As part of our efforts to get to the truth on critical issues…I reprint this article from the Virginia Green Menace. Part 2 of this report coming soon. Thanks to Terry Franklin from the Green Menace team for this report.
This past Tuesday, Roanoke County Administrator of General Services, Ann Marie Green – County staff member to RCCLEAR, introduced RCCLEAR Chairwoman Janet Sheid and Dr. Sean McGinnis from Virginia Tech to brief the Board of Supervisors on the Carbon Footprint reductions made in Roanoke County due to the efforts of RCCLEAR. What actually occurred were ridiculous endorsements of RCCLEAR and ICLEI based on fabrications. This is easily proven with the information provided in their own comments and the summary report.
It is safe to assume that the carbon emission figures provided in the summary report came from Sean McGinnis given his declaration that he is one of the few people in the area who have used the ICLEI software and named as the adviser Though it was Janet Shied who stated that ‘we are well on our way to reaching our 30% reduction of carbon emissions by 2010’. That comment was not refuted by Sean McGinnis and are reinforced in the summary conclusion. So let’s look at the first bullet point in the summary with the goal of a 30% reduction in ten years and the closing statement in the conclusion:
The County’s carbon footprint for calendar year 2010 is 1.81 million tons of C02 compared to 1.84 million tons for the baseline year of 2007.
The bottom line is that the Roanoke County carbon footprint for the first of 10 monitoring years is down an unadjusted 1.2%, and when normalized for increased cooling and heating loads is actually down 3.3%, which is right at the designated target of 3%.
What these people are doing is providing the figures that they want to show and some simple math is all that is needed to show that it is blatantly false –
2007 Baseline Year 1.84 million tons
Minus 1.81 million tons (Footprint for 2010)
Equals .03 million tons reduction divided by 2007 baseline year of 1.84 million tons equates to 1.63 percent. Divide that by 3 years and you have .54 percent.
Keep in mind that the CACP software provided by ICLEI has NEVER been scientifically validated by any source, but let’s assume the figures provided above are correct. Note that there is absolutely zero footnoted source data provided for any of the figures shown in any of the charts. How is it that you can turn a .54 percent decrease into a 3.3 percent decrease in a year when the three-year time span from baseline is only 1.63 percent? Well, that magic appears when you ‘normalize for increased cooling and heating loads’. This ‘normalization’ of figures is repeated several times in the summary and again you have to question where the supporting data or methodology is per this little nugget from the summary report -
The County government’s carbon emissions increased by twenty-three percent(230/0), which is mainly attributable to the increase in square footage of County buildings by twenty-two percent (220/0). However when this is adjusted for the increase in cooling and heating loads, government emissions actually went down about four percent (4%).
So County government really had a 23% increase but we can ‘normalize’ it to a decrease of 4% right? No need to whittle the whole report down. It all reads the same.
Good sleight of hand or an entertaining magician will engage you even when you know what you are seeing. The show McGinnis put on was poorly done on paper and in person. That his job at Virginia Tech as Director of the Green Engineering Program depends on him promoting the dangers of global warming should be telling enough, but he is arrogant enough to think his public ‘dog and pony show’ in support of ICLEI/RCCLEAR would not be examined. (Editor Note: Honestly that is a safe assessment as no one in the MSM wold dare say anything against these efforts regardless of how fuzzy the math is….I mean their intentions are so “pure.”)
You can read the summary report given to the Supervisors here starting on page 10:
And you can view the presentation given by Sheid and McGinnis starting at 22:00 of the Board meeting here:
Another report done by McGinnis for Roanoke City:
