Kevon Martis responds to “heated” advert hominem

Out of masterresource

By Robert Bradley Jr.

“Although the Martis crusade hasn’t received much national media coverage, clean energy advocates say it’s actively crippling the Midwest’s fight against climate change. A clean energy executive told HEATED and Distilled that if Martis gets into a community before them, their projects will almost certainly be blocked by the local government. Executive requested anonymity for fear of being attacked by Martis.” (drilled, below)

“This article is part of a new round of hits on people like me who advocate for fair siting of renewable energy projects. This new onslaught is fueled by the current effort by the Midwest’s renewable energy lobby to end local control over wind and solar zones precisely because it is so demonstrably unpopular and is facing an ever-increasing backlash.” (Martis, below)

“Meet the man fueling opposition to clean energy in the Midwest” by Michael Thomas is the latest from Heated, which bills itself as “a newsletter for people pissed about the climate crisis.” The subtitle of the Thomas article reads: “Kevon Martis and a group of fossil fuel-funded allies have waged a decade-long campaign to sow fear and misinformation about renewable energy. It works.”

Thomas’ hints are old: that Kevon Martis was a fossil burner, a zealot and [fill in the blank]. In fact, Martis can and has been described as a heroic public figure who rouses his fellow citizens to industrialize the primal for bad, unnecessary energy. (You can read more about Martis here.) And what he’s doing is happening across the country, as Robert Bryce updates in his Renewable Rejection Database.

Here are some quotes from Heated’s article, followed by a rebuttal from Kevon Martis:

effectiveness

  • [Kevon Martis is] the public face of one of the most influential anti-renewable energy efforts in the country.
  • “With the support of a small group of allies — many of whom receive money from the fossil fuel industry — Martis has helped pass dozens of laws banning or severely curtailing clean energy development in cities and counties across the Midwest. “
  • “Although Martis’ crusade has not received much national media coverage, clean energy advocates say it is actively crippling the Midwest’s fight against climate change.”
  • A clean energy executive told HEATED and Distilled that if Martis gets into a community before them, their projects will almost certainly be blocked by the local government. The executive asked for anonymity for fear of being attacked by Martis.
  • “The … ad helped the IICC achieve its first victory. In July 2011, Riga passed one of the country’s most restrictive wind turbine regulations, effectively banning wind energy projects in the region. Martis quickly expanded the campaign, eventually helping pass similar ordinances in nine other cities and counties.
  • “…”IICC successfully helped block a law that would have required Michigan utilities to generate 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025.”

fees

  • “To pass these laws, he used misinformation and fear-based tactics that ended up dividing entire communities.”
  • “Martis declined to be interviewed for this story. In an email to HEATED and Distilled, he took offense at being labeled an opponent of clean energy. “Objective ‘journalists’ don’t lead with offensive derogatory phrases like ‘against clean energy,'” he wrote. He added “#fail #bias” to the end of the email.”
  • “Today, Martis … continues to run ad campaigns asking residents to block solar and wind projects and regularly posts misinformation on Facebook.”
  • “Martis has said his overall strategy is to sow fear among politicians who support renewable energy. In a recent Facebook post, Martis wrote: “Your district commissioners will not be moved by facts. They are driven by political fear.’”
  • “Martis attended an event in Washington DC with some of the country’s most influential climate deniers.”
  • Disinformation has been an important part of the IICC’s strategy from the start. As part of its first campaign, the group bought a television advertisement that claimed a proposed wind farm in southeastern Michigan could “harm your families’ health, significantly reduce property values, and damage television and radio signals, potentially depriving your family of important safety.” warnings.”

The full attack on Martis is here. But obviously the climate alarmists and coerced energy conversionists (whose whole agenda depends on government coercion) don’t want Martis to succeed by playing hard politically like they do. Climate hyperbole and extremism are fine, but not Martis’ fact-based presentations and follow-up, which expose the economic and environmental downsides of government-sponsored, diluted, intermittent energy sources.

Happy Birthday Kevon Tuesday!

Refutation of Martis

Kevon Martis emailed me these quick points, reproduced below.

  • This is a repeat of every fake hit article ever printed about me. It’s the latest in a long line of eco-drift attacks that have been pioneered by Mike Barnard, David Anderson, and Peter Sinclair.
  • The play quotes me out of context in several places, particularly in the way it tries to portray me as a person who incites violence. I have never advocated violence.
  • I help communities, mostly at my own expense, because as a Christian (and not a very good one), I believe that if someone asks for help and I have the resources to help, I should help.
  • My Facebook quote refers to acts of violence From others As a warning to lawmakers trying to force a high percentage of utility-scale wind and solar projects into rural communities, this is not incitement. It’s a hyperbolic way of drawing attention to the forces unleashed by the senseless destruction of rural or wild places with massive power-harvesting machines. I don’t condone it and I don’t encourage it. But the risk is real. Therefore, the true cost of a high percentage of wind and solar forcing in rural communities could very well include the cost of a new state building. No threat, no incitement: an observation
  • The article continues a common theme that people opposed to wind and solar deforestation of rural areas, referred to pejoratively as “antis,” are border terrorists and that I am somehow personally responsible for inciting them.
  • I have seen outrageous behavior from people at local meetings where wind or solar projects have been proposed and rejected. Nine times out of ten, the wind/solar tenants are the bad actors, and on at least one occasion I’ve had to use a sheriff’s deputy to force an attorney representing Invenergy to stop disrupting a local town hall meeting.
  • This piece paints a picture of a man—ME—who apparently possesses so much dark persuasion that borders on the Grima Wormtongue that a mere 40-minute conversation about zoning has cast a lot of renewable energy advocates into fossil-fuel-bewitched Martis creeps can transform . If I had that kind of power I would be sitting in front of a fireplace in Zermatt watching the snow and spending my vast fortune that I have accrued through an amazing career in PR and marketing and not remodeling people’s bathrooms!
  • The truth is that 2,000 acres of solar farms surrounding people’s homes or 4 townships with 600 foot tall wind turbines are instantly despised by people around the world. And since I am not omnipresent and am not a polyglot, I cannot be accused of the “antis” in France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Scotland, England or Austria.
  • The saddest part of the play is my neighbor John Tuckerman’s false claim that I was a frustrated home builder who took revenge on my own community when the community rejected my proposed development. In other words, “If I can’t have my settlement, I’ll take your wind turbines away from you”. The fact is that I have never applied for or proposed any such development and at the time did not own or be interested in any buildable land in my community. The claim is simply a lie – and not a new one, but an old one.
  • This article is part of a new round of hits on people like me who advocate for fair siting of renewable energy projects. This new onslaught is fueled by the current effort by the Midwest’s renewable energy lobby to wrest local control of wind and solar zones precisely because it is so demonstrably unpopular and facing a growing backlash.
  • While they failed on their first try in Indiana, they just thrived in Illinois and are pushing hard in Michigan. These hits are sold to sympathetic state legislators, and the point is this: we need the state to take control of wind and solar zones because one man stops all development and one man can’t have that kind of power. And that one man is me.
  • The truth is that in Michigan, despite community-level zoning control, and despite all the opposition these projects encourage in rural communities, the wind industry, particularly here in Michigan, has been more successful in putting more iron in the ground than in states like Ohio and Wisconsin, which effectively have state control over renewable energy siting
  • Finally, this play paints me as a vicious villain, red-toothed and clawed, stirring up crazed mobs of “anti-clean-energy” zombies in the Midwest with wild claims about health effects, wind turbine cancer, and pervasive pollution from solar PV arrays. The truth is much more mundane. I give a 40-60 minute talk on wind or solar zones, answer questions and then go home. The links to two presentations can be found here and here. Don’t let the catchy, click-bait title fool you: Zoning for Utility Scale Solar: What Michigan Townships Need to Know

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