable by diversifying generation. Wind can help provide a valuable source of income for farms and local governments.
I totally agree there is a lot of magical thinking about climate change. But it’s hard to ignore the benefits of heat pumping and electric automobiles and buses, especially in cities and suburbs. Moving toxic emissions away from downtowns and childrens lungs is a good thing, as is moving towards electricity whose emissions can be more easily controlled at generating plants rather than individual chimneys and tailpipes.
Climate change is real and its impacting us all already. But I also agree with you that some of the more radical plans to address it at more harmful than good. But I think we should try and if something seems like it’s doing more harm than good, pull it.
Thank you for restoring my original message here. I believe that solar cycles control climate and human action is actually insignificant in terms of cause or cure, and there is not enough accurate record available to determine any actual current climate trend yet, so claims of human-caused climate change are scientifically unsupportable and inconclusive. Many years ago, I built an oil-fired pioneer radiant heating system into a passive solar house, with a central fireplace to burn abundant local deadwood in emergencies to keep body and soul together. To retrofit this already rather unimpactful design would be incredibly financially burdensome and in my view, totally unnecessary, so long as what we consume in fossil fuel would be needed to generate electricity elsewhere instead anyway, only to return the energy back to our home in that form. I am no fan of energy companies, and the climate change fiction is only a mechanism to guilt people into paying more for fuel that must be consumed anyway.
Totalitarians censor like you did. So you’re just another loser who can’t handle the truth, huh? Bet you think Kathy Hochul is wonderful, and not completely insane. If you’re not totally gutless and ignorant, email me.
Further notes regarding Kathy Hochul’s misguided energy policy dictates:
“She wants to eliminate all use of fossil fuels and force everyone to use electricity instead for everything. Even if you covered every open field with solar panels and every ridge with wind turbines, you couldn’t produce 15% of future demand, and the grid expansion would have to add to the blight. She even wants to outlaw woodburning. It’s renewable and “carbon neutral”, since by burning, you are stealing energy from bacteria and fungus that ordinarily consume it, with equal CO2 and worse, methane, as their waste products. Completely insane, but the facts are banned from discussion.”
(The entirely factual foregoing will not be allowed to show at other sites.)
The fireplace we built has an outside air intake for max efficiency by reducing drafts. It’s good and it works.
Attempts to totally centralize energy distribution should be viewed with utmost suspicion. Total control of your life and your thoughts is the goal, and yes, those who desire that are getting there faster than ever.
Dude, seriously? Have you read what Andy wrote? This is all a lot of scaremongering, designed to get you to react like a Pavlovian dog, ready to support the fossil fuel industry’s latest attempt to keep its dominant position and keep us all reliant on their control. But hey, keep drinking the Kool-Aid and complaining about high gas and oil prices!
I have to say I was pretty cynical about heat pumps when I first learned about them. But over time my mind has changed, as the technology has evolved quickly as has adoption in the market. That said, you’re right, this is completely a manufactured campaign by the fossil fuel industry to fear something we shouldn’t be afraid of adopting for greater efficiency and to reduce pollution in the cities. It’s one thing to burn fossil fuels on a 50-acre property in a rural area outside of the Finger Lakes but when you look at a city as large as New York City or some of the other big cities, it’s really time to move beyond them, especially as it becomes practical for widespread adoption. Heck, in many newer, modern off-grid applications, especially in warmer climates, people are generating their own power and heat and cooling entirely by electricity — I’ve been hearing about that on the Missouri Solar and Wind Podcast.
As an architect I am doing some Passive House “style” homes with solar on roof and geothermal heat pumps. Superinsulation and high R-value windows also help immensely. The heating and cooling bills are roughly 20% of a typical house with gas furnace would be. Yes, they cost a little more to build but in the long run saves a lot of money and carbon. I am writing this as the Quebec wildfires have turned the sky orange outside and smoke is in the air. I do believe the lack or rainfall and sustained low humidity this spring has caused these conditions. Whether it’s “solar cycles” or not I don’t know for sure. 95% of climatologists believe that the warming planet is causing a lot of the environmental havoc we see. I have to believe they are correct as it’s happening too rapidly. For sure carbon emissions warm the planet, not sure how that can be argued.
Thanks Jeffery, Clearly you have a vast knowledge of this area that most people don’t have. What about offshore wind power?