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Author Topic: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi  (Read 39414 times)

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AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #120 on: August 05, 2016, 03:35:24 pm »
Agelbert NOTE: RE the handle for a fellow that correctly believes that polluters should be dealt with terminally.


Deniers Want Clexit After Brexit

Quote
There’s a new denial group on the scene -- this one is intent on ensuring that the world doesn’t enter into “costly and dangerous” climate action pacts like the Paris Agreement.

Here's me doing my RE imitation:

History has examples of how to deal with fascists--




 


From your lips to God's ears. Prison is too good for those bastards. 
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 #121 on: August 07, 2016, 06:22:20 pm »
False.  She just plays one on tv.

Gail on TV does the Polite Actuary thing.  In the commentariat of OFW, it becomes evident she is an Uber Doomer by the Group Think that pervades that commentary and her own posting to the commentariat..

RE


Gail speaks with a forked tongue.  If she really is the Uber Doomer you say she is, she could throw the Etp model at her regular crowd like a pile of fresh, red meat.  It is *WAY* scarier than her own ****.  But maybe she just really thinks she is right.  If she is not being a totally disingenuous hatchet woman, then she is an obvious idiot who doesn't understand the first thing about physics or the elegant physics model she so eagerly attempts to discredit.  Either way, Gail is useless, RE.

---Futilitist 8)
 

Gail Tverberg IS a certified Actuary. She is ALSO a shill for the fossil fuel industry. So, I find myself agreeing with Futility incorporated that Gail is consistently disingenuous, although I certainly do not think she is stupid. She is not math challenged as long as that math EXCLUDES the SCC (Social Cost of Carbon)   . IOW she is BIOSPHERE math challenged, like a certain mathematician here.  ;)


So, hot breaking Etp news and controversy, my interview with Gail the fork tongued actuary, the ongoing Etp COVER UP at peakoil.com, the new Chang and Eng collapse analogy, and the possible deep psychological implications of the Etp forecast are not interesting enough for you, RE?  How about those graphics?  I don't think you are giving me enough credit here.  I think I am bringing some pretty cool content to this site.  I went away for a couple of days and you guys totally dropped the ball.  The thread sat dormant for 2 or 3 days, check the time stamps.  So why am I the only one responsible for this thread? I think you should come up with something original. 

---Futilitist 8)


But as to Futility Incorporated's claim that there are "no responsible people here" simply because they don't want to worship at the altar of an OCD narcissist suffering from illusions of grandeur and serial empathy deficit disordered gratuitous spewing of of ad hominem horse hockey, uh, SEE BELOW:
                                     

Quote
I am not concerned about lasting here

Glad to hear it.  You are back in the hole.

RE


 
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 #122 on: September 11, 2016, 02:14:24 pm »
“With the risks of detection in mind, defendants embarked on a strategy to deflect scrutiny. 

Sorrell sues VW over ‘massive fraud’

Sep. 8, 2016, 5:16 pm by Erin Mansfield 22 Comments

The state of Vermont is suing Volkswagen and its subsidiaries, claiming the car company committed a massive fraud, broke environmental laws and that a proposed settlement of $3 million offered in June to address consumer complaints was “wholly inadequate.”

Attorney General Bill Sorrell held a press conference Thursday to announce the lawsuit in Vermont Superior Court and condemn the company for conducting “a massive and intentional fraud” when it advertised “clean” and “green” vehicles to Vermonters.

The company admitted in September 2015 that it advertised cars as clean diesel  but in fact built them with equipment called “defeat devices” designed to cheat on emissions tests. The company also allegedly manipulated the cars’ diagnostic equipment to conceal those defeat devices.

Approximately 3,400 affected Volkswagens, Audis, and Porches with 2-liter and 3-liter engines are registered in Vermont, Sorrell said. That’s the second-highest number of affected cars per capita of all the states in the country, behind Oregon.

A spokesperson for the company said in a statement: “Volkswagen is committed to reaching a fair and efficient resolution of remaining federal and state diesel claims in the United States.”

“We have received Vermont’s complaint, and will respond appropriately,” the spokesperson said.

Sorrell said Vermont is serious about its complaint.

“This was not a mistake,” he said. “This was not a ‘whoops’ situation. This was intentional fraud on a massive scale. We look forward to our day in court and to prove their liability, prove how we’ve been harmed in the state, and see that justice is done.”

Vermont’s case alleges an extensive coverup that was openly discussed the company’s executives and charges the company and its subsidiaries with nine violations of state law, including Vermont’s clean air laws and the Vermont Consumer Protection Act.

Filing the lawsuit means that Vermont has rejected $2.9 million that the company offered if the state agreed not to sue under the Consumer Protection Act. Sorrell said he is not seeking a specific amount of money, but there could be thousands or hundreds of thousands of violations, which each carry a fine of $10,000.

“With all due respect to those state and federal officials who negotiated the proposed national settlement, we just find the consumer protection arena inadequate,” Sorrell said. “We think the nature of the conduct, the impact on Vermonters, the amount of advertising—the false advertising—in Vermont, deserves stiffer penalties.”

While some states have sued for either consumer protection or environmental issues, the lawsuit makes Vermont just the second state to sue Volkswagen under both its consumer protection laws and environmental laws. The other state is New Jersey, which sued in February.

Vermont has always retained the right to sue Volkswagen under its own clean air laws, Sorrell said, because Vermont has a federal legal designation as a state with more-stringent environmental standards than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Filing the lawsuit under Vermont’s clean air laws also does not affect the state’s ability to accept up to $17.8 million from a separate environmental settlement, which was set up as a federally managed trust fund for states to use for specific emission-reduction purposes.

Deb Markowitz, the secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, said the federal government negotiated that environmental settlement with big cities in mind, but Vermont wanted changes because it also gets diesel emissions from sawmills and farm equipment.

Even though Vermont gets diesel emissions from different sources, she praised residents for choosing to drive clean cars, and she said their choice to drive clean cars helps the state meet regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We rely on the laws that we have in place that hold our auto manufacturers accountable to standards,” Markowitz said. “We rely on that. And when we find that there is a fraud that has been committed, it really matters for Vermont.”

“We are still in attainment of all of the air standards that the EPA sets for the state, but year to year, we get close to that attainment level,” she said. “It matters what people are driving.”

Alleged 17-month coverup

Sorrell alleges that Volkswagen’s top executives openly discussed the existence of “defeat devices,” often calling them “acoustic functions,” but kept information from federal regulators when asked about certain irregularities.

The devices were in several different models of vehicles, known as Generation 1, 2, and 3, according to the lawsuit, but federal regulators started to catch on to emissions problems when the company sought approval for Generation 3 vehicles.

At that point, according to the lawsuit, the company’s head of quality assurance, Frank Tuch, wrote in a letter: “A thorough explanation for the dramatic increase in NOx emissions cannot be given to the authorities.”

“It can be assumed that the authorities will then investigate the VW systems to determine whether Volkswagen implemented a test detection system in the engine control unit software (so-called defeat device),” the letter said.

The attorney general writes: “With the risks of detection in mind, defendants embarked on a strategy to deflect scrutiny.  Defendants publicly denied that the unlawful vehicles failed emissions requirements. They neutrally acknowledged the existence of the problem without explaining its known cause to authorities.”

The company then started “covertly managing” the issue in the Generation 3 issue, while “attempting to downplay the scope and severity of the problems” with Generations 1 and 2 by issuing “sham software recalls” on those older vehicles, according to the lawsuit.

Sorrell says the dual strategy “to mislead and confuse regulators and the public about the fact that their installation of the defeat devices was the true cause of the high real-driving NOx emissions” lasted for 17 months, until September 2015, when the company admitted the violations.

The attorney general says that, even when Volkswagen admitted problems in vehicles with 2-liter engines, the company “continued to deny the existence of defeat devices” in cars with 3-liter engines. The Environmental Protection Agency revealed those issues in November.

Allegedly deceptive advertisements

The Vermont lawsuit identifies an extensive list of individual advertisements that Volkswagen used to sell the TDI Clean Diesel cars, and even targets window stickers that were put on new cars as individual violations of the Consumer Protection Act.

One ad campaign said the notion that diesel was dirty and noxious was an “old wives’ tale.” Other taglines included “Diesel has really cleaned up its act” and “Diesel, it’s no longer a dirty word.”

“From 2009 through 2015, defendants spent hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and place Internet, television and print advertisements that highlighted the fuel efficiency, performance, and environmental hygiene of the unlawful vehicles,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit says that the ad campaign calling dirty diesel an “old wives tale” received more than 9.9 million views, 13.5 million impressions on Tumblr, and more than 5 million impressions on Twitter. “Within just six hours of posting, the ‘dirty’ video alone got over 80,000 views,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit identifies ads that ran during “multiple Super Bowls,” misleading press releases that described those advertisements to reporters, and marketing brochures full of “misstatements about the effectiveness of the emissions control systems.”

The lawsuit says the window stickers placed on each affected diesel vehicle in Vermont identified average “smog ratings” when the NOx emissions “actually exceeded applicable standards by up to 40 times.”

http://vtdigger.org/2016/09/08/sorrell-sues-vw-massive-fraud/
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 #123 on: September 22, 2016, 01:05:39 pm »


From Congress to a Car in California, Chevron’s Covert PR and Lobbying Efforts
 
 Good news everyone! The Paris Agreement is virtually certain to come into effect this year, so the need to drastically reduce carbon pollution is no longer merely academic or theoretical -- it’s real and it’s happening. This gives an even greater impetus to the SEC investigation into ExxonMobil, as they figure out just what impact an 80 percent reduction in emissions by 2050 will have on the oil giant. And of course, what ExxonMobil is telling investors about that now, inevitability.
 
 With renewable energy now making up 30 percent of the world’s electricity generation capacity, the clean energy future is increasingly looking like a clean energy present.
 
 But don’t expect the fossil fuel industry to welcome this development with open arms. And for those living in Richmond, California, don’t even expect to see it in your local paper. This is not only because the Richmond Standard is hyper-focused on Richmond, but, more importantly, because the Richmond Standard isn’t actually a newspaper so much as an advertising arm of Chevron. (Which has a refinery in Richmond, leading to such stories as “Clouds over Chevron refinery today only steam.”)
 
That a company can and would create something that looks like a news outlet out of thin air (or smoggy, polluted air) is one of the many unfortunate side effects of the media industry struggling to survive, as evidenced by the recent widespread layoffs at the local up to the international level. As these news publications face continued difficulties, corporate interests are stepping up -- and not in the way you might hope. We’ve talked about the Koch network before, and it seems they are envious of Chevron’s ability to run a local newspaper out of one man’s car. Literally.
 
 DeSmogBlog’s Sharon Kelly wrote a great, in-depth story on the faux-newspaper and the Koch network’s admiration for it. The Richmond Standard has the look of a real news site, but in reality it lacks all the infrastructure of one. There is no difference between opinion and reporting staff, because everything is done by just one employee. There is no investigative reporting, just a man with a laptop who is always on the hunt -- not for the next scoop but for reliable WiFi. There is no journalistic integrity -- because there’s no journalist.
 
 Unfortunately, local media isn’t the only place where Chevron seems to have a sleeper cell of sorts. For those wondering why Rep. Lamar Smith’s House Science Committee is so adamant in defending fossil fuel interests, his campaign donations aren’t the only reason. It seems that a couple years ago, one of   Chevron’s top lobbyists, Stephen Sayle, took a government gig -- as the Chief of Staff for the House Science Committee.
 
 If “native advertising” is content that looks like a regular story but is actually an advertisement, then what’s a whole publication that is actually a corporate product? “Native publishing?” And when a lobbyist becomes a high-ranking bureaucrat overseeing an issue of vital importance to his former employer, “revolving door” just doesn’t quite seem to capture the full extent of the picture. Is that more like “native lobbying?”
 
Maybe the company will get into “native movies” next to explain this political maneuvering and media manipulation. If so, we suggest they call it “Citizen Chevron.”

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 #124 on: October 12, 2016, 01:43:17 pm »

UCS Grades Exxon & Others; IRS Gets Exxon & ALEC Complaint
 
 The #ExxonKnew story continues with a new complaint to the IRS by CMD and Common Cause alleging in a letter and filing that instead of being an educational outfit that serves the public good, ALEC functions as a public relations and lobbying tool of ExxonMobil.
 
 The filing details, with 240 exhibits, how ALEC’s climate denial and anti-renewable efforts are conducive to ExxonMobil’s fossil-fuel-based business, and insists that the company’s $1.7 million in donations are more of an advertising expense than a charitable donation. It also shows how ALEC drafts model legislation for like-minded lawmakers, which has resulted in resolutions in 22 states opposing the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, among other things.
 
 And while other fossil-fuel-funded groups are already crying foul about alleged IRS persecution, they for some strange reason neglect to mention that the myth that the IRS unfairly targeted Tea Party groups has been debunked by a Senate investigation. But it seems as though they think that any potential enforcement of the rules is persecution if it goes against their fossil fuel friends.
 
 Speaking of which, ExxonMobil and other major fossil fuel companies are the subject of a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists that grades their efforts on a handful of climate-related issues. From disclosing climate risk to their engagement with denial groups, the report found that while some companies do better than others, none are facing the reality in an intelligent way. The company’s shareholders, then, might want to pressure them to take a smarter approach to climate risk management.
 
 Because fossil fuel companies might be able to survive in a carbon-constrained world, but only if they face the future honestly. If they stop with the denial and start planning for the clean energy economy that the Paris Agreement makes more certain, shareholders stand a chance of continued profits. But if they refuse to wise up, then there are likely significant losses ahead.
 
 Similarly, ALEC might take the IRS complaint as a reason to update its approach, so that it’s not engaging in just-plain-wrong denial but is instead using more intelligent and scientifically honest ways to engage in the policy debate. Which wouldn’t be great if it meant they continue being successful in blocking climate action, but as the saying (sort of) goes, better to be a smart ALEC than a dumb ALEC.
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 #125 on: November 02, 2016, 08:04:29 pm »
The Doubt Machine: Inside The Koch Brothers' War on Climate Science​

Narrated by esteemed actor Emma Thompson, ​the documentary "The Doubt Machine: Inside the Koch Brothers' War on Climate Science" reveals how the Koch Brothers have used their vast wealth to ensure the American political system takes no action on climate change,​ ​and are​ ​attempting​ to buy the 2016 Congressional elections.

The Fossil Fuelers   DID THE Climate Trashing, human health depleteing CRIME,   but since they have ALWAYS BEEN liars and conscience free crooks, they are trying to AVOID   DOING THE TIME or     PAYING THE FINE!     Don't let them get away with it! Pass it on!    


WATCH NOW: The New Film on The Koch Brothers' War on Climate Science

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2930
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 #126 on: November 07, 2016, 12:37:31 pm »
Climate| Nov. 02, 2016 10:23AM EST


Big Oil     
Puts New Shade of Lipstick on Climate Denial Pig

Oil Change International
 
By Andy Rowell

"You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig."

The history of Big Oil's climate denial campaign is littered with slightly progressive sounding front groups trying to give the impression that the industry cares about climate change.

From the Global Climate Coalition, the Climate Council, the Global Climate Science Team to the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, the industry has repeatedly tried to create an illusion that it's taking climate change seriously while undermining any meaningful action.

Take the Climate Change Coalition, which was active in the nineties. It was no coalition of concerned citizens, but was made up of BP, Shell, Exxon and Texaco, and its aim was to derail climate action.

The newest manifestation is the Oil & Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) which will announce its latest plans to solve climate change on Nov. 4, the day the Paris agreement comes into effect.

According to a press release, "The OGCI will announce details of the next phase in their collective action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

So what is the OGCI ?

Formed in 2014, the initiative says it is "a CEO-led organization designed to catalyze practical action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is currently made up of ten oil and gas companies that aim to lead the industry response to climate change."

Those companies include BP, BG Group, Saudi Aramco, Shell and Statoil, among others.

The initial discussions were held at the World Economic Forum in Davos. "It carries the vision of Oil and Gas companies working together collaboratively and sharing best practices and technical solutions to address climate change and sustainable energy."

The website for the OGCI was set up by Daniela Barat Head of Legal, at the World Economic Forum. She is an ex-tobacco lawyer.

The PR company handling the account is Edelman, one of the world's largest PR companies. Although last year Edelman publicly stated that it will no longer work with coal producers and climate change deniers.     This was in response to the company being caught "flat-footed" in 2014 when other major PR firms had taken a stance against climate denial. Edelman had also been caught setting up front groups in support of the proposed Energy East tar sands pipeline. 


Meanwhile in the UK, the company has been criticized for providing services to the UK Task Force on Shale Gas, which has been panned by its critics for being pro-fracking.

The only good news from a climate perspective is that the OGCI does not include the biggest climate dinosaur of the lot: Exxon. I have written twice in the last week about Exxon's climate denial campaign and its humiliating reserve write down.


But that is where the good news runs out.

It is not hard to find a fundamental flaw in the OGCI's position. Oil companies must maximize shareholder return by drilling for oil and gas , which in turn causes climate change.  So their core business is fundamentally at odds with climate change action.

OGCI members produce more than one-fifth of global oil and gas production, and have a vested interest in making sure they carry on producing.

One of the companies is Saudi Aramco, the Saudi oil company, which states on its website, for example: "Our oil fields are some of the largest on the planet—and the world relies on us to manage them responsibly … Today, the production of this essential energy resource remains at the core of our business, and we supply more crude oil to the global economy than any other oil producer, producing nearly 1 in every 8 barrels of world oil production."

While oil production remains at the "core" of its business, Aramco is unlikely to lobby for any meaningful action on climate.

Take another company, Statoil. There is a global push to kick Big Oil out of the Arctic, a region where there are huge risks exploring for oil and where the effects of climate change are being very keenly felt.

Statoil talks about the need for climate change action but is heading further into the Arctic. In September this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Statoil "was pushing deeper into the Arctic, shopping for Barents Sea drilling licenses in a bid to add resources and maintain output over the coming decades."

Moreover BP and Shell, which often try and promote their progressive climate credentials, have both been found to be lobbying against climate action too.

In April last year, the Guardian reported how Shell had "successfully lobbied to undermine European renewable energy targets." As far back as October 2011, the oil giant was lobbying the European Commission "to scrap the bloc's existing formula for linking carbon-cutting goals with binding renewable energy laws."

Nor is BP any better. In 2013, BP basically threatened the commission that if it went ahead and regulated the importation of dirty tar sands crude from Canada or clamped down on dirty power plants and accelerated the introduction of renewable energy, then "energy-intensive industries, such as refining and petrochemicals" would "relocate outside the EU with a correspondingly detrimental impact on security of supply, jobs [and] growth." The commission later abandoned or weakened the key proposals.

Last year, a survey by the UK-based non-profit, Influence Map, concluded that BP was Europe's "strongest advocate of dirty energy, opposing even mild measures to raise carbon trading prices."

Thomas O'Neill, Influence Map's research director said at the time: "BP has been consistently opposed to all the main forms of climate change regulation. There is very little positivity coming out of them and they are a board member of several obstructionist trade associations, some of which give a very dubious account of climate science."

We are witnessing a new form of climate denial. As Seth Klein & Shannon Daub from the Corporate Mapping Project noted in September 2016. "Thankfully, the climate deniers have now mostly been exposed and repudiated … That's the good news. The bad news is we face a new form of climate denialism—more nuanced and insidious, but just as dangerous."

Quote
"In the new form of denialism, the fossil fuel industry and our political leaders assure us  ;) that they understand and accept the scientific warnings about climate change—but they are in denial about what this scientific reality means for policy and/or continue to block progress in less visible ways."

And that is what the OGCI and its member companies are doing. In the run up to the Paris climate talks, the Guardian reported that "The heads of 10 major oil and gas companies have denied they are paying lip service to climate change initiatives while conducting business as usual."

The oil industry is conducting business as usual but trying to tell you it is acting on climate change. With the OGCI, they are purely painting a new shade of lipstick on the industry's climate denial efforts that have been going on for decades.

Quote
Jeff Biss · Northern Illinois University

Deniers are the enemy, pure and simple. Of course, the core problem lay with regular Americans who buy the denier argument because they are ideologues and have no interest in sustainability nor responsibility as they feel entitled to do whatever they want to do.

http://www.ecowatch.com/big-oil-climate-change-2074368661.html

Agelbert NOTE: Apologies to owners of those fine intelligent animals, that many of us eat, called swine or pigs. Pigs are beautiful in their own way and certainly not responsible for the stupidity and hide bound, boundlessly greedy, stubborn, insane magical thinking the fossil fuelers engage in to avoid facing their criminal responsibility for trashing our biosphere and engineering, through buy em' or bop em' corrupt government influence, their welfare queen "subsidies".

Pigs are not conscience free parasites. Big Oil is not run by pigs; it is run by conscience free parasites.

 


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 #127 on: December 04, 2016, 03:27:22 pm »

Anti-Elon Musk Campaign Has Big Ties to Big Energy 

Lorraine Chow

SNIPPET:

The "Stop Elon" website is a giant hit piece on Musk's several companies and his endeavors. Its about page states:


"Elon Musk has defrauded the American Taxpayer out of over $4.9 Billion in the form of subsidies, grants, and other favors. We are challenging not just Elon, but the entire culture of corporations making billions of dollars off of the American people for almost zero return to the consumer. CEO's like Musk are taking advantage of Americans, and it is our intention to end their free ride."

The $4.9 billion figure stems from a debunked Los Angeles Times story. While Musk said that government subsidies are "helpful" they are also "not necessary" for his company to run. He pointed out that $4.9 billion is from "adding up everything that's ever happened and including things that will take the next 20 years."

Musk suggested that the Times report was planted after the International Monetary Fund's staggering report that the fossil fuel industry receives more than $5 trillion in subsidies a year. During a talk in May, the sustainable transport/clean energy advocate urged a revolt against Big Energy for allegedly feeding negative stories about his work to the press.

"We need to appeal to the people—educate people to sort of revolt against this and to fight the propaganda of the fossil fuel industry which is unrelenting and enormous," Musk said.

Agelbert NOTE: See below for the Musk proper action we-the-people must take in order to rid ourselves of the Fossil Fuel Big Fish.  ;D

http://www.ecowatch.com/elon-musk-citizens-for-republic-2110459285.html

Agelbert NOTE: EXCELLENT Comments!


Jeff Del Castilho


This is just the beginning. IMO, Elon has been flying under the radar for a long time, even despite recent successes. He single handedly could take the world off of oil as well as infinitely increase humankind's chances of survival, all in a single lifetime - and with style and grace. I don't think the world yet realizes the greatness they are witnessing. When big oil and fossil and their cronies finally catch on that they are being brought down, I fear there will be far worse than internet propaganda against his efforts.

I mean he built and electric car company in the middle of a recession in the most expensive part of the world to live. The car was one of the best products ever made, looks fantastic, holds 7 and is the fastest production vehicle ever. Best part - it runs on sunshine!

I'm a fan in case it wasn't obvious.

Like · Reply · 25 · Nov 26, 2016 12:02am · Edited


Michelle Kingsbury · Sales Executive at Temple-Inland

so am I

Like · Reply · 4 · Nov 26, 2016 7:14am

John Thaller · Essex Catholic High School

Elon will simply pick up and leave the country, develop his company elsewhere. He is not obligated to do business here, and if he is threatened then by all means he should go elsewhere. With the departure, he will take all his technical smarts, his patents, his business plans, and many jobs, and plant them somewhere else where it will prosper. In the mean time the US will have lost the race again like we did solar panels and wind turbines. We will be stuck with a $300 billion trade deficit by oil, will continue to spread mercury, lead, cadmium, vanadium and other bad chemicals in the air by burning coal. We will give up the 180,000 in the clean energy business, perhaps saving 60,000 in the coal industry. Go for it folks, it's only our future.

Like · Reply · 8 · Nov 26, 2016 4:50am

Nigel Franks

The USA lost the lead in Solar PV and wind energy thanks to the fossil fuel companies.

Like · Reply · Nov 27, 2016 12:01pm

Pascal Molineaux · Professor at Universidad Javeriana Cali

The big weight dinosaurs are feeling the heat of inevitability... Big Dirty Fossil Fuel - hugely propped during the years by generous tax subsidies, incentives and breaks, by policies meant to bolster their profit margins and reduce costs, and vociferously upheld by kowtowing politicians, is now afraid. They see the trend, they know public opinion is shifting, they see the dark future for their gunk. So what do they do? Start a smear campaign against potential competition. Finance a denial of fact and science. Ensure their kowtowing politicians get elected and friendly policies get bored in. They couldn't give a f...t for anything else but their bottom line. They will be called out and lose. Elon Musk is a true pioneer, of the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Those that are so dimwitted as to refuse the inevitability of the coming energy revolution are dinosaurs and will end in the dust heap of history. Good riddance.   



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 #128 on: February 11, 2017, 10:23:08 pm »


This Man   Kick-Started the First Fossil Fuel-Funded Campaigns to Attack Climate Science
Saturday, February 11, 2017 
By Graham Readfearn, DeSmogBlog | Report

SNIPPET:

Quote
Harvard University Professor Naomi Oreskes, an expert on the history of organized climate science denial and co-author of the book Merchants of Doubt, said the ICE campaign was a key moment in the movement's history.

"ICE was very important because it was one of the first attempts to question and challenge the science, for political reasons, and to try to block policy action," she told DeSmog.

"It shows how this network functions: do research to find out how best to undermine public confidence in the science as a means to undermine public support for policy action. Then create a front group with an attractive name -- Informed Citizens for the Environment -- that makes it seem like a grassroots movement. But in fact ICE was wholly-funded by the coal industry."

Palmer's next venture, the Greening Earth Society, produced videos and materials that looked to propagandize the science linking fossil fuel burning to dangerous climate change on two fronts.

The coal-funded group told the public that adding CO2 would only be beneficial to trees and food crops and, in any case, the computer models that they claimed drove climate science (but don't) could not be trusted.

One Western Fuels Association "greening earth" video ended with this wonderfully vague assertion: "It is not inconceivable that the vitality of our entire biosphere could rise by a full order of magnitude over the next few centuries."

Many of the talking points that were developed and polished in those early campaigns, as well as the contrarian scientists and fake experts that endorsed them, are still around today.

Palmer joined coal giant Peabody Energy in 2001 as its head of government relations and, later, a special advisor to the company's leadership.

In June 2016, it emerged that Peabody had been funding an entire network of climate science denial groups -- funding which those groups had kept secret

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39411-this-man-kick-started-the-first-fossil-fuel-funded-campaigns-to-attack-climate-science-25-years-ago
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 #129 on: February 16, 2017, 05:11:46 pm »
 

DENIER ROUNDUP

GOP Begins “Modernizing” Anti-Environment Propaganda
 
Continuing to demonstrate that while his skin looks thick and leathery, it’s actually as paper-thin as the resumes of many of his cabinet appointees and advisors, President Trump continues to pretend that negative press or outlets that expose Russian connections to his administration are fake, while giving actual fake news outlets like Breitbart prime real estate. The administration is making a habit of only calling on conservative outlets as a way to avoid critical questions, having done so exclusively for the past three press conferences. It’s gotten so bad that reporters have started trying to shouting real questions afterwards, only to be ignored. (But at least Acosta tried…)
 
Trump’s continued attempts at co-opting of the term “fake news” as a tool to delegitimize the press is a textbook use of propaganda. From Hitler to Stalin, some of history’s most infamous dictators routinely turned words upside down to strip them of their meaning and confuse the public. 

The latest example of this tactic will be on full view in the House today, when the Energy and Commerce committee holds a 10am hearing on “Modernizing Environmental Laws.” With speakers from the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, and Chairman Shimkus quoted in the press release as looking forward to “practical reforms to promote the expansion of domestic infrastructure and manufacturing”, it’s unlikely the witnesses there who actually care about environmental protection will drive the conversation.
 
But despite what Steve Bannon thinks, the press is smart, and it’s unlikely that this “modernizing” language will to pass unchallenged by the media. Ari Phillips has taken the charge with a great piece that pulls back the propaganda to explain “What GOP lawmakers mean when they talk about modernizing the Endangered Species Act.”
 
Quote
For those wondering, it appears “modernizing” something means destroying it to benefit industry
 
While it may seem silly and obvious to smart folks like Phillips that “modernization” is just an empty euphemism meant to conceal unpopular policy positions, this election proved the power of propaganda. We should all do everything we can to hold those in power accountable and keep the public apprised of the truth.

 Otherwise, Trump might succeed in “modernizing” America.
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

Grace Adams

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #130 on: February 17, 2017, 10:33:32 am »
Unfortunately, fossil fuel industry has huge political clout and is more likely to accuse its opponents of propaganda lying about fossil fuel and making it stick than those who want more renewable energy and less greenhouse emissions are to get their message across. Fortunately, electric utilities are also too big to fail and buying renewable energy in large amounts now that it is actually cheaper than fossil fuel.

AGelbert

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Re: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi
« Reply #131 on: February 17, 2017, 02:03:54 pm »
Unfortunately, fossil fuel industry has huge political clout and is more likely to accuse its opponents of propaganda lying about fossil fuel and making it stick than those who want more renewable energy and less greenhouse emissions are to get their message across. Fortunately, electric utilities are also too big to fail and buying renewable energy in large amounts now that it is actually cheaper than fossil fuel.

Agreed. By the way, Grace, I have made you and administrator here too. So, if I become absent due to health reasons, I welcome any actions of yours here. 
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 #132 on: March 02, 2017, 10:59:04 pm »

Published on Sep 16, 2016

Prof J Kroth: The Coming Disaster - November 17, 2015


Why is the city of Atherton, California which boasts of being a wealthy, liberal, West Coast Ecological "capital" actually far less supportive of diminishing Climate Change than is a place like lower middle class Humboldt County? How is it that the cloud of pollution due to use of coal in China contributes to our smog in Los Angeles?

Prof. Jerry Kroth outlines the huge level of denial about global warming that exists in American culture. Corporate media propaganda, from Glenn Beck to Michael Savage, has so savaged American public consciousness that close to 30 percent of Americans now believe global warming to be a hoax or a liberal conspiracy.

Only 2 % of Canadians shares these beliefs]. Based on his latest book Duped! Delusion, denial, and the American dream, Dr. Kroth dissects the delusory beliefs of both the right and the left.

There is still hope and still time that we could mitigate what is coming, but the remedies are far more radical than anything we have supposed, and success is not likely in view of the present level of propaganda wafting across our airways. More at collectivepsych.com
Original title: Psychology and global warming why we can't seem to prevent the coming disaster revised 2016
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 #133 on: March 14, 2017, 07:06:02 pm »

The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia

Corporate capture of academic research by the fossil fuel industry is an elephant in the room and a threat to tackling climate change.
SNIPPET:

Quote
Fossil fuel interests – oil, gas, and coal companies, fossil-fueled utilities, and fossil fuel investors - have colonized nearly every nook and cranny of energy and climate policy research in American universities, and much of energy science too. And they have done so quietly, without the general public’s knowledge.

For comparison, imagine if public health research were funded predominantly by the tobacco industry. It doesn’t take a neurosurgeon to understand the folly of making policy or science research financially dependent on the very industry it may regulate or negatively affect. Harvard’s school of public health no longer takes funding from the tobacco industry for that very reason. Yet such conflicts of interest are not only rife in energy and climate research, they are the norm.


This norm is no accident: it is the product of a public relations strategy to neutralize science and target those whom ExxonMobil dubbed “Informed Influentials,” and it comes straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. The myriad benefits of this strategy to the fossil fuel industry (and its effects on academic research) range from benign to insidious to unconscionable, but the big picture is simple: academia has a problem.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/mar/13/the-fossil-fuel-industrys-invisible-colonization-of-academia

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 #134 on: March 23, 2017, 03:26:52 pm »
The Forces Driving Middle-Aged White People's 'Deaths Of Despair'

March 23, 2017 5:00 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition

Jessica Boddy

In 2015, when researchers Ann Case and Angus Deaton discovered that death rates had been rising dramatically since 1999 among middle-aged white Americans, they weren't sure why people were dying younger, reversing decades of longer life expectancy.

Now the husband-and-wife economists say they have a better understanding of what's causing these "deaths of despair" by suicide, drugs and alcohol.


In a follow-up to their groundbreaking 2015 work, they say that a lack of steady, well-paying jobs for whites without college degrees has caused pain, distress and social dysfunction to build up over time. The mortality rate for that group, ages 45 to 54, increased by a half-percent each year from 1999 to 2013.

But whites with college degrees haven't suffered the same lack of economic opportunity, and haven't seen the same loss of life expectancy. The study was published Thursday in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.

Case and Deaton, who are both at Princeton University, spoke with NPR's David Greene about what's driving these trends. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Interview Highlights

On the original discovery of rising mortality rates for middle-aged whites


Deaton: Mortality rates have been going down forever. There's been a huge increase in life expectancy and reduction in mortality over 100 years or more, and then for all of this to suddenly go into reverse [for whites aged 45 to 54], we thought it must be wrong. We spent weeks checking out numbers because we just couldn't believe that this could have happened, or that if it had, someone else must have already noticed. It seems like we were right and that no one else had picked it up.

We knew the proximate causes — we know what they were dying from. We knew suicides were going up rapidly, and that overdoses mostly from prescription drugs were going up, and that alcoholic liver disease was going up. The deeper questions were why those were happening — there's obviously some underlying malaise, reasons for which we [didn't] know.

On what's driving these early deaths

Case: These deaths of despair have been accompanied by reduced labor force participation, reduced marriage rates, increases in reports of poor health and poor mental health. So we are beginning to thread a story in that it's possible that [the trend is] consistent with the labor market collapsing for people with less than a college degree. In turn, those people are being less able to form stable marriages, and in turn that has effects on the kind of economic and social supports that people need in order to thrive.

In general, the longer you're in the labor force, the more you earn — in part because you understand your job better and you're more efficient at your job, you've had on-the-job training, you belong to a union, and so your wages go up with age. That's happened less and less the later and later you've been born and the later you enter this labor market.

Deaton: We're thinking of this in terms of something that's been going on for a long time, something that's emerged as the iceberg has risen out of the water. We think of this as part of the decline of the white working class. If you go back to the early '70s when you had the so-called blue-collar aristocrats, those jobs have slowly crumbled away and many more men are finding themselves in a much more hostile labor market with lower wages, lower quality and less permanent jobs. That's made it harder for them to get married. They don't get to know their own kids. There's a lot of social dysfunction building up over time. There's a sense that these people have lost this sense of status and belonging. And these are classic preconditions for suicide.

Case: The rates of suicide are much higher among men [than women]. And drug overdoses and alcohol-related liver death are higher among men, too. But the [mortality] trends are identical for men and women with a high school degree or less. So we think of this as people, either quickly with a gun or slowly with drugs and alcohol, are killing themselves. Under that body count there's a lot of social dysfunction that we think ultimately we may be able to pin to poor job prospects over the life course.

On how mortality rates differ among races    

Deaton: Hispanics [have always had lower mortality rates] than whites. It's a bit of a puzzle that's not fully resolved, to put it mildly. It's always been true that mortality rates have been higher and life expectancy shorter for African Americans than for whites. What is happening now is that gap is closing and, for some groups, it's actually crossed. What we see in the new work is if you compare whites with a high school degree or less, at least their mortality rates are now higher than mortality rates for African Americans as a whole. If you compare whites with a high school degree or less with blacks with a high school degree or less, their mortality rates have converged. It's as if poorly educated whites have now taken over from blacks as the lowest rung of society in terms of mortality rates.

Quote
Agelbert RANT: Since WHEN are "Hispanics" a RACE!!!? Hispanics share some culture but are from ALL RACES! Hispanics are NOT considered a "race", but an ETHNIC GROUP. Yes, "race" is an unscientific concept itself because we are all one species, but the term "race" has always been associated with skin color, NOT CULTURE or LANGUAGE (until Trump, that is). You just read an NPR article making the thoroughly unscientific BACKDOOR allegation that "whites" can not be "Hispanics".  What next, the old "one drip of black blood makes you a you know what" revival from a century ago? I guess they've been listening to Trump (Trump said, "What the hell is a white Hispanic?".).  So it goes in our brave new world of racist Trump pseudo science.

On the geography of mortality rates

Case: There's not a part of the country that has not been touched by this. We like to make the comparison between Nevada and Utah to look at the extent to which good health behaviors lead to longer life. Two thirds of Utahans are Mormons. They don't drink, they don't smoke, and they don't drink tea or coffee. Two thirds of Nevadans live in Las Vegas paradise, where there is a little more of everything, so the heart disease mortality rates are twice as high in Nevada as they are in Utah.

But both states are [in the] top 10 for deaths of despair. Utah has had a terrifically hard time dealing with the opioid crisis, and suicide rates [are] going up as well. There's a lot of surprise here in parts of the country that we weren't really expecting to see.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/03/23/521083335/the-forces-driving-middle-aged-white-peoples-deaths-of-despair

Agelbert NOTE: If you think the racists who wish to demonize Hispanics won't use the above article to further excuse the current baseless and abusive racist attack on Hispanic Americans as well as immigrants from south of the border, you do not understand how to interpret propaganda. This article makes "whites" feel underprivileged and also makes them angry at GUESS WHO?

Also, this article FAILS to point out the FACT that the study TOTALLY ignores pollution from fossil fuels, pesticides, nuclear power plants and various endocrine disrupting toxins the chemical and pharmaceutical industries have been gratuitously showering Americans with for about a century. Any fool can see that the increased cancer rates can certainly bring MANY families into despair from people that could not maintain jobs, not simply because the jobs were not available. There are MUCH MORE "white" people (i.e. non-Hispanics of European descent) in the USA than ANY OTHER KIND of HOMO SAP. Consequently, THAT cohort will be the FIRST to show increased mortality when there is increased mortality. Any statistician can play with the numbers in the cohorts to make one group look more affected than the other.

My point is that, while the underlying premise of article is true (life spans are decreasing for various reasons among the 45-54 age group of Americans), the cherry picking exercise singling out Hispanics is just that. A complete study that shows all the other irritants I mentioned would definitely reveal that Hispanics have, overall, HIGHER mortality rates than the "whites" in the study.

So, a problem is pointed at to make "whites " WORRY. Now why would they want to do that, except out the kindness of their soul and concern for all red blooded Americans?    Then, in a very innocuous sounding way,  a FINGER is pointed, NOT at the CAUSE of the problem, but at the designated SCAPE GOAT (Hispanic cohort), that is even more affected by the problem than the "whites".  :o

Not only is this a great divide and conquer tactic , but it makes the TOTALLY FALSE argument that pollution cannot be considered as the CAUSE because there is one cohort that is doing "just fine and dandy". That's how National Pentagon Radio "works". Have a nice day.

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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