How National Audubon Society Deceives You- Birds and Climate Change - Christmas Count Report - Part 3- Summary of Deception

Let' summarize the deception and "scare-them-to-death" tactics that National Audubon Society used to spread their agenda of "environmental doom". Click links for proof.

1. NAS wrote and publicized their report Birds and Climate Change evaluating four decades of Christmas Count data collected by volunteers such as myself. The report was written to scare their membership into taking action to prevent the crisis they created with their report.
2. Even though most of the Christmas Count data is collected in December, they used a January temperature chart because the temperature trend was almost three times as warmer compared to the December chart. (1.42F per decade vs. .56F/decade)
3. The report was released in February 2009, however they left out data from January 2006 to January 2009 because the temperature trend of those years was dramatically down and would have decreased the averages.
4. They used the years 1966-2006 which was a period of moderate global warming, but they forget to tell you that the period from 1910-1945 has a similar trend of warming.
5. The years 1966-2006 represent a VERY SHORT time of climate data. January temperatures increased 1.42F per decade, however if we choose a longer period of time, 1906-2009 then the temperature trend increase is only .12F/decade. A short period makes the trend 12x worse than using a longer trend which is more representative of climate.
6. They forget to tell you that world climate has always consisted of alternating warmer and cooler periods. The January temperatures of 1953-1979 decreased at an average of -1.75/decade which is a cooling more dramatic than the 1.42F/decade warming of 1966-2006.
7. They scared you by cherry picking the January data rise from 1966-2006, but they didn't tell you that for the past nineteen years from 1990-2009 the trend leveled out and was only slightly warmer at .22F/decade.
8. They didn't tell you that January temperature have been dramatically decreasing from 1998-2009 at -2.32F/decade, greatly balancing out the temperature rise for the 1966-2009 period they used, aka the scare period.
9. On almost every single page there are scare phrases used to urge you to take action to address their misrepresented data. First they deceive you, then they scare you to correct the deceit.
10. They write the count data reveals a 35 mile northward of bird species. They "scare-us-to-death" without giving one bit of evidence that bird populations are decreasing. Maybe the birds are moving northward because population expansions are forcing them into new territory? What is so bad about the birds moving northward? But we are told to be concerned and take action on every single page, without one bit of proof.
11. They have 12 photos of birds highlighting their northward movement during the count. 8 of the birds are waterbirds or shorebirds. The count occurs mostly in December, just as the inland lakes are freezing. December temperature data reveals a small cooling during the data collection period. Of course we could expect that some lakes are freezing a few weeks later in December causing the birds to linger a few more weeks and increasing the count.
12. What is so bad about that? Apparently not much. Because when I used the Audubon graphing tool to create a trend line for the period 1996-2006 I found that of the 12 highlighted birds - 4 birds were increasing, 5 were the same and 3 were decreasing. And maybe there are other factors causing the decreased December population for the 3 decreasing species.
13. The Audubon report recommends Clean and Efficient Energy. On their web site they state they "strongly supports properly-sited wind power as a clean alternative energy source". In Pennsylvania and much of the US Northeast wind power is only efficient on our mountain ridges. They are doing NOTHING in the Northeast states to oppose the planned construction of thousands of wind turbine along our mountain ridges, right along the hawk migration routes!
14. On a mountain ridge each turbine needs about 4 acres of forest clear which includes the immediate area of each turbine, connecting roads and access roads. They mount the turbine on an enormous 30 ft deep base which is filled with over one million pounds of concrete and steel by a procession of concrete mixers and dump trucks. By supporting wind power in Pennsylvania, Audubon is recommending the construction of over five thousand of these turbines to generate even a messily couple percent of our electrical energy needs. And not one coal, nuclear or natural gas plant will be closed after we spend literally BILLIONS of dollars on this boondoggle.
15. Each turbine will permanently alter the scenic beauty of our landscape and FRAGMENT the forest of our precious mountaintop ridges.(link above) These ridges were completely logged over one hundred years ago and only now are starting to grow into a mature forest. Remember the fragmentation studies by us citizen scientists in the 1990's. That focus has been replaced by a new "scare-them-to-death" mantra with the end result of destruction of our landscape and displacement and death to the creatures that inhabit them.
15. Audubon states their mission is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earths biological diversity. In their 16 page report Birds and Climate they did not give one shred of evidence that the global warming from 1976 to 1998, which was likely the result of natural cyclic temperature fluctuations, resulted in ANY loss of habitat nor population to birds and other wildlife. Yet we do know that wind turbines will kill both birds and many bats. Turbine construction will result in forest fragmentation which will displace many creatures result in predation by cowbirds, raccoons, crows and etc. Roger Tory Peterson is rolling around his grave right now while he observes what conservation and environmentalism has now become!!!
16. Let's get more specific to birds, which is the primary focus of the National Audubon Society and its' hundreds of individual chapters in the US. For now, I refer you to this web page as an introduction. Read here how the NAS sat back while Golden Eagle killing turbines were sited in Washington State. Why? Because the receive grant money by pro windpower foundations! Read more here about how wind turbines kill birds.
17. Finally, while our country languishes in a deep recession, Audubon recommends that we further increase the Federal deficit by funding this debacle by placing the costs of construction of these wind farms on the backs of our children. On page 6 of this report entitled Federal Subsidies in the Energy Markets 2007 the facts are made clear. Per megawatt of power produced, wind power receives 50 times as much subsidy as coal and 16 times as much as nuclear power. In a future post I will lay out the indisputable facts how wind power will also increase your electric bill. THE WIND IS NOT FREE!
18. Audubon has used the "scare-them-to-death" tactics that are now considered basic science, in my next posts I will review one of their answers to this non-existent problem, the Cap and Trade legislation. To be continued in Part 4.

How National Audubon Society Deceives You- Birds and Climate Change - Christmas Count Report - Part 1 - Temperature Trend
Part 2 - The Birds