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Author Topic: Fossil Fuels: Degraded Democracy and Profit Over Planet Pollution  (Read 30472 times)

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AGelbert

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A Magical Mystery Tour of American Austerity Politics 

Posted on Jun 10, 2015

By Laura Gottesdiener, TomDispatch

SNIPPET:
Quote
That Marathon paid residents to evacuate their homes in this predominantly white section of town, while refusing to do the same in the predominantly African American 48217, which sits closer to the refinery, strikes neither Lockridge and Parker nor their neighbors as a coincidence.   

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_magical_mystery_tour_of_american_austerity_politics_20150610

Agelbert NOTE: Corporate rule is Empathy Deficit behavior on STEROIDS.



Quote
The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.

With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.

If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States.

There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful.

http://newdeal.feri.org/wallace/haw23.htm
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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Oil Spills Whose Fault are They Anyway?  ???

Posted on June 13, 2015  by Timothy Jacobs   
 
By: Emily Williams

“It’s not your fault.”

In the movie Goodwill Hunting, Robin Williams repeats this line over and over to Matt Damon, helping him accept that the trauma he faced, in fact, wasn’t his fault.

I can’t help that that mantra crosses my mind every time I’m confronted with anther exploding oil train or of a child diagnosed with cancer next to a power plant. “It’s not your fault.”

Two weeks ago, a pipeline that was pumping crude oil from off-shore platforms to onshore facilities ruptured in Santa Barbara County, spilling over 100,000 gallons of crude oil onto the coastline and into the sea. The slick currently spans over 10 miles of previously pristine coastline. The only silver lining is that the spill didn’t occur in a more populated area.

Yet I am completely dependent on fossil fuels. A shameless alliance of government, big oil, and king coal has ensured that our infrastructure depends entirely upon coal, oil, and natural gas. These fuels heat our homes, power our cars, produce our plastics, and power the very computer I wrote this on.

But just because we are currently reliant on something doesn’t mean we should continue to be. Our society used to rely on DDT to protect our crops from pests. Yet once it was proven how toxic the substance was, we banned it, turning to alternatives. We now know that fossil fuel extraction and combustion is more toxic to our communities and environment than DDT. When we turn on our fossil-fuel powered light, we cast an ugly shadow.

At the other end of those power lines are horrendous human rights violations and irreversible environmental degradation. This spill is not an isolated incident. Exploding oil trains, oil spills, fracking-induced earthquakes, and coal slurry mud-slides have become a staple of nighttime news.

Coal alone is estimated to have over $300 billion[1]in external costs; that is $300 billion worth of costs that the companies force onto taxpayers and the environment. In three weeks this year, three oil trains derailed and exploded, and in the case of the West Virginia exploding train, the fire that engulfed 19 rail cars burned for three days[2].

Over 25 million Americans live within the “blast zone” along oil train routes[3]. But the fossil fuel assault has a global front as well—climate change. According to the Climate Vulnerability Monitor, already 400,000 people die per year as a result of climate change[4]. While this number is already too high, future generations can expect a much higher figure.

These impacts are not evenly distributed to those who are the most responsible for emissions. Fossil fuel extraction and combustion occurs mostly in or near communities of low socio-economic status–primarily communities of color. These communities are plagued with elevated rates of asthma, cardiovascular illness, and cancer, and have very little political power to fight the infrastructure. However, on the few occasions when this happens next door to the companies’ CEOs, suddenly there is an uproar. When a company wanted to install a fracking water tower on the land of Rex Tillerson—the CEO of Exxon Mobil—he fought it. Turns out Rex is only interested in fracking in other peoples’ back yards.

No matter our political inclinations, we all have to accept that these fuels are undermining the health, economy, and prosperity of our society.


So what’s the solution? Contrary to popular belief, we have the alternatives to actually transition away from fossil fuels and power our economy. Improving energy efficiency in buildings can cut 10% of emissions on its own[5]. Solar and wind are not only technically viable alternative fuels, but also financially feasible[6]. Germany, a country that lies at the same latitude as Alaska, and is covered in clouds for the majority of the year, already gets 30% of its energy from renewable sources[7].

It’s not our fault…entirely. The American public is being misled. While mainstream media debates are torn between the “skeptic” and scientist, alluding to the jury still being out, 97% of all climate scientists are in consensus that climate change is happening, the risk is great, and humans are the cause of it. How can this be? As it turns out, the fossil fuel industry pays big time for media campaigns to spread doubt and green-wash their businesses.

This “dark money” is extremely hard to trace, but what is known is that 140 fossil-fuel-financed foundations donated over $550 million to climate change denial campaigns[8]. For a more specific look, BP invests heavily in their PR campaign to recast themselves as “Beyond Petroleum”, while the company only invested $9 billion over the last decade in renewable technology development, compared to the $341 billion they spent in the same period on unconventional methods, such as fracking[9]. Comparing those figures to the $257 billion that was invested globally in 2011 in renewables, $9 is barely a drop in the ocean[10]. To top it all off, according to the IMF, the fossil fuel industry as a whole receives $10 million in subsidies per minute, accumulating to over $5 trillion annually.

In 1961, the Soviet Union announced it would send a man to the moon. Flexing its national muscle, the United States in a mere eight years went from zero to moon landing. Back on Earth, in that very same year, an oil rig off the coast of Santa Barbara suffered a blow-out and spewed over 3 million gallons of oil into the channel.

If the United States could so quickly develop the technology, political will, and finance to land a man on the moon, then we can transition to a low-carbon economy. This feat will require our society to rethink our priorities. We’ll need to stop subsidizing the industry that actively blocks alternatives and start holding the industry accountable. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in their most recent report that to truly tackle the issue of climate change, we need investment to spur the renewable energy revolution. We could invest that annual $5 trillion of subsidies to finance research on renewable energy technology, rather than empowering an industry whose business model continues to fight the transition to a low-carbon economy.

It’s not our fault. We haven’t been given the opportunity to own our own power, to choose our own energy provider, or to be represented by a politician who hasn’t been bought out. But it will be our fault if we remain comfortably blind to the mass profiting from what can only be called institutionalized insanity.



References

[1]External Costs of Energy

[2] http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20141208/video-boom-north-americas-explosive-oil-rail-problem

[3] http://explosive-crude-by-rail.org/

[4] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/27/climate-change-kills-400-000-a-year-new-report-reveals.html

[5] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jun/08/energy-efficiency-carbon-savings

[6] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-age-of-wind-and-solar-is-closer-than-you-think/

[7] http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de

[8] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/

[9] http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-05-10/big-oils-big-in-biofuels

[10] http://fs-unep-centre.org/publications/global-trends-renewable-energy-investment-2012

http://www.sustainabilitycoalition.org/oil-spills-whose-fault-are-they-anyway/
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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Quote
“They did everything they were supposed to do. They followed the rules,” Graham said in an interview. “They went through all the proper procedures.”

But after their celebrations on the night of Nov. 4, 2014, Denton residents woke up to the reality of Texas politics: the oil and gas industry had filed lawsuits against the measure and state lawmakers promptly announced they would overturn the democratically passed ban in Denton and ensure no other jurisdiction would pursue similar restrictions.


‘Don’t Frack With Denton’
http://ecowatch.com/2015/08/03/dont-frack-with-denton/
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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10 Years Later: Fracking and the Halliburton Loophole 

Wenonah Hauter | August 11, 2015 1:04 pm

This past Saturday, marked a notable 10th anniversary. But it was certainly nothing to celebrate. Ten years ago, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The giant energy bill included massive giveaways for the fossil fuel, nuclear and ethanol industries and provided only token incentives for renewables and improved energy efficiency. But the most infamous piece of the law was what is now commonly known as the “Halliburton Loophole,” an egregious regulatory exemption that ushered in the disastrous era of widespread oil and gas fracking that currently grips our nation.
Quote
Fracking—the extreme oil and gas extraction method that involves blasting millions of gallons of water mixed with toxic chemicals underground at enormous pressures to break apart subterranean rock—has exploded in the last decade. More than 270,000 wells have been fracked in 25 states throughout the nation. More than 10 million Americans live within a mile of a fracking site. This means that 10 million Americans—and truly many more—have been placed directly in harm’s way. Hundreds of peer-reviewed studies have connected fracking to serious human health effects, including cancer, asthma and birth defects.


For this we can thank the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the law that holds the Halliburton Loophole.
Named after Dick Cheney and the notorious corporation he led before becoming vice president, the law (championed by Cheney and disgraced Enron founder Kenneth Lay, among others) explicitly exempted fracking operations from key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. These exemptions from one of America’s most fundamental environmental protection laws provided the oil and gas industry the immunity it required to develop a highly polluting process on a grand national scale. 

One of the most troubling repercussions is how fracking companies hide the contents of their toxic water and chemical solutions pumped into the ground. Contamination of underground drinking water sources from fracking fluids is a glaring threat to public health and safety. Yet even doctors responding to fracking-related health complaints can’t access data on what particular chemicals their patients may have been exposed to.




But the Halliburton Loophole wasn’t the only fracking enabler in the Energy Policy Act. The act granted the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) sweeping new authority to supersede state and local decision-making with regard to the citing of fracked gas pipelines and infrastructure. It also shifted to FERC industry oversight and compliance responsibility for the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, another key law. This was akin to putting the fox in charge of the hen house.



As it stands, FERC is entirely unaccountable to public will. It is unaccountable to Congress and even the White House. Commissioners are appointed to five-year terms and can do as they please. Until a law reigning in FERC is passed, the commission will continue to act as a rubber-stamp for the fossil fuel industry.



Additionally, the Energy Policy Act repealed an important anti-monopoly law, the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA). PUHCA safeguarded consumers from the overreach of the oil and gas industry and banks that did business with those companies. It prevented the formation of giant state and regional energy cartels that could manipulate energy costs, engage in profiteering and exert undue influence over political debate. The Energy Policy Act transferred most of this oversight to FERC. Since then, the largest American energy companies have grown significantly more powerful and spent almost a billion dollars on federal lobbying, according to OpenSecrets.org.



The 10th anniversary of the Energy Policy Act is indeed a sad occasion, but it provides us with a ripe opportunity to reexamine our nation’s disastrous policy of doubling-down on fossil fuels over the last decade, thanks to the extreme process of fracking. For the sake of countless Americans who are currently suffering health effects caused by fracking and the countless more who will suffer in the future, we must immediately curtail our dependence on oil and gas and turn decisively toward a truly clean, renewable energy future.

http://ecowatch.com/2015/08/11/halliburton-loophole-fracking/



Agelbert NOTE:
As those of you that still possess  a modicum of reading comprehension will understand, the fossil fuel industry has ALWAYS been involved in DEGRADING OUR DEMOCRACY while they REFUSE to admit they are degrading the biosphere along the way.

A portion of the American populace, that doesn't want to face that fascist reality, continues to rationalize our "need" for this fossil fuel burning planetary plague with BALONEY about civilization, high energy density or, for those Empathy Deficit Disordered quislings that work for the planet polluters, having to pay for student loans or put food on the table.

Human society has always had Empathy Deficit Disordered people totally devoid of foresight. But only with the advent of the Industrial Revolution did these cause and effect challenged greedballs succeed in running our society. The fossil fuel industry actually believes it has a "you need us" gun to our heads. They've got power and they've got a gun. Although they are too blind, too greedy or just too stupid to see it, that gun has already gone off in their faces, as well as ours.

Let us hope that those of us that are still sane prevail.
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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Truth from Thom Hartmann 

Quote
A business can operate at a profit, a break-even, or a loss. If the business is a sole proprietorship or a partnership (owned by one or a few people) and it loses more money than its assets are worth, the owners and the investors are personally responsible for the debts, which may exceed the amount they originally invested. A small-business owner could put up $10,000 of her own money to start a company, have it fail with $50,000 in debts, and be personally responsible for paying off that debt out of her own pocket.

But let's say you invest $10,000 in a limited-liability corporation, and the corporation runs up $50,000 in debts and then defaults on those debts. You would lose only your initial $10,000 investment. The remaining $40,000 wouldn't be your concern because the amount of your investment is the "limit of your liability," even if the corporation goes bankrupt, defaults in any other way, or causes millions of dollars in damage to the environment or even the deaths of people.

Who foots the bill? The creditors-the people to whom the corporation owes money-or the community that was devastated. The company took the goods or services from them, didn't pay, and leaves them with the bill, exactly as if you had put in a week's work and not gotten paid for it. Or it wreaks havoc and death and then simply shuts down, as so many asbestos companies have done recently.


"Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became People."
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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Sign Now: Prosecute Exxon For Deliberate Climate Denial

Prosecute Exxon: Newly revealed documents show that Exxon’s own scientists were aware of and studying the dangerous impacts of greenhouse gases in the 1970s and 1980s -- until Exxon’s leadership decided to shut down the research and promote climate denial instead, in order to protect the company’s unfathomably large profits.

The United States Department of Justice has the power to prosecute Exxon’s deliberate deception under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act - just as the DOJ did to the tobacco industry for knowingly lying about the dangers of cigarette smoking.

Source: "Exxon: The Road Not Taken," InsideClimate News.


Tell U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch:

Launch a RICO prosecution of Exxon and its fellow fossil-fuel companies for deliberate and malicious climate deception.

http://www.climatehawksvote.com/prosecute_exxon

Quote
The headline says it all: “Exxon's Own Research Confirmed Fossil Fuels' Role in Global Warming Decades Ago.”

The Pulitzer-winning InsideClimate News is running a blockbuster series with incontrovertible evidence -- pulled from Exxon’s own archives -- that the oil giant’s top executives were warned of possible catastrophe from greenhouse pollution, then led efforts to block solutions.  Documents show that Exxon’s own scientists were aware of and studying the dangerous impacts of greenhouse gases in the 1970s and 1980s -- until Exxon’s leadership decided to shut down the research and promote climate denial instead, in order to protect the company’s unfathomably large profits.

We’ve known for years that the oil industry finances the climate-denial network of politicians, think tanks, and right-wing media in order to protect their gargantuan profits, but now we have sufficient evidence of deliberate deceit to make a federal investigation happen.

Tell the DOJ: Prosecute Exxon's deliberate climate denial.

The United States Department of Justice has the power to prosecute Exxon’s deliberate deception under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act - just as DOJ sued the tobacco industry for knowingly lying about the dangers of cigarette smoking.

Even before these smoking-gun documents were released, climate hawks have been making calls for a RICO investigation of fossil-fueled climate denial:

•Three weeks ago, a group of top climate scientists called for an investigation, saying, “it is imperative that these misdeeds be stopped as soon as possible so that America and the world can get on with the critically important business of finding effective ways to restabilize the Earth's climate, before even more lasting damage is done.”


•Months earlier, climate hawk Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a former state Attorney General, called for a RICO investigation of Big Oil, saying, “I don’t know whether the fossil fuel industry and its allies engaged in the same kind of racketeering activity as the tobacco industry. We don’t have enough information to make that conclusion. Perhaps it’s all smoke and no fire. But there’s an awful lot of smoke.”


Thanks to the reporters at InsideClimate News, now we have smoking-gun documents found in public archives. And there’s certain to be more. It’s up to us to demand the U.S. government immediately launch an investigation that will lead to prosecution of Exxon’s deliberate and deadly climate denial.

Please add your voice to tell U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch:

“Launch a RICO prosecution of Exxon and its fellow fossil-fuel companies for deliberate and malicious climate deception.”

Your fellow climate hawk,

Brad Johnson
Climate Hawks Vote Political Director


References:

“Exxon's Own Research Confirmed Fossil Fuels' Role in Global Warming Decades Ago,” InsideClimate News, September 16, 2015
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming

Climate scientists’ letter to President Obama, Attorney General Lynch, and OSTP Director Holdren, September 1, 2015
http://www.iges.org/letter/LetterPresidentAG.pdf

“The fossil-fuel industry’s campaign to mislead the American people,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Washington Post, May 29, 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fossil-fuel-industrys-campaign-to-mislead-the-american-people/2015/05/29/04a2c448-0574-11e5-8bda-c7b4e9a8f7ac_story.html
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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Two Powerful Studies Expose Manipulation Of Climate “Debate”

September 17th, 2015 by Sandy Dechert

Two extensive studies released yesterday (September 16, 2015) reveal a long-term betrayal of the truth about climate by major US business identities. Make-believe corporate “persons” have knowingly undermined the health, safety, and even short-term survival of real humans and other living things.

One of the studies explores the metamorphosis of ExxonMobil to “the dark side” over the past 40 years.


The other implicates almost half of the world’s 100 largest companies, including Procter & Gam ble and Duke Energy, in obstructing climate change legislation.
 

Full, must read, article:

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/09/17/two-powerful-studies-expose-manipulation-climate-debate/
« Last Edit: August 14, 2018, 06:22:08 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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10/07/2015 01:15 PM   
 
BP Settles for $20.8 Billion For Gulf Spill, Mostly A Tax Deduction  

SustainableBusiness.com News

Five years after BP's tragic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf,  the US  Department of Justice (DOJ) settled out of court for $20.8 billion to resolve all charges related to natural resource damage and restoration.

 Before you get excited about the big charge, realize that most of it is being paid by taxpayers because ... BP can deduct $15.3 billion as a tax deduction! According to the IRS, it's an "ordinary cost of doing business." Just $5.5 billion is explicitly not deductible as a penalty under the Clean Water Act, notes US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). 

The settlement also allows BP to claim $5.35 billion as a tax windfall, nearly offsetting the cost of the Clean Water Act penalty, says PIRG. Adding further insult, BP gets to spread the payments over 18 years.

Quote
"This not only sends the wrong message, but it also hurts taxpayers by forcing us to shoulder the burden of BP's tax windfall in the form of higher taxes, cuts to public programs, and more national debt," explains Michelle Surka at PIRG. DOJ could have specified non-deductibility as part of the settlement, but it did not.  :evil4:
Dead Zone in the Gulf, 2014  

Quote
"This resolution is strong and fitting," says Attorney General Loretta Lynch. "BP is receiving the punishment it deserves while also providing critical compensation to the damage to the Gulf region." The settlement - which must be approved by a federal court - is the largest ever in the US with a corporation. 



BP has already written off the $32 billion it spent for cleanup after the spill, with a tax windfall of $10 billion. The only charge DOJ specified as non-deductible is the $4.5 billion criminal settlement for the deaths of 11 oil rig workers and for misleading shareholders on how much oil it spilled. The company also agreed to $5.9 billion in settlements with the five Gulf states.

DOJ's case is separate from the class-action settlement between BP and the businesses and individuals affected by the spill. The company has tried hard to get away with paying it, taking it all the way to the Supreme Court - which denied BP's appeal in July.   

The Obama administration announced that $8.8 billion of the settlement will go into a Gulf Restoration Fund. $5 billion of it will be used to repair Louisiana's coastal wetlands. The rest will restore habitats and water quality. Hundreds of miles of shoreline was damaged and more than a million birds and other wildlife died, according to environmental groups.

"Every penny of this BP settlement ought to be going to recovering these badly damaged Gulf ecosystems, and BP ought to be paying a fine that really hurts, rather than an amount that will barely affect its balance sheet," says Miyoko Sakash ita of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Worse yet, the Obama administration has yet to implement significant reforms to make sure this never happens again."

Recent studies show ongoing harm from the spill, such as severe lung injuries that killed dolphins, near-record lows of Kemp's Ridley sea turtle nesting, chemical dispersants still impacting corals and a "bathtub ring" of oil still on the seafloor.

For 2014, BP reported $44.3 billion in profits.
Meanwhile, while it releases reports on climate change and calls for a carbon tax,
BP tops the list of companies obstructing Europe's action on climate change. It has strongly opposed even slightly higher prices for the EU's cap-and-trade program, and it is behind the weaker-than-expected renewable energy and efficiency goals in its climate pledge. 

Read more:
 
Website: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/21/bp-tops-the-list-of-firms-obstructing-climate-action-in-europe

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/26427

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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U.S., Alaska end quest for damages against Exxon over 1989 spill

WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (Reuters) - U.S. and Alaskan authorities have ended their efforts    to seek additional damages from Exxon Mobil Corp over the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and the subsequent settlement, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.

The department said in a statement that it is "bringing to a close the federal and state judicial actions" against the company and opting not to recover more damages under the reopener provision of the 1991 settlement following the spill.

Alaska Attorney General Craig Richards said in the statement that although officials were not pursuing the additional damages, authorities will consider alternatives for dealing with lingering oil sites.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Bill Trott)


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-alaska-end-quest-damages-124008651.html

Agelbert NOTE: ALL the details on how LEGALESE (not to be confused with the term, "legalized" ) was used by Empathy Deficit Disordered Lawyers who WORKED (and who continue to this day to "WORK")  THE SYSTEM to absolve Exxonmobil of full accountability for this ECOCIDE HERE.

The DETAILS of the "AWARD"    HERE.


Prosecute Exxon For Deliberate Climate Denial


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!
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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See Exxon officials LIE through their TEETH!

WATCH the first use of "oil dispersing" CRAP long before it was used in the 2011 BP rig explosion and spill. To these CRIMINALS, EVERYTHING is a "business opportunity".   


« Last Edit: October 16, 2015, 07:15:42 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

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Imagine If Exxon Had Told the Truth on Climate Change

Bill McKibben    
| October 29, 2015 9:05 am

Like all proper scandals, the #Exxon knew revelations have begun to spin off new dramas and lines of inquiry. Presidential candidates have begun to call for Department of Justice investigations, and company spokesmen have begun to dig themselves deeper into the inevitable holes as they try to excuse the inexcusable.

(Worst idea: attack Pulitzer prize-winning reporters as “anti-oil and gas activists”)  ;D

As the latest expose installment from those hopeless radicals at the Los Angeles Times clearly shows, Exxon made a conscious decision to adopt what a company public affairs officer called “the Exxon position.” It was simple: “Emphasize the uncertainty.” Even though they knew there was none.

Someone else will have to decide if that deceit was technically illegal. Perhaps the rich and powerful have been drafting the laws for so long that Exxon will skate; I confess my confidence that the richest company in American history can be brought to justice is slight.

But quite aside from those questions about the future, let’s take a moment and just think about the past. About what might have happened differently if, in August of 1988, the “Exxon position” had been “tell the truth.”  ;D

That was a few months after NASA scientist James Hansen had told Congress the planet was heating and humans were the cause; it was amid the hottest American summer recorded to that point, with the Mississippi running so low that barges were stranded and the heat so bad that corn was withering in the fields. Imagine, amid all that, Exxon scientists had simply said: “Everything we know says Hansen is right; the planet’s in serious trouble.”

No one would, at that point, have blamed Exxon for causing the trouble—instead it would have been hailed for its forthrightness. It could have begun the task of finding alternatives to hydrocarbons, and the world could have done the same thing. This would not have been an easy job: the world was utterly dependent on coal, gas and oil. But it would have become our planet’s single-minded job. With Exxon—largest company on Earth, heir to the original oil baron, with tentacles reaching around the world—vouching for the science, there is no way we would have wasted 25 years in fruitless argument.

There’s no way, for instance, that Tim DeChristopher would have had to spend two years in jail, because it would have been obvious by the mid-2000s that the oil and gas leases he was blocking were absurd. Crystal Lameman and Melina Laboucan-Massimo and Clayton Thomas-Muller would not have had to spend their whole lives fighting tar sands mining in Alberta because no one would seriously have proposed digging up the dirtiest oil on the North American continent. Students would not have—as we speak—to be occupying administration buildings from Tasmania to Cambridge, because the fossil fuel companies would long since have become energy companies, and divesting from them would not be necessary.

More urgently, rapid development of renewables might well have kept half of Delhi’s children—2.5 million children—from developing irreversible lung damage.


The rapid spread of decentralized renewable technology might have kept oil and gas barons like the Koch Brothers from becoming, taken together, the richest man on Earth, and purchasing America’s democracy. The Earth’s oceans would be measurably less acidic—and we are, after all, an ocean planet.

Some climate change was unavoidable even by 1988—that’s about the moment when we were passing what now seems the critical 350 parts per million threshold for atmospheric CO2. And with the best will in the world it would have taken time to slow that trajectory; there’s never been an overnight fix. So we can’t say which of the various droughts and floods and famines might have been avoided. But because we wasted those critical decades, we’re now committed to far more warming than we needed to be—as one scientist after another has shown recently, our momentum has carried to us the point where stopping warming at even the disastrous 2C level may at this point be barely manageable if it’s manageable at all.

Of all the lies that Exxon leaders told about climate change, none may quite top the 1997 insistence that “it is highly unlikely that the temperature in the middle of the next century will be significantly affected whether policies are enacted now or 20 years from now.”

Exxon scientists knew that was wrong, and so did pretty much everyone else. If you could poll all the experts about to descend on Paris for UN climate talks and ask them what technology would be most useful in the fight against climate change, I’m pretty sure they’d say: a time machine that could take us back 20 years and give us those wasted decades.

And if you think it’s just scientists and environmentalists thinking this way, it’s actually almost anyone with a conscience. Here’s how the editorial board of the Dallas Morning News—Exxon’s hometown paper, the morning read of the oil patch— put it in an editorial last week:

Quote

“With profits to protect, Exxon provided climate-change doubters a bully pulpit they didn’t deserve and gave lawmakers the political cover to delay global action until long after the environmental damage had reached severe levels. That’s the inconvenient truth as we see it.”

Those years weren’t inconvenient for Exxon, of course. Year after year throughout the last two decades they’ve made more money than any company in the history of money. But poor people around the world are already paying for those profits, and every generation that follows us now will pay as well, because the “Exxon position” has helped take us over one tipping point after another. Their sins of emission, like so many other firms and individuals, are bad. But their sins of omission are truly inexcusable.   


This op-ed first appeared in The Guardian.

http://ecowatch.com/2015/10/29/bill-mckibben-exxon-climate-change/

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!
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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http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Crude-Sinks-As-Jobs-Report-Propels-Dollar-Even-Higher.html

Crude Sinks As Jobs Report Propels Dollar Even Higher


We have reached a point where one cannot accept one word from the government as being true.

This is the industry that was doing all the hiring and paying well.

We have Diner Roamer as an example of this total bullsh it. A disgrace. A dumbed down populace, and a lying government, what a combo.

When 2 and 2 = 4 again, it's going to be a real horror show. The country of  fiat paper castles and make believe economic numbers, and political leaders in a two party system that make upright citizens PUKE.  :-\

Yep. I fully expect the attorney general of New York to get the "caught with a call girl" treatment now that he wants to investigate the ExxonMobil decision to fund a climate change denial disinformation campaign despite having hard scientific knowledge that fossil fuels must remain in the ground in order to avoid a global warming catastrophe.   

ExxonMobil will eventually go down by the weight of their own buy em' or bop em' track record of pis sing people off in addition to the fact that their product never really was competitive with clean energy in the real world of  energy return on investment.

But they will fight to their last fossil fuel government dollar. They are helping destroy everything vital to the biosphere and our place in it. If they aren't evil incarnate, I don't know what is.

I sincerely hope humans, like those guys above, survive the Big Oil 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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12/07/2015 03:31 PM     

Philippines Takes Landmark Case, Investigate 50 Fossil Companies for Role in Climate Change

SustainableBusiness.com News

This might be the case we've been waiting for, as the first-ever investigation of the largest fossil fuel companies proceeds in the Philippines.   

In early 2016, the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines will examine the biggest 50 fossil fuel companies for their part in causing climate change and the human rights violations that have resulted. 

"The response of the Philippines' Human Rights Commission to the petition signals a turning point in the struggle to avoid catastrophic climate change. It opens a critical new avenue of struggle against the fossil fuel companies driving destructive climate change," says Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International.



"This should hopefully inspire other human rights commissions around the world to take similar action. If I were a CEO of a fossil fuel company, I would be running scared. This is yet another indication that we are seeing the end of the fossil fuel era."

The petition maintains that "climate change interferes with our fundamental rights as human beings," hence, we demand accountability of those contributing to climate change." 

"This investigation is not just about how fossil fuel companies do business, but that they do business at all in the future. It's time we held to account those who are most responsible for the devastating effects of climate change," says Zelda Soriano of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

The petition was filed in September by Greenpeace Southeast Asia, Amnesty International, Union of Concerned Scientists and other organizations and 20 individuals, including survivors of the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan, which killed at least 6300 people - and displace 4.1 million - in the Philippines alone.

 It asks the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines to:
•officially put the companies on notice
•request companies' plans for how they intend to eliminate, remedy and prevent further damages
•recommend to the government how climate victims can be monitored and assisted through human rights policies. 

These companies have for too long been invincible and is it time for their social license and role in climate change be called out, says Greenpeace. "This is one step in a legal strategy of making sure those complicit in climate change are held accountable," Anna Abad at Greenpeace Southeast Asia told Reuters.

"The real life pain and agony of losing loved ones, homes, farms - almost everything - during strong typhoons, droughts, and other weather extremes, as well as the everyday struggle to live, to be safe, and to be able to cope with the adverse, slow onset impacts of climate change, are beyond numbers and words."

One petitioner says her family huddled in the attic while Manila was flooded during the 2009 typhoon. "We saw floating people, floating animals, floating coffins. We could not do anything, we could not help them. It was like watching a horror movie, she told Reuters.

Investigators know it will be an uphill climb to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for deaths and financial losses, but the issue isn't about winning or compensation right now. It will strengthen growing opposition to the fossil fuel industry, turning away investors - their biggest priority.

 Roberto Cadiz, a member of the Commission, told Reuters he feels duty bound to take the case because losses from extreme weather are mounting so rapidly and because efforts to curb emissions are moving too slowly. 

Petitioners say there are lots more to come.

 Meanwhile, more than 500 institutions representing $3.4 trillion in assets are divesting from fossil fuels, up $1 trillion since September, and 20 French cities (including Paris), Melbourne, Australia and Oslo, Norway. 

Read our article, "Teenagers Win on Climate Change in Washington State Court."

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/26491
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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War & Climate Change: Jeremy Corbyn on the Brutal Quest for Oil & the Need for a Sustainable Planet: VIDEO

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/12/8/war_climate_change_jeremy_corbyn_on?autostart=true
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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Doubtful we'd ever get the chance to vote for a Sanders, given the way our system works. The only two candidates that offer anything that seems the least bit sensible are Sanders on the liberal side, and Paul on the conservative side. There are things about each of them that would make me have to hold my nose while I pulled the lever to vote for either one, but I would consider it.

All the other candidates fill me with fear and loathing. Every one of them is a tool of the elites. So one of them is the only choice i expect to be given at the polls.

Well, maybe Trump is not a tool of the elites...but he is an elite, as much as he pretends to be a man of the people. He's in a special class of heightened fear and loathing...as in, if he's elected, it's time to call Doug Casey and ask about condos in Uruguay.

You mean, how THEIR system works, right? If you still labor under the view that it is "our" system, you are woefully optimistic. OUR system, Eddie, does NOT work because it is dysfunctional by design.

Pondering the mere possibility that Trump is not a tool of the elite is 180 degrees out of phase. Trump is their representative and member in good standing.

And at the rate things are deteriorating, you soon will not have to hold your nose to "vote" (LOL!) for tweedledee or tweedledum.

Meanwhile, those fine credentialed University folks you and MKing so admire are doing what they do to preserve the fossil fuel government/Wall Street empathy deficit disordered SYSTEM that Trump represents.

Trump is an "independent" who is so "rational" that he gets offended at oceanic wind turbines because they  "ruin" the view for golfers at his Scottish golf course. Shame on him for pretending he is anything but an empathy deficit disordered demagogue.

All the noise he is making now is part of the campaign to KEEP COP21 OFF THE NEWS with hysteria about 'airab terrists' until next week. They started it in November. After COP21 is over, ALL OF A SUDDEN, Trump will start sounding quite conciliatory and the whole Muslim thing will not be mentioned again in the media until after Christmas shopping consumption has been boosted and some profits from stupid people buying stuff they don't need to feed a machine that kills other people and animals on the planet have been pocketed - sometime in early January 2016. It's all a murderous facade, Eddie.

Uruguay is nearly at 100% renewable energy so it is probably a good choice (until the fascist fossil fuel government decides to "make an example" of them by engaging in sabotage, bombing or some other excuse to terrorize them by branding them as "terrorist").    :P

Greenpeace Sting Exposes Academics Hired as Climate-Change Deniers

Posted on Dec 9, 2015

By Deirdre Fulton / Common Dreams

As climate change deniers face growing scrutiny and skepticism, a new undercover investigation by the environmental group Greenpeace shines new light on academics-for-hire, who are willing to accept secret payments from fossil fuel companies to sow doubt about global warming.

The sting operation publicized Tuesday involved two Greenpeace UK employees posing as representatives of oil and coal companies, and asking U.S. academics to write papers touting the benefits of rising carbon dioxide levels and the benefits of coal use in developing countries.

Professors from Penn State and Princeton University “agreed to write the reports and said they did not need to disclose the source of the funding,” according to reporting by Greenpeace Energydesk, a journalistic arm of the international environmental organization.

Energydesk reporters Lawrence Carter and Maeve McClenaghan continue:

Citing industry-funded documents—including testimony to state hearings and newspaper articles—Professor Frank Clemente of Penn State said: “In none of these cases is the sponsor identified. All my work is published as an independent scholar.”

Leading climate-sceptic academic, Professor William Happer, agreed to write a report for a Middle Eastern oil company on the benefits of CO2 and to allow the firm to keep the source of the funding secret.

Among the exposé‘s other findings:

- US coal giant Peabody Energy also paid tens of thousands of dollars to an academic who produced coal-friendly research and provided testimony at state and federal climate hearings, the amount of which was never revealed.

- The Donors Trust, an organization that has been described as the “dark money ATM” of the US conservative movement, confirmed in a taped conversation with an undercover reporter that it could anonymously channel money from a fictional Middle Eastern oil and gas company to U.S. climate septic organizations.

- Princeton professor William Happer laid out details of an unofficial peer review process run by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a UK climate skeptic think tank, and said he could ask to put an oil-funded report through a similar review process, after admitting that it would struggle to be published in an academic journal.

- A recent report by the GWPF that had been through the same unofficial peer review process, was promoted as “thoroughly peer-reviewed” by influential columnist Matt Ridley—a senior figure in the organization.

Happer, the Princeton professor, was invited to speak on Tuesday before the U.S. Senate at a ‘Data or Dogma’   ;) panel organized by GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Greenpeace investigator Jesse Coleman cornered him there to ask about the revelations.

Watch the video below: (at link)

Late last month, Happer—who has said “more CO2 would benefit the world”—appeared at a climate skeptic summit in Texas, Energydesk reports. There, he defended CO2 production saying: “Our breath is not that different from a power plant.” He went on to say, “If plants could vote, they would vote for coal.”

As Carter and McClenaghan point out, the Greenpeace investigation follows recent reports showing fossil fuel companies burying the truth about climate change, while funding spurious research to cast doubt on the scientific consensus and make it “difficult for ordinary Americans to even know who to trust.” 

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/greenpeace_sting_exposes_climate-denying_academics-for-hire_20151209
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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