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Author Topic: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi  (Read 39671 times)

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AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #75 on: September 02, 2015, 08:58:57 pm »
Shilling for Dollars

Front groups with official and impressive name such as Medicine and Public Health at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) tend to lend an air of authoritative credibility to a given issue. It carries the impression of being an expert source.

To increase the “expert credibility” image, add someone with a few letters before and/or after their name to the staff.

But is the front group or its representatives really an expert and credible organization? 

Full article:
https://frackorporation.wordpress.com/2015/08/15/shilling-for-dollars/

Agelbert NOTE:
The short answer is NO. The ACSH is funded by a rogues gallery of polluters. The scientists they employ are bought and paid for to distort, dissemble and twist the science of applied physics (see "High Energy Density" of fossil fuels happy talk) and climate science along with several other pro-corporate and anti-people propaganda). The ACSH exists to perpetuate the profit over planet polluting status quo, PERIOD.



Why You Can’t Trust the American Council on Science and Health

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Gary Ruskin

The American Council on Science and Health is a front group for the tobacco, agrichemical, fossil fuel, pharmaceutical and other industries.

Personnel

ACSH’s “Medical/Executive Director” is Dr. Gilbert Ross.[2] In 1993, according to United Press International, Dr. Ross was “convicted of racketeering, mail fraud and conspiracy,” and was “sentenced to 47 months in jail, $40,000 in forfeiture and restitution of $612,855” in a scheme to defraud the Medicaid system.[3]
ACSH’s Dr. Ross was found to be a “highly untrustworthy individual” by a judge who sustained the exclusion of Dr. Ross from Medicaid for ten years.[4]


Funding
 

ACSH has often billed itself as an “independent” group, and has been referred to as “independent” in the press. However, according to internal ACSH financial documents obtained by Mother Jones:

“ACSH planned to receive a total of $338,200 from tobacco companies between July 2012 and June 2013. Reynolds American and Phillip Morris International were each listed as expected to give $100,000 in 2013, which would make them the two largest individual donations listed in the ACSH documents.”[5]

“ACSH donors in the second half of 2012 included Chevron ($18,500), Coca-Cola ($50,000), the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation ($15,000), Dr. Pepper/Snapple ($5,000), Bayer Cropscience ($30,000), Procter and Gamble ($6,000), agribusiness giant Syngenta ($22,500), 3M ($30,000), McDonald’s ($30,000), and tobacco conglomerate Altria ($25,000).

Among the corporations and foundations that ACSH has pursued for financial support since July 2012 are Pepsi, Monsanto, British American Tobacco, DowAgro, ExxonMobil Foundation, Philip Morris International, Reynolds American, the Koch family-controlled Claude R. Lambe Foundation, the Dow-linked Gerstacker Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the Searle Freedom Trust.”[6]

ACSH has received $155,000 in contributions from Koch foundations from 2005-2011, according to Greenpeace.[7]

Indefensible and incorrect statements on science
ACSH has:

Claimed that “There is no evidence that exposure to secondhand smoke involves heart attacks or cardiac arrest.”[8]

Argued that “there is no scientific consensus concerning global warming. The climate change predictions are based on computer models that have not been validated and are far from perfect.”[9]

Argued that fracking “doesn’t pollute water or air.”[10]

Claimed that “The scientific evidence is clear. There has never been a case of ill health linked to the regulated, approved use of pesticides in this country.”[11]

Declared that “There is no evidence that BPA [bisphenol A] in consumer products of any type, including cash register receipts, are harmful to health.”[12]

Argued that the exposure to mercury, a potent neurotoxin, “in conventional seafood causes no harm in humans.”[13]

Footnotes

[2] “Meet the ACSH Team,” American Council on Science and Health website.

[3] “Seven Sentenced for Medicaid Fraud.” United Press International, December 6, 1993. See also correspondence from Tyrone T. Butler, Director, Bureau of Adjudication, State of New York Department of Health to Claudia Morales Bloch, Gilbert Ross and Vivian Shevitz, “RE: In the Matter of Gilbert Ross, M.D.” March 1, 1995. Bill Hogan, “Paging Dr. Ross.” Mother Jones, November 2005. Martin Donohoe MD FACP, “Corporate Front Groups and the Abuse of Science: The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).” Spinwatch, June 25, 2010.

[4] Department of Health and Human Services, Departmental Appeals Board, Civil Remedies Division, In the Cases of Gilbert Ross, M.D. and Deborah Williams M.D., Petitioners, v. The Inspector General. June 16, 1997. Docket Nos. C-94-368 and C-94-369. Decision No. CR478.

[5] Andy Kroll and Jeremy Schulman, “Leaked Documents Reveal the Secret Finances of a Pro-Industry Science Group.” Mother Jones, October 28, 2013. “American Council on Science and Health Financial Report, FY 2013 Financial Update.” Mother Jones, October 28, 2013.

[6] Andy Kroll and Jeremy Schulman, “Leaked Documents Reveal the Secret Finances of a Pro-Industry Science Group.” Mother Jones, October 28, 2013. “American Council on Science and Health Financial Report, FY 2013 Financial Update.” Mother Jones, October 28, 2013.

[7] “Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group: American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).” Greenpeace. See also Rebekah Wilce, “Kochs and Corps Have Bankrolled American Council on Science and Health.” PR Watch, July 23, 2014.

[8] Richard Craver, “The Effects of the Smoking Ban.” Winston-Salem Journal, December 12, 2012.

[9] Elizabeth Whelan, “’Global Warming’ Not Health Threat.” PRI (Population Research Institute) Review, January 1, 1998.

[10] Elizabeth Whelan, “Fracking Doesn’t Pose Health Risks.” The Daily Caller, April 29, 2013.

[11] “TASSC: The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition,” p. 9. Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, University of California, San Francisco. November 21, 2001. Bates No. 2048294227-2048294237.

[12] “The Top 10 Unfounded Health Scares of 2012.” American Council on Science and Health, February 22, 2013.

[13] “The Biggest Unfounded Health Scares of 2010.” American Council on Science and Health, December 30, 2010.

Food For Thought, Hall of Shame

http://usrtk.org/hall-of-shame/why-you-cant-trust-the-american-council-on-science-and-health/

Agelbert NOTE:
Here is an excellent example of pseudo scientific baloney published by the ACSH (it's three years old but the same baloney continues to be peddled by fossil fuelers and those that swallowed their mendacious propaganda):

Energy Density: Why Gasoline Is Here To Stay 

By Hank Campbell    | August 2nd 2012 11:00 PM

SNIPPET 1 - The Pretense of Objectivity Wind Up (i.e. tough love "real world" baloney mixed with sympathy laced rhetoric):

Like people who approach geopolitics with the attitude of "If people would just talk to each other, we would all along", there are a lot of naïve assumptions about just dumping gasoline.

We know it causes emissions, and emissions are bad, we know a lot of the money paid for oil goes to fund Middle Eastern terrorism, and that is bad - those things should cause both the left and the right in America to want gasoline gone. And yet it is not gone. The reason is simple: gasoline is a lot more efficient than alternative energy proponents want to believe.


SNIPPET 2 - The pitch:

Energy density is the amount of stored energy in something; in the case of gasoline we talk in America about a 1 gallon volume but I will use both metric and standard for the values. Gasoline has an energy density of about 44 megajoules per kilogram (MJ/kg), converted to American values that is 1.3 × 108 J/gallon.


SNIPPET 3 (Just ONE of SEVERAL real world AND applied physics LIES):

Ethanol was the last craze of the Anything-But-Oil contingent yet even they had to succumb to reality and recognize that the lower energy density meant 25% worse gas mileage - worse for people, worse for food prices and worse for the environment.
http://www.science20.com/science_20/energy_density_why_gasoline_here_stay-91403


Agelbert NOTE: To begin with, ethanol is not a "craze". It was not a craze in 2012 and, because presently 15 billion gallons of it are made a year, it certainly isn't one now.

But the fact that the author is so ignorant of history (Edison labs in partnership with the U.S. Navy, in the first decade of the 20th century, PROVED that ethanol was a superior fuel to gasoline - It was rather convenient for Standard Oil that Prohibition just happened to come along after Rockefeller funded the temperance movement to the tune of several million dollars...) is informative about the questionable scientific objectivity of the author.  ;)

The author puts up a happy talk graph showing gasoline as the high energy density champion over E85. He leaves out E100 (an informative omission that points squarely at a fossil fuel bias).

The chart is accurate. So what's the problem? The problem is that energy density of gasoline and ethanol is a process determined in the lab, by scientists, in certain standardized conditions. I'm CERTAIN fossil fuelers know this. The energy density of about 44 MJ/kg) for gasoline is determined by heating water, in an open flame in standard atmospheric conditions (a fixed temperature and pressure - sea level at 59 degrees F). 

If the above appears irrelevant to you, let me remind you that heating water in an open flame is an EXTERNAL combustion process. It is true that gasoline will heat that water quicker than ethanol.  ;D

But, unless you have a steam engine running your car, you need to consider how much WORK you can get from gasoline versus ethanol in an INTERNAL combustion engine.

The author neglected to mention that ethanol (E100) has a higher octane rating than non-leaded gasoline, even though E100 has a lower energy density.  ;D High octane ratings give a fuel better mileage as long as you oxidize them in a high compression internal combustion engines. That is why tetra-ethyl lead was invented to help our children's IQ... You see, ethanol was outlawed for fuel thanks to Prohibition... And, by the way, leaded gasoline is STILL LEGAL for use in aircraft internal combustion engine, all of which are high compression engines. Do you live under the approach to general aviation airport? Then you are getting the "benefit" of still another "externalized" cost thanks to the fossil fuel industry.

When you mix gasoline with ethanol (e.g. E85) you LOWER the octane rating. IOW, you are making it LESS efficient. You are making it LESS competitive with gasoline. You are getting the waste heat disadvantage of gasoline and losing the a part of the high octane rating of ethanol. That is Inefficient. That is unscientific. That is STUPID. But that is convenient and profitable for the fossil fuel industry. You might ask yourself why E100 is in common use in Brazil, but not in the USA. I'll give you three guesses - the first two don't count;)

Why ethanol's octane rating is higher than that of non-leaded gasoline if ethanol has a lower energy density? Because ethanol is of uniform chemical structure. Consequently, it burns evenly and does not suffer from pre-ignition (like low octane gasoline DOES) which can severely damage an engine.

More thermodynamically important, however,  the consistent chemical structure of E100 ensures complete combustion, aided by the fact that it carries it's own oxygen.

In addition, ethanol has extremely low waste heat because, unlike gasoline, it doesn't produce carbon deposits from incomplete combustion on the cylinder walls that increase friction and decrease engine life.

Unlike an engine running on gasoline, you can touch the block, or the manifold, of an engine running on ethanol with your hand AND KEEP IT THERE without getting burned. This has huge savings implications for engine design that the fossil fuel industry has done it's best to keep from internal combustion engine designers and manufacturers (more on that below).

IN SUMMARY, "High energy density" calculations  are based on EXTERNAL thermodynamic combustion processes. It is true that gasoline will boil water in an open flame faster than ethanol will. That doesn't have beans to do with automobiles.

But when INTERNAL combustion is involved, ethanol produces more useful work than gasoline. That has EVERYTHING to do with automobiles.

But there is more the fossil fuel industry does not want most people to know. Due to the fact that ethanol burns so cleanly and has such low waste heat, a high compression internal combustion engine specifically designed for ethanol would be about 30% lighter (i.e. a lot cheaper) because the metal alloys involved would not have to be engineered to withstand the engine stressing waste heat that gasoline generates. Of course, said internal combustion engine (ICE) could not be approved for running gasoline. Gasoline would trash an engine designed specifically to run on ethanol in short order. The fossil fuel industry would not like that at all.

A lighter ICE running ethanol would then get even more mechanical energy (i.e. WORK) out of each gallon because less engine weight would need to be moved along with the car and occupants.

The Fossil Fuel Industry knows all that. That is why they continuously try to demonize and talk down ethanol biofuel with mendacity and dissembling about "low ERoEI", "water in the fuel" and "corrosion".

I, and many others, have exposed all that fossil fuel industry self serving propaganda. But they just keep throwing it out there to try to preserve the TOTALLY unscientific basis for claiming fossil fuels are a "better fuel" than E100 (pure ethanol).

Don't believe them. And check to see who is doing the funding when you read happy talk about fossil fuels.

The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) is not objective, science based or credible. Hank Campbell, like the fossil fueler MKing that haunts the Doomstead Diner, is not interested in scientific objectivity; preserving the fossil fuel profit over planet status quo with mens rea mendacity is behind everything they write.



Further reading that methodically takes apart some relatively recent pseudo scientific baloney by the "illustrious" Professor Charles Hall, friend of fossil fuelers everywhere. 



 

 
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #76 on: September 03, 2015, 04:13:06 pm »
What the fossil Fuel Industry Propagandists tell us about fossil Fuels being "cheaper" than Renewable Energy is EXACTLY BACKWARDS!

SNPPET:


Quote
One the central claims of the peak oil/energy decline movement, is that renewable sources of power have extremely low ERoEI. Therefore, it is claimed, renewables are no substitute for fossil fuels, because they cannot provide enough “net energy” to power civilization. In support of this claim, energy decline adherents often post graphs like this one (at link), showing that renewables (especially solar PV) have low ERoEI compared to fossil fuels. More recently, Hall  and Prieto  have published a book, Spain's photovoltaic revolution    , in which they claim that the ERoEI of solar PV in Spain is only 2.45, which is far lower than the ERoEI of fossil fuels. 

In fact, those claims are entirely wrong. Renewables have ERoEI ratios which are generally comparable to, or higher than, fossil fuels. Although peak oilers reach a different conclusion, that is because they are carrying out the calculation incorrectly.

They are ignoring or not including massive waste heat losses (generally 60% or more  :o) from combustion engines which drastically reduces the ERoEI of fossil fuels.

Those waste heat losses provide no energy services to society, and should be counted as losses, but are wrongly counted as "energy returns" by peak oilers.

Furthermore, peak oilers are ignoring or not counting other large energy losses of fossil fuels. Those omissions exaggerate the ERoEI of fossil fuels relative to renewables. When the calculation is carried out correctly, renewables have higher ERoEI ratios than fossil fuels.

In other words, the notion that renewables have ERoEI ratios which are lower than fossil fuels, is simply mistaken.
It arises from performing invalid, apples-to-oranges comparisons, or from not counting energy losses of fossil fuels.

Renewables have higher ERoEI than fossil fuels.

Agelbert NOTE: For those who still don't get the "how it works" of fossil fuel bought and paid for scientists like Hall and Prieto, the Orwellian (for fossil fuelers) title of the book "Spain's Photovoltaic Revolution" should be a learning experience.

You see, it's the wind up to a sucker punch pitch.  They KNOW people will rush to that title. They KNOW that many readers are not scientists and don't understand clearly the upsides and downsides of different energy technologies.

The purpose of books like that is to dissemble about Renewable Energy upsides (and simultaneously cheer fossil fuel based energy) while disingenuously claiming to be scientifically objective about all energy sources.

They lead people with hope for a clean energy world there (i.e. they get you to BUY the book with that disingenuous title. When you spend money on something, you already have some ownership bias working AGAINST your objectivity in regard to the book's contents.  ;)).

THEN they proceed to demonize PV with men rea sympathy laced crocodile tear rhetoric about wishing that we could all go to Renewable Energy heaven but it just cain't be done - sorry".

That is immediately followed but the old "tough love" trick about the "real world" where fossil fuels are IT if we don't want to live in caves"... - Works every time!  At least it used to until people got wise to their clever dissembling.

THINK, people. THINK! 


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #77 on: September 17, 2015, 02:38:51 am »
What is the NIPCC? Is it just like the IPCC, but with an "N"?  ;)

Well, no. The NIPCC is a group of climate change "skeptics", bank rolled by the libertarian Heartland Institute to promote doubt about climate change. This suits the Heartland Institute's backers, including fossil fuel companies and those ideologically opposed to government regulation.

The NIPCC promotes doubt via thousand-page reports, the latest of which landed with a dull thud last week. These tomes try to mimic the scientific reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), right down to the acronym. However, unlike the IPCC, the NIPCC reports are works of partisan pseudoscience[/size][/quote].

http://phys.org/news/2013-09-adversaries-zombies-nipcc-climate-pseudoscience.html#jCp
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #78 on: September 18, 2015, 02:55:48 pm »
Quote
Climate Myth...

CO2 is plant food

Earth's current atmospheric CO2 concentration is almost 390 parts per million (ppm).  Adding another 300 ppm of CO2 to the air has been shown by literally thousands of experiments to greatly increase the growth or biomass production of nearly all plants.  This growth stimulation occurs because CO2 is one of the two raw materials (the other being water) that are required for photosynthesis.  Hence, CO2 is actually the "food" that sustains essentially all plants on the face of the earth, as well as those in the sea.  And the more CO2 they "eat" (absorb from the air or water), the bigger and better they grow. (source: Plants Need CO2)

Quote
An argument made by those who prefer to see a bright side to climate change is that carbon dioxide (CO2) being released by the burning of fossil fuels is actually good for the environment. This conjecture is based on simple and appealing logic: if plants need CO2 for their growth, then more of it should be better. We should expect our crops to become more abundant and our flowers to grow taller and bloom brighter.

However, this "more is better" philosophy is not the way things work in the real world. There is an old saying, "Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing." For example, if a doctor tells you to take one pill of a certain medicine, it does not follow that taking four is likely to heal you four times faster or make you four times better. It's more likely to make you sick.

It is possible to boost growth of some plants with extra CO2, under controlled conditions inside of greenhouses. Based on this,  'skeptics' make their claims of benefical botanical effects in the world at large. Such claims fail to take into account that increasing the availability of one substance that plants need requires other supply changes for benefits to accrue.  It also fails to take into account that a warmer earth will see an increase in deserts and other arid lands, reducing the area available for crops.

Plants cannot live on CO2 alone; a complete plant metabolism depends on a number of elements. It is a simple task to increase water and fertilizer and protect against insects in an enclosed greenhouse but what about doing it in the open air, throughout the entire Earth? Just as increasing the amount of starch alone in a person's diet won't lead to a more robust and healthier person, for plants additional CO2 by itself cannot make up for deficiencies of other compounds and elements.

What would be the effects of an increase of CO2 on agriculture and plant growth in general?

1. CO2 enhanced plants will need extra water both to maintain their larger growth as well as to compensate for greater moisture evaporation as the heat increases. Where will it come from? In many places rainwater is not sufficient for current agriculture and the aquifers they rely on are running dry throughout the Earth (1, 2).

On the other hand, as predicted by climate research, we are experiencing more intense storms with increased rainfall rates throughout much of the world. One would think that this should be good for agriculture. Unfortunately when rain falls in short, intense bursts it does not have time to soak into the ground. Instead, it  quickly floods into creeks, then rivers, and finally out into the ocean, often carrying away large amounts of soil and fertilizer.

2. Unlike Nature, our way of agriculture does not self-fertilize by recycling all dead plants, animals and their waste. Instead we have to constantly add artificial fertilizers produced by energy-intensive processes mostly fed by hydrocarbons, particularly from natural gas which will eventually be depleted. Increasing the need for such fertilizer competes for supplies of natural gas and oil, creating competition between other needs and the manufacture of fertilizer. This ultimately drives up the price of food.

3. Too high a concentration of CO2 causes a reduction of photosynthesis in certain of plants. There is also evidence from the past of major damage to a wide variety of plants species from a sudden rise in CO2 (See illustrations below). Higher concentrations of CO2 also reduce the nutritional quality of some staples, such as wheat.

4. As is confirmed by long-term  experiments, plants with exhorbitant supplies of CO2 run up against  limited availability of other nutrients. These long term projects show that while some plants exhibit a brief and promising burst of growth upon initial exposure to C02, effects such as the  "nitrogen plateau" soon truncate this benefit

5. Plants raised with enhanced CO2 supplies and strictly isolated from insects behave differently than if the same approach is tried in an otherwise natural setting. For example, when the growth of soybeans is boosted out in the open this creates changes in plant chemistry that makes these specimens more vulnerable to insects, as the illustration below shows (at link).

Plant defenses go down as carbon dioxide levels go up, the researchers found. Soybeans grown at elevated CO2 levels attract many more adult Japanese beetles than plants grown at current atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Science Daily; March 25, 2008. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Evan Delucia)


More than 55 million years ago, the Earth experienced a rapid jump in global Carbon Dioxide levels that raised temperatures across the planet. Now, researchers studying plants from that time have found that the rising temperatures may have boosted the foraging of insects. As modern temperatures continue to rise, the researchers believe the planet could see increasing crop damage and forest devastation. Science Daily; Feb. 15, 2008

Quote
Global Warming reduces plant productivity. As Carbon Dioxide increases, vegetation in Northern Latitudes also increases. However, this does not compensate for decreases of vegetation in Southern Latitudes. The overall amount of vegetation worldwide declines

Quote
6. Likely the worst problem is that increasing CO2 will increase temperatures throughout the Earth. This will make deserts and other types of dry land grow. While deserts increase in size, other eco-zones, whether tropical, forest or grassland will try to migrate towards the poles. Unfortunately it does not follow that soil conditions will necessarily favor their growth even at optimum temperatures.

In conclusion, it would be reckless to keep adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Assuming there are any positive impacts on agriculture in the short term, they will be overwhelmed by the negative impacts of climate change.

Added CO2 will likely shrink the range available to plants while increasing the size of deserts. It will also increase the requirements for water and soil fertility as well as plant damage from insects.

Increasing CO2 levels would only be beneficial inside of highly controlled, enclosed spaces like greenhouses.

Basic rebuttal written by doug_bostrom

UPDATE July 2015:


The negative effects of climate change far outweigh any positive effect from increased CO2 levels.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm

The fossil fuel industry has been trying to push that STUPID, "CO2 is great for plants" baloney for at least two decades. Yeah, they use CO2. Yeah, they NEED CO2. Yeah, More CO2 means they can absorb it better and grow faster.

HOWEVER, they don't do ANY of those things when they are forced outside the BAND of temperature and other conditions that are sine qua non for them.  It's BIOSHERE MATH 101.

The fossil fuel industry is pushing the CO2 happy talk TOTALLY out of context. The desertification and deforestation is NOT being counterbalanced by the greening of colder areas now accessing more CO2 due to warming.

Some areas towards the poles will experience some greening. SO WHAT? We can't plan on moving all the animals, insects and other biota that DON"T migrate, along with the trees and crops north or south thousands of miles.

This the true  situation (Poodwaddle deforestation year to date clock):

http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock/env2/
Poodwaddle is firmly backed by government published data.

And there is this, which totally destroys any happy talk about CO2 "benefits".

Burning remaining fossil fuel could cause 60-meter sea level rise

September 11, 2015
Quote

"Our findings show that if we do not want to melt Antarctica, we can't keep taking fossil fuel carbon out of the ground and just dumping it into the atmosphere as CO2 like we've been doing," Caldeira said. "Most previous studies of Antarctic have focused on loss of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Our study demonstrates that burning coal, oil, and gas also risks loss of the much larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet."

http://phys.org/news/2015-09-fossil-fuel-meter-sea.html#jCp


Here's a nice quote from another article in Phys.org:


Quote

What is the NIPCC? Is it just like the IPCC, but with an "N"?

Well, no. The NIPCC is a group of climate change "skeptics", bank rolled by the libertarian Heartland Institute to promote doubt about climate change. This suits the Heartland Institute's backers, including fossil fuel companies and those ideologically opposed to government regulation.

The NIPCC promotes doubt via thousand-page reports, the latest of which landed with a dull thud last week. These tomes try to mimic the scientific reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), right down to the acronym. However, unlike the IPCC, the NIPCC reports are works of partisan pseudoscience
.

http://phys.org/news/2013-09-adversaries-zombies-nipcc-climate-pseudoscience.html#jCp

The fossil fuel industry does not get it. Neither do those who advocate that incremental measures are sufficient to ameliorate the extinction threat that global warming poses to our species. 
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #79 on: September 19, 2015, 02:07:23 pm »
Direct quotes from Exxon Mobile

“…for most nations the Kyoto Protocol would require extensive diversion of human and financial resources away from more immediate and pressing needs in health care, education, infrastructure, and, yes, the environment—all critical to the well-being of future generations.”

ExxonMobil went on to advocate a “strong focus on scientific understanding” around climate change and proposed policies “that have the potential to make significant longer-term reductions in emissions, if they are needed.”

The ad finished with this: “Although it is hard to predict what the weather is going to be this weekend, we know with certainty that climate change policies, unless properly formulated, will restrict life itself.”

Exxon Advertised Against Climate Change for Decades After Top Executives Knew Burning Fossil Fuels Would Warm the Planet  >:(

http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/19/climate-change-exxon/2/

Agelbert NOTE:
The best way to describe why the fossil fuel Industry uses crocodile tears about their "concern" for humanity to lie, distort and double talk about the truth of the climate change existential threat is embodied in the following quote:

“The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.”   ―  Albert Camus
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #80 on: October 17, 2015, 05:33:04 pm »
Quote
Off the keyboard of Ugo Bardi

Published on Resource Crisis on October 8, 2015

"Peak Oil will save us from Climate Change:" a meme that never went viral


The idea that peak oil will save us from climate change has been occasionally popping up in the debate, but it never really gained traction for a number of good reasons. One is that, in many cases, the proponents were also climate science deniers and that made them scarcely credible. Indeed, if climate change does not exist (or if it is not caused by human activities), then how is it that you are telling us that peak oil will save us from it? Add to this that many hard line climate science deniers are also peak oil deniers (since, as well known, both concepts are part of the great conspiracy), then, it is no surprise that the meme of "peak oil will save us" never went viral.


That doesn't mean that we shouldn't ask the question of whether we have sufficient amounts of fossil fuel to generate a truly disastrous climate change. The debate on this point goes back to the early 2000s. At the beginning, the data were uncertain and it was correctly noted that some of the IPCC scenarios overestimated what we are likely to burn in the future. But, by now, I think the fog has cleared.  It is becoming increasingly clear that fossil fuel depletion is not enough, by far, to save us from climate change.

Nevertheless, some people still cling to the old "peak oil will save us" meme. In a recent post on "Energy Matters", Roger Andrews argues that:

Quote

All of the oil and gas reserves plus about 20% of the coal reserves could be consumed without exceeding the IPCC’s trillion-tonne carbon emissions limit.

Now, that sounds reassuring and surely many people would understand it in the sense that we shouldn't worry at all about burning oil and gas. Unfortunately, that's just not true and Andrews' statement is both overoptimistic and misleading.  >:(

One problem is that the "2 degrees limit" is a last ditch attempt to limit the damage created by climate change, but there is no certainty that staying beyond it will be enough to prevent disaster. Then, there is a problem with Andrew's use of the term "reserves," to be understood as "proven reserves". Proven reserves include only those resources that are known to exist and to be extractable at present; and that's surely much less than all what could be extracted in the future. The parameter that takes into account also probably existing resources is called "Ultimate Recoverable Resources" or URRs


So, let's consider a world fossil URR estimate that many people would consider as "pessimistic," the one by Jean Laherrere that I already discussed in a previous post. It turns out that we have enough oil and gas that, together, they can produce enough CO2 to reach the 2 degrees limit; even though, maybe, not more. There follows that, if we really wanted to burn all the oil and gas known to be extractable, to stay within the limit we would need to stop all carbon burning; starting from tomorrow! 

Not an easy thing to do, considering that coal produces more than 40% of the energy that powers the world's electrical grid and, in some countries, much more than that. It is true that coal is the dirtiest of the three fossil fuels and must be phased out faster than oil and gas, but the consumption of all three must go down together, otherwise it will be impossible to remain under the limit.

In the end, we have here one more of the many illusions that surround the climate issue; one that could be dangerous it were to spread. However, in addition to the other problems described here, Andrew's post falls in the same trap of many previous attempts: it uses the data produced by climate science to try to demonstrate its main thesis, but only after having defined climate science as "Vodoo Science." No way: this is not a meme that will go viral.  ;D

I agree. There is no way that peak oil. or even the coming collapse of civilization, viewed by many here as the solution to the climate problem, will stop the climate catastrophe.

And this gem of bold faced bull sh it is so science challenged as to be worthy of a long prison sentence:
Quote

All of the oil and gas reserves plus about 20% of the coal reserves could be consumed without exceeding the IPCC’s trillion-tonne carbon emissions limit.

The fossil fuel propagandist from (polluting) "Energy Matters", Roger Andrews left out several "minor" details. Here is just ONE of those inconvenient FACTS.

Burning remaining fossil fuel could cause 60-meter sea level rise
http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/climate-change/global-warming-is-with-us/msg3808/#msg3808

Here are a few more facts that Roger the climate dodger does not want to deal with.

Climate Change: Going beyond the dangerous



Speaker: Professor Kevin Anderson.

Recorded on 21 October 2011 in Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, London UK.

This lecture is part of the LSE Department of International Development Friday Lecture Series. A question and answer session follows the talk.

Kevin Anderson is professor of energy and climate change in the School of Mechanical, Aeronautical and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester.

He has recently finished a two-year position as director of the Tyndall Centre, the UK's leading academic climate change research organisation, during which time he held a joint post with the University of East Anglia.

Kevin Anderson, former Director of the Tyndall Centre (the UK's top academic institute researching climate change) is a depressing guy. Here, in his lecture "Beyond dangerous climate change: emission scenarios for a new world", he lays out the grim reality of climate change, and our inability to address it globally.

We are currently mitigating for 4 degrees C of warming and planning for 2 degrees C. As Anderson points out, that's ass backwards. Further, he sees absolutely no way we can meet those targets, given the rapid industrialisation of China and the emerging economies, and the current state of global political inaction.

He points out, with brutal honesty, that "climate analysts construct their scenarios not to avoid dangerous climate change but to avoid threatening economic growth". There is, therefore, almost no possibility that we are going to act, either in time or at the scale necessary, to address the challenge facing us.

We pretend that 2 degrees C is our threshold. Yet the climate scenarios and plans presented to policymakers do not actually reflect that threshold. As Anderson says, "most policy advice is to accept a high probability of extremely dangerous climate change rather than propose radical and immediate emission reductions."

http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/climate-change/global-warming-is-with-us/msg3824/#msg3824

I would add that, when the collapse occurs, the clearing of the air from lack of industrially produced aerosols will INCREASE average global temperature by about one degree C in about ONE year! That's MORE than we have warmed in the last CENTURY! I'm sure Roger, the climate change science facts dodger, will find a way to ignore that too.     



 


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #81 on: October 20, 2015, 06:30:41 pm »
The following quote from UB is in response to a fossil fueler pushing the propaganda that solar panels were made with fossil fuels so they were "not Renewable energy". LOL!

What % of world oil, coal and gas consumption is used on making solar panels.. 0.001? 

UB,
Don't even try to reason with the "high energy density" fossil fuel worshipping folks. A perfect example of how terminally stupid they are is to ask them what is a more efficient way of transporting energy, a tanker truck carrying some fossil fuel like gasoline, heating oil or propane OR electrical transmission wires.

They will say, but, but, the power plants run on fossil fuel, so there! When you show them the power plant DOES NOT need to run on fossil fuels and can run on any combination of 100% Renewable energy from ethanol, geothermal, solar, wind, tide, hydro,  ETC., they pull out some enthalpy baloney or start bad mouthing corn ethanol ERoEI.

When they pull out the enthalpy baloney and you try to explain to them that high enthalpy refers ONLY to EXTERNAL combustion processes and when INTERNAL combustion is compared , ethanol beats gasoline, even without considering the contribution to renewable energy of the other technologies, they resort to snark and large fonts. ::)

Then they repeat the baloney that you must use fossil fuels to manufacture Renewable energy harvesting devices. So it goes. 

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #82 on: October 20, 2015, 11:08:21 pm »
Exxon's Climate Coverup


Oct. 20, 2015 2:23 pm By Thom Hartmann

Star Wars fans rejoiced last night with the debut of the final trailer for the newest Star Wars movie.

It's been 38 years since George Lucas debuted the Star Wars movies and gave birth to one of the world's most recognizable franchises.

And just two months after Star Wars was released 38 years ago - the Exxon Corporation was poised to become a leader in climate change research. 

Yes, you heard that right - according to Inside Climate News - in July of 1977 a scientist working for Exxon told powerful oil executives at Exxon's headquarters that the planet was warming - and that it was caused by burning fossil fuels.

James F. Black    told the audience
Quote
"In the first place, there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels."

A year later - he put a fine point to his conclusions when he wrote
Quote
"Present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical."

That was a decade before Congress heard James Hansen - as Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies - testify about man-made climate change.

Exxon knew about how their entire business model threatened humanity a full decade before Congress - and what did Exxon do about it?


Well - believe it or not - they took serious action - Exxon launched new research into carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and how it impacts the earth.

They worked with university scientists and the Department of Energy - and they were the early leaders in the field of climate and energy research.

Based on that - you'd think that by 1988 when James Hansen gave his congressional testimony - scientists from Exxon would be next in line to testify about the realities and dangers of global warming.

But that's not what happened.

Instead - in the late 1980s - Exxon made an about-face.  :evil4:

Exxon fired most of its climate scientists and started doing everything it could to cast doubt on the scientific consensus about the causes and dangers of man-made climate change.

They helped to organize the "Global Climate Coalition" - which fights to block any efforts to address global climate change.

And they worked with groups like the American Petroleum Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council to get fossil-fuel-friendly climate deniers into every level of government.

 
In 1997 - Exxon chairman and CEO Lee Raymond argued against the Kyoto Protocol using the logic that we don't really know what's going to happen with the climate - so why bother? 


That pattern of denial and deception has continued to this day.


Even though the company claims that it accepts climate science today - it's still supporting climate denial as a member of climate denying groups like ALEC.

Because Exxon knows - and they've known for almost 40 years - that the basis of their business model is a threat to humanity.

And so they lied - and they blew a whole lot of smoke to make the science seem less clear than it is - and to protect their bottom line.  


Fortunately - our Justice system has dealt with this sort of corporate deception and corruption before.

In 1999 the Department of Justice decided to investigate and prosecute Big Tobacco for violating the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

For nearly 50 years Big Tobacco had promoted phony science and created deceptive labels to make cigarettes attractive and to make them appear "safe" - if not outright "healthy".

Twenty-one years ago - tobacco executives were still testifying that nicotine wasn't addictive.

But in 2006 - when U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler finally ruled on the case - she wrote: "In short, defendants have marketed and sold their lethal product with zeal, with deception, with a single-minded focus on their financial success, and without regard for the human tragedy or social costs that success exacted."

And that's exactly what Exxon and the other oil companies have been doing for nearly 40 years.

And that's why Sharon Eubanks - the former U.S. Department of Justice attorney who prosecuted and won the racketeering case against Big Tobacco - is calling for the Department of Justice to look into whether Exxon violated the RICO Act.

She's not alone - Representatives Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier from California urged Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Friday to launch an investigation into Exxon.

It's definitely time for this to happen - and the investigation shouldn't stop with Exxon - we need a full investigation into every part of Big Oil's decades-long disinformation campaign, particularly the role Koch Industries may be playing in it all.

When the DoJ took down Big Tobacco - it wasn't just Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds - they went after the lobbying groups and the research shills too.  ;D

Today's investigation of climate deniers should include the oil companies like Exxon and Koch Industries - but should also include the organizations that manufacture and push phony research - like the Heartland Institute - and the Heritage Foundation.

Because at the end of the day - these companies and organizations have acted with a single-minded focus on the bottom line of their fossil-fuel donors - without regard to human tragedy - social costs - or the threat to life on Earth as we know it.

And it's time they're all held accountable. 


http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2015/10/exxons-climate-coverup#comment-338573

Agelbert comment: Excellent artcle, Thom!

But we need to pay attention the fact that the fossil fuel industry is trying to avoid paying for their ( LION'S) share of the responsibility for climate damage by making all of us pay equally to ameliorate climate change. That is why they are all NOW proclaiming "support" for the coming December COP21 Paris Climate Talks. It's part and parcel of their duplicitous modus operandi.

The fossil fuel industry is just trying to get out in front of the Paris talks with disingenuous fake support for measures to ameliorate climate change. They have been at this since these talks began in the early 1990's. Nothing they say publicly is to be taken at face value. Careful attention is to be given to who they "support" with MONEY in these talks.

Here is a snippet from part three of an article on our responsibility to future generations. I provide it so you can understand what the PLAN of the fossil fuel industry is in regard to who, EXACTLY, will be saddled with the bill for ameliorating climate change.

Agelbert NOTE: The mens rea  of the fossil fuel industry and almost half of the world’s 100 largest companies, including Procter & **** and Duke Energy, has been recently exposed. They all funded lobbyists and propagandists in order to obstruct climate change legislation.

I use the Latin legal expression, "mens rea", because the above obstructionists of climate change legislation were knowledgeable over 40 years ago of the damage that burning fossil fuels causes to the biosphere in general and humans in particular.

As  Theresa  Morris made quite clear in her essay, these corporations made the wrong choice. And they made that choice because they refused to think things through.

Theresa  Morris said,

"This task, however, is difficult, not only because of the extent of effects in time and space, fragmentation of agency, and the difficulty of predicting harms, but also because in many cases we may benefit now from actions that result in harms to future generations."

Ethical considerations aside for a moment, the people in these powerful corporations are not stupid. They love their own children.

So, if they knew, because over 40 years ago ExxonMobil scientists laid out the facts to oil executives, who then secretly joined with several other corporations to fund denial of climate change and obstruct climate change legislation, why did they, with malice and aforethought, engage in disguising the fact that they were, and are, getting an F in viable biosphere math?

Some will say that it's a no brainer that they did it for profit. While that is partially true, it ignores the fact that big oil corporations DO believe their own scientists. It also ignores the fact that fossil fuel corporations DO NOT believe the happy talk propaganda that they fund.

They plan ahead. They plan to take advantage of the 'Fragmentation of Agency' mentioned by  Stephen Gardiner. The corporations did not get limited liability laws passed because they wanted to be socially responsible. I believe they will use the 'Fragmentation of Agency', in regard to biosphere damage claims, to unjustly limit their liability in a typically unethical "damage control" exercise.

One of the themes about human history that I have tried to communicate to readers over and over is that predatory capitalist corporations, while deliberately profiting from knowingly doing something that causes pollution damage to the populace, always plan AHEAD to socialize the costs of that damage when they can no longer deny SOME liability for it. Their conscience free lackey lawyers will always work the system to limit even PROVEN 100% liability.

While the profits are rolling in, they will claim they are "just loyal public servants, selflessly providing a service that the public is demanding", while they laugh all the way to the bank. When the damage is exposed, they will claim we are "all equally to blame" (i.e. DISTORTED Fragmentation of Agency).

This is clearly false because polluting corporations, in virtually all cases, AREN'T non-profit organizations. If they were NOT PROFITING, THEN, and only then, could they make the claim that "we all benefited equally so we all are equally responsible to pay equally for the cost."

Those who presently benefit economically from the burning of fossil fuels, despite the scientific certainty that this is ushering in a Permian level mass extinction, will probably be quick to grab on to a severely distorted and duplicitous version of the 'Fragmentation of Agency' meme, in regard to assigning the proportionate blame for the existential threat our species is visiting on future generations.

Privatizing the profits and socializing the costs is what they have done for over a century in the USA. They have always gotten away with it. That is why, despite having prior knowledge that their children would be negatively impacted by their decisions, they decided to dispense with ethical considerations.

They assumed that, with all the profits they would accumulate over the last 40 years (or as long as the populace can be blinded to the truth of the existential threat), they could protect their offspring when things got "difficult".

They know that millions to billions of people, in all probability, will die. But they think their wealth can enable them to survive and thrive. 

As for the rest of us, who obtained a pittance in benefits in comparison to the giant profits the polluters raked (and still continue to rake) in, we can expect an army of corporate lawyers descending on our government(s) demanding that all humans, in equal portions, foot the bill for ameliorating climate change.

The lawyer speak will probably take the form of crocodile tears about the "injustice of punitive measures" or, some double talk legalese limiting "punitive damage claims" based on Environmental LAW fun and games (see: "punitive" versus "compensatory" damage claims).

This grossly unjust application of the 'Fragmentation of Agency' is happening as we speak. The poorest humans are paying the most with their health for the damage done by the richest. The richest have avoided most, or all, of the deleterious effects of climate change.

When the governments of the world finally get serious about the funding needed to try to clean this mess up (present incremental measures ARE NOT sufficient), the fossil fuel industry oligarchs (and other corporate polluting crooks) plan to continue literally getting away with ecocide, and making sure they don't pay their share of the damages for it.

Our Responsibility to Future Generations

http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/climate-change/future-earth/msg3885/#msg3885
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #83 on: October 24, 2015, 03:16:03 pm »
Over at Eco-Watch, a web site that documents fossil fuel industry pollution, corruption and threats, an interesting phenomenon just occurred.  ;D The trolls that regularly arrive to deny, obfuscate and catapult their 'propergander' have VANISHED! It seems there is a large concentration of those human fecal coliforms, bought and paid for by dirty energy money, in the Houston area.

Of course that is mere speculation on my part. There is no evidence, as those fine fellows that haunt Eco-Watch like to say, that there is a connection between living in Houston and supporting the dirty energy status quo.  ;)

BuzzlightYear is holed up in Houston until the rain quits and he can cash in on more He F artland Institute Money.   
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #86 on: December 14, 2015, 06:30:56 pm »
Agelbert NOTE: The fossil fuel industry is now at the pathetic straw grasping stage of ridiculous, irrational claims. With bought and paid for retired science teachers like Jane Mann, one can see why the fossil fuel industry thinks it can lie, dissemble, doubletalk, whine at and confuse Americans into getting biosphere math AND economy math (i.e. job generating clean technologies) exactly backwards. Woodland, North Carolina, just earned the Darwin award for EVOLUTIONARY DEAD END.

Town Rejects Solar Farm Amid Fears it Would ‘Suck Up All the Energy From the Sun’


Cole Mellino | December 14, 2015 2:50 pm

The town of Woodland, North Carolina rejected a proposal last week to rezone an area of land just outside of the town for a solar farm. The proposed site is an ideal location for a solar farm, according to the solar company behind the proposal—Strata—and the town’s planning board, because of its close proximity to an electrical substation where the panels can be easily hooked up to the electrical grid.   

Three solar farms have already been approved in the area, but the Roanoke-Chowan News Herald reported “citizens expressed distrust and fear of the solar panels” in a public meeting before the vote.

One of the more unusual claims came from Jane Mann, a retired science teacher, who is concerned that photosynthesis “would not happen” and the panels “would keep the plants from growing.” She said she has “observed areas near solar panels where the plants are brown and dead because they did not get enough sunlight.”

Mann also believes that the solar panels in the community are responsible for the high number of cancer deaths in the area. “I want to know what’s going to happen,” she said. “I want information. Enough is enough. I don’t see the profit for the town.”

“People come with hidden agendas,” she added. “Until we can find if anything is going to damage this community, we shouldn’t sign any paper.”

At least two other residents, Bobby Mann and Mary Hobbs, believe that the solar panels are responsible for turning the community into a “ghost town with no job opportunities for young people.” Hobbs said the panels that surround her house have brought down the value of her home.

“You’re killing your town,” Bobby Mann told those gathered at the meeting. “All the young people are going to move out.” He said the solar farms would “suck up all the energy from the sun and businesses would not come to Woodland.”

Several representatives from Strata were also present at the meeting to talk about the proposal. “There are no negative impacts,” one of the representatives, Beth Trahos, said. “A solar farm is a wonderful use for a property like this.”

Trahos assured residents solar panels “are proven to be safe and exist next to homes” and “there are no negative impacts on property values statewide.”

Another representative, Brent Niemann, even explained that “the panels don’t draw additional sunlight.” They only capture the sunlight that hits them directly.

Despite the company representatives’ assurances, the town could not be swayed. The city not only voted against rezoning the land, but later voted for a moratorium on future solar farms. 


The vote flies in the face of recent nationwide polling, which shows very strong support for renewables, even among conservatives.

http://ecowatch.com/2015/12/14/solar-farm-rejected/

COMMENTS:

LaDeDa  • 2 hours ago   

A town of uneducated twits. Probably educated with textbooks from the Heartland Institute aka Koch Bros.
 
1 △  ▽ 

agelbert > LaDeDa • 8 minutes ago   

Well said. We have some of those in Vermont too. I am glad they are in the minority.

Vermont has addressed this solar farm issue by including, apart from dedicated solar farms, the use of the grass area on super highways for collecting solar energy. It is already public land and solar panels would actually lower grass cutting maintenance costs.

This no-brainer solution, right where the electricity generated can access already built major transmission lines, is applicable all over the USA. It has only been the fossil fuel lobby corruption here and there in our country that has prevented it up until now.

Let us hope that more states get with the program. Super Solar Farm the superhighways!




He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #87 on: December 22, 2015, 04:14:42 pm »
Washington Post Writer Finally Discloses He’s a Shill for Fossil Fuel Industry

Andrew Seifter, Media Matters for America | December 22, 2015 9:35 am

In his latest column repeating his clients’ attacks on climate change policies, lobbyist and Washington Post writer Ed Rogers finally disclosed to readers that his lobbying firm “represents interests in the fossil fuel [industry].”

Rogers is the chairman of BGR Group, a top lobbying firm that has received more than $700,000 from the energy industry in 2015. Rogers has personally lobbied this year for Southern Company, one of the largest electric utility companies in the U.S.—and one of the biggest opponents of the most significant U.S. policy to combat climate change.


Rogers’ disclosure, which was placed in a parenthetical in the middle of his Dec. 17 column, could help Post readers recognize that they should take his opinions on the United Nations’ historic Paris climate agreement with a grain of salt (he says it’s a “sham”). And it marks a stark contrast from Rogers’ past columns, in which the Post allowed him to dismiss the scientific consensus on climate change and echo his client’s attacks on climate policies without disclosing his firm’s fossil fuel ties.

The Post’s past failure to require Rogers to disclose his lobbying firm’s clients—both fossil fuel and otherwise—drew criticism from media ethicists. Among them was Ed Wasserman, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, who said it’s clear that “someone else is paying” Rogers to write his columns and urged the Post to provide “specific disclosure” of Rogers’ clients rather than a “blanket description of him as a lobbyist,” in order to make plain that he “has a horse to back” in his columns.

From Rogers’ Dec. 17 column for The Washington Post’s Post Partisan blog (emphasis added):

“The [Conference of Parties] 21 conference in Paris was the most predictable event of 2015. Of course an agreement was going to be reached and of course that agreement is a sham, but it all fits perfectly with what the climate issue has become. The topic of climate change has become manna for exhausted liberals who have nothing much to say and policy failures on almost every front. (Disclosure: My firm represents interests in the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries.) And let’s face it, global warming is an issue that perfectly suits Obama as he warms up for retirement. He doesn’t really have to do anything, there is never any day of reckoning and it lends itself to sanctimonious moralizing and generally lecturing everybody about how they should live.”



http://ecowatch.com/2015/12/22/wash-post-ed-rogers/#comments
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #88 on: February 19, 2016, 06:27:39 pm »
Koch Brothers Plotting Multimillion Dollar War on Electric Vehicles   

Lorraine Chow | February 19, 2016 2:45 pm

SNIPPETS:

Death to the electric car?    Charles and David Koch are reportedly backing a new group that will use millions to promote petroleum and fight against government subsidies for electric vehicles.

In an effort to strike back at record-breaking EV sales, the fossil fuel industry is allegedly funding a new organization that will spend $10 million a year to push petroleum-based transportation fuels and attack government subsidies on EVs, refining industry sources told the Huffington Post.


Elon Musk
✔  ‎‎@elonmusk 

Worth noting that all gasoline cars are heavily subsidized via oil company tax credits & unpaid public health costs.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/fossil-fuel-companies-getting-10m-a-minute-in-subsidies-says-imf


http://ecowatch.com/2016/02/19/koch-brothers-war-on-evs/


Comment by renewableguy

Fossil fuels is scared sh--less.

Agelbert reply:
Yep.

Amory Lovins knows the score. The fossil fuel industry is a wounded beast. It's days are numbered.

QUOTE
Over the past 40 years, Americans have saved 31 times as much energy as renewables added. Those cumulative savings are equivalent to 21 years’ current energy use.  They’re simply invisible: you can’t see the energy you don’t use. But globally, it’s a bigger “supply” than oil, and inexorably, it’s going to get much, much bigger.

Oil companies worry about climate regulation, but they’re even more at risk from market competition. The oil that’ll be unburnable for climate reasons is probably less than the oil that’ll be unsellable because efficiency and renewables can do the same job cheaper.

An oil business that sputters when oil’s at $90 a barrel, swoons at $50, and dies at $30 will not do well against the $25 cost of getting U.S. mobility—or anyone else’s, since the technologies are fungible—completely off oil by 2050. That cost, like the $18 per saved barrel to make U.S. automobiles uncompromised, attractive, cost-effective, and oil-free, is a 2010–11 analytic result; today’s costs are even lower and continue to fall.

In short, like whale oil in the 1850s, oil is becoming uncompetitive even at low prices before it became unavailable even at high prices.
UNQUOTE

As Oil Prices Gyrate, Underlying Trends Are Shifting To Oil's Disadvantage
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #89 on: March 26, 2016, 04:13:38 pm »
Agelbert NOTE: Birds of a feather flock together.  ;)

Eddie says to MKing:
There are bloggers who think just like you!  I wondered if you saw this.

http://www.acting-man.com/?p=43999

Needless to say, I see it somewhat differently. But I still respect PT. (Even when he's dead wrong, LOL.)

Well, yeah. After all, the Fartland Institute/Koch Brothers money can still find a small, but noisy, ethics free group of individuals who will say whatever they are told to say for money.


They do believe in talking point discipline and rarely deviate rom it  :evil4:. They know that half-truths are welcome doubletalk style propaganda but truth is a No No .


Below, please find, a summarized script of the rinse and repeat ad nauseam of MKing and his pals on the issues of the day, including, but certainly not limited to, Global Warming.

Don't worry about this... According to the deniers, it's "El Niño" ... IOW, "nothing to see here. Move along, citizen."

And don't forget to BUY, BUY, BUY fossil fuels so you can burn them and provide more GOOD CO2 FOOD for plants...

And, OF COURSE, BUY, BUY, BUY fossil fuel industry stocks because they are well priced now due to, uh, challenging market conditions TOTALLY unrelated to those pesky, irrelevant, over subsidized, green scam (etc.) renewable energy technologies...

The fossil fuel industry corporations are CERTAINLY NOT welfare queen subsidy grabbing, government corrupting, democracy destroying, politician buying, court corrupting, greedy, pollution cost  externalizing, biosphere math challenged, conscience free, lying, double talking, Orwellian propaganda pushing crooks! SNIFF! They are, and have ALWAYS been, our loyal servants, working their poor fingers to the bone, just trying help us out while they sacrifice for us unworthy and ungrateful eco-leftists...

Climate change catastrophe? Waddayoutalkingabout? What part of NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG do you not understand?

We must not get hysterical or be chicken little nervous nellies. But it is TRUE, TRUE, TRUE that we are all gonna die without fossil fuels while we are returning to the caves from lack of the only TRULY COMPETITIVE energy re source (hydrocarbons, OF COURSE).

Stop trying to get in the way of fossil fuel industry profit over planet swag PROGRESS...

If I missed anything, I'm sure MKing, among the deniers workin' hahd to bring us the truth, da trut and nuttin' but da trut,  will provide some more irrefutable data with links to dis, dat and the other fossil fuel industry propaganda web sites. scientifically peer reviewed by at least one bought and paid for scientist...

Are you tired of facts? Do you think all the concern about climate change is just a bunch of hooey? Then this newscast is for you. See bald eagles, coal mining, unpatriotic polar bears, politics and even a frozen pizza on this satirical episode of Climate Change Denier News.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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