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Author Topic: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus  (Read 16961 times)

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AGelbert

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Re: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #135 on: July 09, 2019, 01:32:13 pm »

As to the CNN article on Sanders, I firmly believe, unlike CNN, that Sanders is 100% accurate in everything he says about what the overwhemling majority of the public supports and what the public is against. The "for the moment we ain't gonna talk about dis or dat" (because, of course, they need to undermine the credibility of Sanders first so they don't have to bother with an argument they cannot argue with) bit right at the start is evidence of 😈 clever sophistry. 

The establishment needs to do a certain amount of (SEE: Noam Chomsky) manufacturing of consent. In the Sanders case, the trick is to manufacture some DISSENT.

You begin by running a bunch of "public opinion" stat numbers by the masses to establish some credibility. Then you play all sorts of word games with those numbers to make Sanders look like and opportunistic liar.

But that is certainly not the most important part of the demonization strategy that all these ethically challenged propagandists want to carry out successfully. In the background is the uncomfortable fact that the public overwhelmingly supports Sanders' position on sine qua non action required to mitigate Catastrophic Climate Change. That is far more important to the public than adequate, and affordable, health care, though both are extremely important to the public.

The trick is to get enough people convinced that Sanders is full of baloney WITHOUT actually saying ANYTHING about his position on Climate Change MITIGATION. That way, the water carrying BASTARDS for the M.I.C., the Fascist Bankers and Big Oil can kick that can down the road another decade or so.

I do NOT think that will work. They will fail in their heinous efforts to demonize Sanders.

Because of that failure to manufacture consent (and dissent), the elections must then be rigged for the fascists to win.

The media will claim "the people have spoken", which is total BULLSHIT, and the Pentagon Internet Troll Farms using our tax dollars to bullshit us 24/7 will cheer all this "democracy".

Yeah, there is a big ethics free lobby out their buying politicians to defend the corporate health insurance crooks and liars, but those corporate greedballs are beginners compared with the oligarchs FULLY engaged in a criminal conspiracy to double down on biosphere trashing profit over people and planet.

They will use their 😈 pals (i.e. Pelosi, Biden et al) within the Democratic Party to do everything they can to underhandedly ruin Sanders' excellent reputation for reality based positions and solutions. I pray that they do not succeed.

SNIPPET from July 5, 2019 Counterpunch article by JONATHAN COOK:
Quote
It takes a determined refusal to join the dots not to see a clear pattern here.

Brand was right that the system is rigged, that our political and media elites are captured, and that the power structure of our societies will defend itself by all means possible, “fair or foul”. Corbyn is far from alone in this treatment. The system is similarly rigged to stop a democratic socialist like Bernie Sanders – though not a rich businessman like Donald Trump – winning the nomination for the US presidential race. It is also rigged to silence real journalists like Julian Assange who are trying to overturn the access journalism prized by the corporate media – with its reliance on official sources and insiders for stories – to divulge the secrets of the national security states we live in.

There is a conspiracy at work here, though it is not of the kind lampooned by critics: a small cabal of the rich secretly pullng the strings of our societies. The conspiracy operates at an institutional level, one that has evolved over time to create structures and refine and entrench values that keep power and wealth in the hands of the few. In that sense we are all part of the conspiracy. It is a conspiracy that embraces us every time we unquestioningly accept the “consensual” narratives laid out for us by our education systems, politicians and media. Our minds have been occupied with myths, fears and narratives that turned us into the turkeys that keep voting for Christmas.

That system is not impregnable, however. The consensus so carefully constructed over many decades is rapidly breaking down as the power structure that underpins it is forced to grapple with real-world problems it is entirely unsuited to resolve, such as the gradual collapse of western economies premised on infinite growth and a climate that is fighting back against our insatiable appetite for the planet’s resources.

As long as we  colluded in the manufactured consensus of western societies, the system operated without challenge or meaningful dissent. A deeply ideological system destroying the planet was treated as if it was natural, immutable, the summit of human progress, the end of history. Those times are over. Accidents like Corbyn will happen more frequently, as will extreme climate events and economic crises. The power structures in place to prevent such accidents will by necessity grow more ham-fisted, more belligerent, less concealed to get their way. And we might finally understand that a system designed to pacify us while a few grow rich at the expense of our children’s future and our own does not have to continue. That we can raise our voices and loudly say: “No!”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/05/the-plot-to-keep-jeremy-corbyn-out-of-power/

TPTB have a plan (see below). People like Sanders and AOC are obstacles to that plan.

COUNTERPUNCH

JULY 5, 2019

by RICHARD MOSER
 

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: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #136 on: July 09, 2019, 03:19:14 pm »
 
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July 9, 2019

SNIPPET 1:



'1984 Moment' in Washington

President Trump on Monday delivered a lie-filled speech touting his administration's environmental record, claiming to be a protector of public lands while flanked by the former oil and coal lobbyists he has appointed as head of Interior and the EPA, respectively. As the New York Times reports, the idea for the speech was conceived inside Trump's 2020 campaign office, who see the president's environmental record as an obstacle for winning over moderate women and millennial voters. Trump heavily criticized the Green New Deal while not mentioning climate change once during the speech. Most of the president's claims on the achievements of his administration on clean air, water, oceans and emissions reductions were either exaggerations, outright lies, or attributable to the previous administration, multiple outlets report. "This speech is a true ‘1984’ moment," David Victor, director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California, San Diego, told the Times.


SNIPPET 2:

DC Floods 💧💧💧 As Trump Ignores Climate

The Washington, DC metro area was inundated with rain Monday as flash floods stranded commuters in their cars and Metro stations, forced Amtrak to suspend service, and flooded parts the White House basement. Dramatic videos on social media show cars driving through flooded streets as the DC and Arlington police and fire departments made more than 65 water rescues collectively. More than 3 inches of rain fell at Reagan National Airport in one hour--nearly the equivalent of one average months' worth of rainfall for the area--making Monday Washington's seventh-wettest July day on record since 1871. Warmer air caused by climate change can hold more moisture, creating conditions more favorable for heavy precipitation.


Full News Roundup:

« Last Edit: January 22, 2022, 02:15:21 pm by AGelbert »
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: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #137 on: July 10, 2019, 06:21:08 pm »
CounterPunch

JULY 5, 2019

Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair

Doubling Down: The Military, Big Bankers and Big Oil Are Not In Climate Denial, They Are in Control and Plan to Keep It That Way.
by RICHARD MOSER FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

“Capitalism, militarism and imperialism are disastrously intertwined with the fossil fuel economy….A globalized economy predicated on growth at any social or environmental costs, carbon dependent international trade, the limitless extraction of natural resources, and a view of citizens as nothing more than consumers cannot be the basis…for tackling climate change….Little wonder then that the elites have nothing to offer beyond continued militarisation and trust in techno-fixes.”

— Nick Buxton and Ben Hayes [1]

The ruling class may be an utter failure but that is not stopping them taking aggressive action on climate change. Their chief concern: maintaining power, control and profits at all costs.

The plan is well underway and it sure ain’t the Green New Deal. Just imagine a more extreme version of the world that already exists: where healthcare is rationed; where wealth inequality strangles democracy; where austerity is a weapon of class warfare; where millions die prematurely from toxins in air and water; where war and incarceration is the solution of choice; where people are rounded up in concentration camps; where corporations rule unchallenged; where extreme weather wrecks havoc in an expanding circle of misery. The only new thing about their solution is the stench of fascism that grows ever stronger and more odious.

The Bosses Want More of the Same

When Trump and the Republicans deny climate change, when Pelosi, Pallone, Perez, Biden and Obama join with Trump in sabotaging the Green New Deal or dismissing climate action as too expensive, too dreamy, not practical or too pure — they are all bold-faced liars and frauds.

The Republicans know full well that their partners in crime — oil companies, bankers and the military brass have known about climate change for decades. And, the corporate Democrats know that these same powerful players they too represent already have a risky plan to deal with climate change. From their shared perspective, even the Democrat’s Green New Deal, despite its weaknesses, must be marginalized since it competes with the establishment’s plans for our future.

Framing   Climate Change

To maintain power they need to limit our thinking. The two most important narratives imposed on us are climate change as a “threat to national security” and as a “business opportunity” — the twin 😈 rationales for military and corporate power.  They want to focus us on how to manage the crisis, profit from it, or adapt to it, instead of opposing it.

Once framed in this way the very institutions responsible for climate change can benefit from disaster while hiding their responsibility for creating the crisis. But the military-corporate management of the crisis will undoubtedly follow the same principles that created the crisis: the costs of pollution, adaptation, endless growth and war won’t appear in the corporate ledger. Military budgets will only grow larger. The costs will be “externalized” and paid by the suffering of everyday people.


The 63 million Americans currently exposed to unsafe drinking water and the 200,000 (according to an MIT study) in the US that currently die prematurely from air pollution are just a down payment. And the US is the wealthiest country in world history. The global figure for air pollution related deaths is 5.5 million annually. The 20 million or so deaths from war since WWII are a gross outstanding debt. How is that for adaptation and management? How will our rulers plan to maintain control as the crisis deepens?

Plans? What Plans?

Unsurprisingly, the military plans to maintain its ambition for 🦍“full spectrum 👹 dominance.”  A 2014 report from the Department of Defense quotes former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel who — having previously been on the Board of Directors of Chevron and Deutsche Bank — knows how to unite big oil, big banks and big guns.

“Our coastal installations are vulnerable to rising sea levels and increased flooding, while droughts, wildfires and more extreme temperatures could threaten many of our training activities….A baseline survey to assess the vulnerability of the military’s more than 7,000 bases, installations and other facilities is nearly complete, Hagel said. “In places like the Hampton Roads region in Virginia, which houses the largest concentration of U.S military sites in the world, we see recurrent flooding today, and we are beginning work to address a projected sea-level rise of 1.5 feet over the next 20 to 50 years…”

They want us to forget that it has now been proven beyond doubt that the military is the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels and largest polluter. War will continue, climate crisis be damned. Elizabeth Warren’s 2019 policy statement and the bipartisan letter sent to Trump by over 100 congress members urging Trump to make climate change a national security issue is more proof that war trumps climate. In truth, the military is caught in a crisis of its own making. As Desiree Hellegers puts it: “The US Military Poses a Significant Threat to the US Military.”[2]

While the pro-war media makes much of the military’s attempts to use alternative energy, the Pentagon failed to reach its puny 2014 goal of 5% renewable.

Similarly, Obama’s 2009 stimulus package cancelled out the effects of small green spending with an “all of the above” approach, including money for “clean coal,” record oil production and increased energy use. This pattern of “greenwashing” — minor green efforts masking major investments in fossil fuels is identical to the corporate approach.

The oil companies and big banks that make crazy money from fossil fuels also hide the truth by posing the problem as a question of proper management. Sharon Kelly reports the banker’s view of a new “business opportunity”:

“Scientific research finds that an increasing concentration of greenhouse gases…is warming the planet, posing significant risks to prosperity and growth of the global economy,” JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley wrote in a 2015 statement. “As major financial institutions…we have the business opportunity to build a more sustainable, low-carbon economy and the ability to help manage and mitigate these climate-related risks.”

So how is it that the bankrollers of climate chaos, investing  $1.9 trillion in fossil fuels just since the Paris Accords, also claim to “manage and mitigate these climate-related risks?”

According to the bankers, the problem with climate change is that it’s “posing significant risks to the prosperity and growth of the global economy.” What they will not say is that the global economy — which demands enormous fossil fuel production and consumption — is posing significant risks to the climate. The global shipping and aviation on which peak profit-making depends is, like the military, exempt from the Paris Accords. The bankers, generals, and politicians are protecting the sources of their power.

From the Gold Standard to the Oil Standard

What the bankers will not say is that billions of the dollars they trade in are “petrodollars” — as explained in this informative documentary video.  A 40-year back-room deal with the Saudis secretly recycled oil money back to the US. This deal essentially shifted the US dollar from the “gold standard” to the “oil standard.” According to Bloomberg:

The basic framework was strikingly simple. The U.S. would buy oil from Saudi Arabia and provide the kingdom military aid and equipment. In return, the Saudis would plow billions of their petrodollar revenue back into Treasuries and finance America’s spending.

Buying oil in dollars is a form of imperial tribute other countries pay to the US — which is why the US insists all oil trading be in US currency. Iraq and Lybia once traded oil in other currencies. Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia and China still do. See?

Since oil props up the US Dollar, bankers have a direct interest in wars that prop up the fossil-fuel regime. It is highly unlikely that the US Dollar, the Military-Industrial-Complex or the global corporate economy can live without its addiction to oil — whatever green capitalists imagine in their wildest dreams. Some contradictions simply cannot be overcome.

Representative Democracy is Dying. Long live Direct Democracy!

It’s “power to the people” or nothing. There is no middle ground. But we will be swamped along with the middle ground if we do not have real leverage and real power. The military, the oil companies and the big banks have plans and power both. The Green Party’s Real Green New Deal is a solid plan, as are the guiding principles offered by DSA Ecosocialists, or Tulsi Gabbard’s OFF Act.

But, the straightest line to the power we need is not just good policy, more manifestos, analytical precision or electoral politics (although those things might be helpful) — it’s the sloppy, contradictory, demanding work of organizing and direct democracy. The many efforts to protect water and confront infrastructure projects are leading the way.  The Red Nation is a new voice telling classic political truths. Listen carefully. The “Red Deal” platform states:

This…will encompass the entirety of Indigenous America, which includes our non-Indigenous comrades and relatives who live here….We cannot expect politicians to do what only mass movements can do…..A mass mobilization, one like we’ve never seen before in history, is required to save this planet. Indigenous movements have always been at the forefront of environmental justice struggles…The Red Deal is not a “deal” or “bargain” with the elite and powerful. It’s a deal with the humble people of the earth; a pact that we shall strive for peace and justice and that movements for justice must come from below and to the left.

“We cannot expect politicians to do what only mass movements can do…from below and to the left.” Truth. But how?

Whether you are base-building with workers or tenants, movement-building with the peace and environmental movements or running electoral campaigns, the under-appreciated work of talking with, and listening to, everyday people is the fast track to fundamental change. Talking with everyday people is a revolutionary act. Acting with others is better yet.

A massive Harvard study tells us what we already suspect: we have the most dysfunctional, least democratic electoral system of any so-called “western democracy.” The collapse of real representation is a leading cause of crisis. To think that such a broken system can repair itself and then take on massive problems of its own making without an equally massive and equally disruptive popular movement is more than just wishful thinking — it is a profound disregard for history. Show me some evidence. How was the original New Deal created? The failure to allow moderate and popular reforms like universal health care does not bode well for government’s ability to act on climate and war — issues that strike right at the heart of the existing social order.

We have good blueprints. It’s vitally important to put demilitarization at the center of our efforts not just because the US empire is the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels or because the same military is the enforcer of the global fossil fuel regime but because understanding the connections between war and climate changes clears the way for fusion and synergy between the environmental and peace movements and movements for economic justice.

But the real question — the unanswered question — is HOW? How do we move on the climate crisis? Can we build it from the bottom up? It sure isn’t coming from the top down. Can the Green New Deal become a revolutionary reform? Ask people what they think about the Green New Deal. Where it leads is up to us.

Notes.

1/ The best single source is a very well researched collection of essays The Secure and the Dispossessed: How the Military and Corporations are Shaping a Climate-Changed World edited by Nick Buxton and Ben Hayes.  Find the quote on p 234.

2/ You can see much more of this misdirection by looking at this document: “Military and National Security Leaders Urge Robust New Course on Climate Change. Or see Elizabeth Warren’s new plan for a green ;) military
.
 
Richard Moser writes at befreedom.co where this article first appeared.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/05/doubling-down-the-military-big-bankers-and-big-oil-are-not-in-climate-denial-they-are-in-control-and-plan-to-keep-it-that-way/

Agelbert Comment: The M.I.C. 🦕🦖 Hydrocarbon Hellspawn think they can handle Catastrophic Climate Change. They are abysmally wrong. God is NOT mocked; whatsover you sow, THAT you shall reap.

Tomorrow is Yesterday

 The 🦕🦖 Hydrocarbon 👹 Hellspawn Fossil Fuelers DID THE Clean Energy  Inventions suppressing, Climate Trashing, human health depleting 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!   
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: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #138 on: July 15, 2019, 11:49:27 pm »
July 15, 2019
 
Make Nexus Hot News part of your morning: click here to subscribe.

EPA Protects Polluters, Not People

 The Trump administration is preparing to roll out a proposal that would remove communities' ability to officially contest decisions regarding how much pollution can be released by local power plants and factories, the New York Times reports.

A draft plan, which sources tell the Times could be made public next week, would eliminate individual and community ability to appeal power plant permits to the EPA's Environmental Appeals Board, while preserving the right of plant owners to appeal to the board to increase pollution limits. "This is outrageous," Harvard environmental law professor Richard Lazarus told the Times. "Individuals in communities will lose a way to seek relief from pollution that has historically been very effective. But industry will still be able to seek relief to pollute more." (New York Times $)

https://mailchi.mp/395d665f5a9a/barry-trudges-through-gulf-states-epa-keeps-protecting-polluters-more
« Last Edit: January 22, 2022, 02:14:48 pm by AGelbert »
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: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #139 on: July 18, 2019, 10:22:25 pm »

No. 89, July 18, 2019

Hello Revelator readers,

Fighting climate change often means holding people and companies responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions. That's why a new collection of fossil fuel industry documents matters — it's a treasure trove of history and information freely available to journalists, lawyers, legislators and activists, as well as the public. Read all about it in our latest essay.

 



 
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: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #140 on: July 23, 2019, 06:50:15 pm »
 
Make Nexus Hot News part of your morning: click here to subscribe.

July 23, 2019

SNIPPET 1:   

Bill 🦕 Wehrum, who resigned last month, met repeatedly with industry 🐉🦖 contacts who were clients of his former law firm while crafting significant policy for the Trump administration, including last month’s rollback of the Clean Power Plan.


SNIPPET 2:

Oddly though, the editorial acknowledges that the gas banning ordinance “contains a social-justice rationale” in its reference to the fact that the highest rates of asthma are located in “areas that were redlined pursuant to racist housing policies.” Yes, part of the reason to ban gas is to protect those who suffer its pollution, but no, that doesn’t mean the WSJ is going to take their health concerns to heart, as it references redlining only to hand-wave it away.

For those young or privileged enough not to know already, redlining was an explicitly racist system of structural oppression in which black Americans were deliberately denied access to the federal government’s Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, which literally drew red lines around minority communities. As a result , economic development in those marginalized communities remains depressed, leaving property prices so low that these became obvious choices for  industry to locate dirty, polluting facilities that leave its neighbors struggle to breathe with disproportionately high rates of asthma and other ailments.

The 💵 🎩 Wall Street Journal’s editorial, however, turns a blind eye to this classic, textbook example of systemic racism. Instead the piece downplays redlining merely as “bankers once didn’t lend to the poor,” once again revealing how 😈 hands greased by 🦖 fossil fuels are awash in white supremacy.


 

 The 🦕🦖 Hydrocarbon 👹 Hellspawn Fossil Fuelers DID THE Clean Energy  Inventions suppressing, Climate Trashing, human health depleting 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!   
« Last Edit: January 22, 2022, 02:16:53 pm by AGelbert »
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: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #141 on: August 02, 2019, 03:46:38 pm »

TruthDig

JUL 31, 2019 OPINION

The Inconvenient Truth About Migration the 😈 Media Brush Off

By Joshua Cho / FAIR


SNIPPET:

Bloomberg (7/5/19) offered the victim-blaming headline “Why Roots of US Border Crisis Lie South of Mexico,” and noted that Honduras and El Salvador have among the “highest murder rates in the world.” It depicted Central American migrants as seeking economic opportunity, noting that 60 percent of the population in Honduras and Guatemala lives below the national poverty line, and characterizing those countries as “a hotbed of poverty, corruption, gang violence and extortion.”

In all these reports, the US’s contributions to the violence and corruption in Central America during the Cold War, and more recent US support for a 2009 military coup in Honduras deposing the democratically elected left-wing President Manuel Zelaya, and its funding for death squads in the country, are completely obscured. This despite the evidence (Migration Policy Institute, 4/1/06) that US-backed violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador during the Cold War “institutionalized” a migration pattern to North America that had been “very minor” beforehand.

But if these reports shrouded the connection between US 🦍 foreign policy and the “violence” and “unrelenting turmoil” in the region, they more deeply buried the connection between increasing violence and climate change.

Full article:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-inconvenient-truth-about-migration-media-brushes-off/

Agelbert NOTE: And now a word from our "loyal servants", the 🦕🦖 Hydrocarbon Hellspawn:

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: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #142 on: August 02, 2019, 04:46:13 pm »
THINKPROGRESS

AUG 2, 2019, 8:00 AM

AERIAL VIEW OF ELECTRIC CARS AT KANDI ELECTRIC ⚡ VEHICLES GROUP CO. IN CHANGXING COUNTY ON OCTOBER 24, 2017 IN HUZHOU, CHINA. CREDIT: TAN YUNFENG/VCG.

Trump is trying to kill electric cars but will kill jobs and the climate instead

By JOE ROMM

SNIPPET:

Two new analyses from Bloomberg this week make clear just how bad President Donald Trump’s policies are for the domestic electric car market and U.S. workers.

In the first report, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) explains that Trump’s plan to roll back Obama-era fuel efficiency and emissions standards for vehicles would eliminate any federal requirement for carmakers to build electric vehicles (EVs). BNEF also explains that the deal Ford, Honda, Volkswagen, and BMW struck with California last week to avoid the full rollback will not undo most of the damage.

In the second, BNEF concluded that the rapid price drops in the cost of batteries that have driven the energy storage and EV revolutions this decade will continue for the next decade. In short, while Trump can slow adoption of high-efficiency EVs in the United States, other countries — the E.U. and especially China — will simply keep adopting them so quickly that he cannot stop the global EV revolution. All he will succeed in doing is hobble job creation and the U.S. economy.

Full article:

 
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: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #143 on: August 03, 2019, 06:08:29 pm »
THINKPROGRESS

🦕 Interior secretary will be allowed to meet with 🦖 former fossil fuel clients starting this weekend  


Prior to taking the helm at the Interior Department in 2017, Secretary David Bernhardt worked as a lobbyist for the oil and gas industry via the Colorado law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

When he joined the administration, he agreed to recuse himself from certain matters on ethical grounds. His pledge banned Bernhardt from decisions involving his former firm’s clients for two years. Bernhardt was also not able to meet with these companies, unless five or more other stakeholders were present, and nothing relating specifically to the companies was discussed.

But all of this is set to change on Saturday, when his recusal expires.

Read more:
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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Re: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #144 on: August 09, 2019, 03:45:39 pm »
Excellent comment:

Quote
Shale oil production was never anything more than a scheme to extend and pretend this version of industrial civilization.  It was a jobs program in reality, employing many thousands of workers at good wages and supporting all the restaurants and car salesmen and home builders -- all on debt. 

Without shale oil production this global economy would have realized Peak Oil is here and now and collapsed years ago.  So the gambit worked, and is still working, but apparently not for much longer, as many of us who have kept tabs on the shale industry have known all along. 

Like everything else about this global economy, it was a debt fueled fantasy, and is nearing the point where all fantasies end -- when reality reasserts itself.
Fri, 08/09/2019 - 14:04


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: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #145 on: August 09, 2019, 07:13:40 pm »
EcoWatch

Friday, August 9, 2019

By Jessica Corbett


« Last Edit: January 22, 2022, 02:16:23 pm by AGelbert »
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: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #146 on: August 10, 2019, 12:38:48 pm »


By Mike Schuler on Aug 09, 2019 06:02 pm

Trump Delay Casts Doubt on First Big U.S. Offshore Wind Farm

The 🦀 Trump 🦕🦖 administration cast the fate of the nation’s first major offshore wind farm into doubt by extending an environmental review for the $2.8 billion Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts.

The  Interior Department has ordered an additional  ;) study of the farm, proposed by Avangrid Inc. and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Interior Secretary 🦖 David Bernhardt said in an interview with Bloomberg News Friday.

🦖 Bernhardt said it’s crucial the impacts be thoroughly studied. “For offshore wind to thrive on the outer continental shelf, the federal government has to dot their I’s and cross their T’s,” he said.


Read full story...

https://gcaptain.com/trump-delay-casts-doubt-on-first-big-u-s-offshore-wind-farm/

Agelbert NOTE: This is that very same "former" ;) 🦖 Bernhardt Fossil Fuel Lobbyist who never seemed to have any concerns about the Federal Government's MASSIVE ABSENCE OF dotted I’s and crossed T’s in regard to coal mines, offshore oil plaform spills and flaring pollution, land fracking caused poisoning of groundwater and air pollution from flaring. These Hydrocarbon Hellspawn bastards are WORLD CLASS HYPOCRITES!

Bernhardt is following in the footsteps of his hero, John D. Rockefeller.


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: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #147 on: August 13, 2019, 06:48:30 pm »
 
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Aug 12, 2019, 8:20 AM

« Last Edit: January 22, 2022, 02:15:49 pm by AGelbert »
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: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #148 on: August 13, 2019, 09:13:54 pm »

Trump's 🦀 Profits Will Tear Web of Life ☠️ Apart!
1,262 views


Thom Hartmann Program
Published on Aug 13, 2019

Donald Trump and his 😈 billionaire, 🦕🦖 oil drilling buddies are trying to get rid of the Endangered species Act.

Biodiversity is the foundation on which all life depends, including human life.

Biodiversity provides for our water, food, shelters, and health. It's the air we breathe, the nutrients we take in and the soil that our food is grown on.

Now, with Trump’s attack on the Endangered Species Act, the web of life is more at risk than ever before. 😱


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: Hydrocarbon Hellspawn Mens Rea Actus Reus
« Reply #149 on: August 17, 2019, 11:24:08 pm »

Trump Endangers the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act
August 16, 2019

The protection of threatened species will now be weighed against the economic benefit their extinction might mean. Meanwhile, states would no longer be able to review the impact of projects on water quality, in accordance with the decades-old the Clean Water Act


Story Transcript

JACQUELINE LUQMAN: This is Jacqueline Luqman with The Real News Network.

Recently, the Trump administration has announced a twofer: a swing at the Clean Water Act and a whack at the Endangered Species Act. There are proposals aimed at weakening the laws that are now staples of the federal environmental review process that were ushered in during the Nixon era.

For the Clean Water Act, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced a shortening of the time period for regulatory review of major projects to a time period of no more than one year for states and tribes. It also allows the federal agencies to override state’s decisions on water issues to deny permits for projects in some situations. And for the Endangered Species Act, just days later, the Trump administration announced that the US Department of Interior finalized a rule calling on the federal government to weigh economic factors before categorizing a species as endangered or threatened, despite what the science may say about the matter. Further, those species listed as threatened will no longer have the same level of safeguards as those who are endangered.

But what will this mean in action in real life for environmental and climate protections? Well, we have some guests to talk about these seismic shifts in the environmental regulatory landscape. One of them is Ryan Shannon, a staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. Welcome, Ryan.

RYAN SHANNON: Thanks for having me.

JACQUELINE LUQMAN: And the other is Elizabeth Klein, Deputy Director of the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at New York University School of Law. Welcome, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH KLEIN: Thank you.

JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Thank you both for joining me. So let’s start, Elizabeth, with the Clean Water Act. I want to ask, the compliance with the act, it’s a routine part of federal environmental reviews for major projects. What exactly is the Trump administration’s proposal? What are they changing and what will the potential impact be if this change is adopted?

ELIZABETH KLEIN: Well, what they’re considering here is really a fundamental shift in how water quality certifications have been reviewed and processed by states. The Clean Water Act sets out a pretty clear process that’s been used for decades now that allows states, actually gives them the authority to ensure that major infrastructure projects like pipelines or other projects that might be on the landscape for years and years, even decades, won’t impair the water quality of bodies of water in their states. The act is very clear that states have the authority to review requests for these certifications.

And what the administration is doing is really a full frontal assault on the states’ authority to review and decide whether or not projects are going to impair water quality. And so they are shortening the timeframe. You mentioned a year. In fact, the EPA wants to make it possible for certain agencies, like the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to shorten that timeframe to as little as six months. They want to be able to exercise an amount of federal oversight that’s really inappropriate and reach in and decide whether or not they think the state has made a good decision on whether or not a project will impair water quality, which is inconsistent with the act and just decades of implementation of this process.

JACQUELINE LUQMAN: And the proposed changes to the Clean Water Act would also impact tribal authority. Could you explain a little bit how that would change if this rule is adopted?

ELIZABETH KLEIN: Well, what they’re trying to do, again, is really reach into these processes that states, and in some limited cases tribes, have the authority to also issue these water quality certifications. The federal government is trying to impose a process where they could, for instance, decide that a state or a tribe’s review of whether a project meets the water quality certifications of an area in fact does or does not do that and they are going to inject apparently their views on whether or not the project is something that should trump the water quality of these bodies of water. So again, it’s really – it’s an assault on the whole system of cooperative federalism that had been set up by the act that gives the authority to states and tribes, the ones who are actually on the ground and understand the bodies of water that are going to be affected. It really trumps their authority to do what they have done for years, which is determine whether projects are going to impair water quality.

JACQUELINE LUQMAN: That pun I’m sure is completely intended. So now over to you, Ryan. Let me ask you. The Trump administration said that economic factors will now be a major part of its endangered categorization process in regard to the Endangered Species Act. Is there any legitimacy to the claims of negative economic impact to designating an area that contains a threatened or an endangered species, that was the reason that was cited that this change, this rule change, would be implemented? Is there any legitimacy to that claim?

RYAN SHANNON: No. There really is none, and we should be clear about what this exactly is proposing to do. What they’re intending to do is inject economic considerations into what is fundamentally a scientific decision. Is a species threatened or endangered? And Congress was very clear when it wrote the Endangered Species Act and when they amended it, that listing decisions are solely based on the best available science. That amendment to the Endangered Species Act actually came about because the Reagan administration tried to do the very same thing and inject economic considerations into the listing process. And what this is going to do is either result in listing decisions that are undermined by undue economic considerations. Or at best, it’s going to bring the listing process to a grinding halt, as the service goes through these costly and time-consuming economic impacts analysis.

Now, we should be clear that there’s two pieces. There’s the listing of an endangered or threatened species, and then there’s the designation of critical habitat. When designating critical habitat, they can take into account the economic decisions and then they may decide to exclude certain areas from a critical habitat decision. But when they’re considering listing a species, it’s very, very clear that it’s only based on the best available science and economic considerations play no role. So that begs the question, if economic considerations are entirely irrelevant to the listing process, why do them at all?

JACQUELINE LUQMAN: And that does bring us to the next question, which is a question I want to ask both of you. For both of these rules changes, what’s the motive for these rules changes? In other words, cui bono, who benefits? And how strictly enforced where these laws and regulations? And did they ever serve to slow down federal project proposals, which is another excuse that has been used, or I should say another justification, that has been used from making these claims? Elizabeth, what do you have to say about that?

ELIZABETH KLEIN: Well, honestly the proposal to strip and fundamentally weaken the authority of states and tribes to review water quality certification applications – I’m not exactly sure who benefits. If I were a proponent of a large infrastructure project, for instance, if I was working for an energy company or for a housing development or for any of the large infrastructure projects you can think of that might affect or impair water quality in some way, I would be very concerned about what they’re proposing here.

The proposal is fundamentally at odds with what’s in the statute itself. EPA even went so far in its proposal to suggest that it disagreed with an opinion of the Supreme Court, of all things, that the Supreme Court had gotten a decision wrong about the ability of states to decide what the scope of water quality means. And so, it’s not clear to me who this benefits. Potentially the administration thinks that this will benefit their ability to be reelected. It seems very political and separate and apart from what’s actually called for by the Clean Water Act.

JACQUELINE LUQMAN: And Ryan, what’s your take on this in regard to the Endangered Species Act? Who benefits from this rule change?

RYAN SHANNON: What we know for certain is that endangered and threatened species will not benefit at all from these rule changes. And then I think the folks that do benefit are David Bernhardt’s former clients. The Department of Interior right now is staffed with numerous individuals who have described endangered species as incoming Scud missiles. And Karen Budd-Falen, who’s the acting Assistant Deputy of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, once said that if given the chance, she would repeal the ESA in a heartbeat.

JACQUELINE LUQMAN: So in fact, climate and environmental activists, which both of you have expressed, say that the proposed changes in the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Act could lead to expedited permits for pipelines, especially in regards to the Clean Water Act and other related infrastructure. And interestingly, EPA administrator, Andrew Wheeler, who is a former fossil fuel industry lobbyist, agreed in an interesting and odd way with the environmental activists when he said in a comment, “Under President Trump, the United States has become the number one oil and gas energy producer in the world. When implemented, this proposal, the change to the Clean Water Act, will streamline the process for constructing new energy infrastructure projects that are good for American families, American workers, and the American economies.”

So clearly these rules changes are for the benefit of, at least from the administration’s perspective, the energy suppliers that want to circumvent these laws to build their infrastructures, to extract more fossil fuels from the ground and destroy our ecosystem in the process. So this brings us to the next question. Ryan, what’s the significance of the change to the act that’s calling for species categorized as threatened, which is one step below endangered, no longer receiving the same protections as species in the endangered category? What will this mean in real life and how will that be carried out if it’s adopted?

RYAN SHANNON: So what this means in real life is that species that are listed as threatened in the future, won’t receive the protections that they have received for the past 40 years. The Fish and Wildlife Service, early on in the implementation of the Endangered Species Act, decided that presumptively it was going to provide all of the protections provided to endangered species, to threatened species as well. Primarily, this means that they’re protected from take. Take is a term of [inaudible], which basically means that you can’t harm, harass or kill an endangered species. And so threatened wildlife presumptively had that protection provided to them as well. Now, the act always has had this provision called the Section 4(d). And under Section 4(d), fish and wildlife was always free to issue a species-specific 4(d) rule. And that could change that blanket protection and provide certain exemptions or provisions that were intended to benefit the species— basically allow a little bit of flexibility.

So they always had that ability to provide certain flexibilities around threatened species. What this administration has decided to do is just remove the presumptive protection altogether and instead only provide protections if and when they issued these species-specific 4(d) rules. And these species-specific 4(d) rules historically have not been good for species. For instance, in 2014 there was a species-specific 4(d) rule issued for the Lesser Prairie Chicken and it effectively exempted oil and gas ranching and energy development projects from any restrictions on the Endangered Species Act. And was those very same actions that were threatening the Lesser Prairie Chicken in the first place. So you end up having a species that is listed as threatened, but doesn’t enjoy the protections that it should underneath the act.

And so going forward, threatened species just won’t receive the same kind of protections that they have in the past. These lifesaving protections that have prevented 99% of the species listed under the Endangered Species Act from going extinct. And what I think we’ll see is more and more species being listed as threatened rather than endangered, so that they do not receive the protections provided to endangered species.

JACQUELINE LUQMAN: And will the advent, the onset of climate change, the climate crisis as seeing the results of climate change, will that make this situation with the endangered species and threatened species, will that make the situation worse with this rule change?

RYAN SHANNON: Yes, it certainly will. I mean, we are living through the sixth mass extinction right now and more and more species are feeling the full brunt and effects of climate change. And what these rule changes do is both look to disregard climate science, the best available science. When listing a species, they seek to disregard the impact of climate. When considering listing a species as threatened, they look to disregard protecting critical habitat that is threatened because of climate change. And then also, there is a regulation that’s going to change the way that the US Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies conduct Section 7 consultations under the act. These consultations ensure that federal agency actions do not jeopardize listed species or destroy or adversely modify their critical habitat, and they’ve effectively written climate change out of that process.

JACQUELINE LUQMAN: So Elizabeth, it looks like many states have already stated their intent to sue the Trump administration in regard to these changes to the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. Do you expect more states to jump in to sue the administration, to stop the implementation of these rules in their states? And what do you see as the potential success of these actions?

ELIZABETH KLEIN: Well, state Attorneys General have really from the beginning of this administration had been clear that they’re not going to stand by and ignore the administration’s attempts to flout the law and roll back really bedrock environmental protections under a whole suite of acts— the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act. The list is long. And although there is a large number of things they’ve had to become engaged in, state AGs really are continuing to fight against what they see as unlawful rollbacks that are harmful to public health, to their constituents and to the environment. And so with respect to the Endangered Species Act, that was a final rule that’s been issued by the administration, and you saw Massachusetts Attorney General Healey and California Attorney General Becerra come out strong out of the gate and indicate that they are upset and believe that these final rules are unlawful and they will challenge them.

With respect to the Section 401 proposed rule that’s come out from the EPA, there is still a process to go through before we would get to litigation necessarily. And so I would expect a number of states to jump in with pretty forceful comments to the EPA about how they view this new proposed rule as unlawful under the Clean Water Act and an inappropriate abdication of responsibilities that have been provided to the states. If EPA chooses to ignore those comments, I would assume that there will be legal challenges down the road. But right now, we’re in a rulemaking process. And so I suppose we could always have hope that the administration will listen and come to reason and decide that this is not the direction they want to go in.

JACQUELINE LUQMAN: It’s a pretty incredible state of affairs when what we have left is hope that the administration will listen to science. But that is where we are. And I want to thank both of you so much, Ryan Shannon and Elizabeth Klein, for joining me today to really dig into what could happen with these rules changes and what is happening with these rules changes to these two important pieces of environmental legislation. Thank you for joining me today, both of you.

RYAN SHANNON: Thanks for having me.

ELIZABETH KLEIN: Thank you.

JACQUELINE LUQMAN: And thank you for watching. This is Jacqueline Luqman with The Real News Network in Baltimore.
https://therealnews.com/stories/trump-endangers-the-endangered-species-act-and-the-clean-water-act
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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