SOTU: Energy Fabrications, Falsehoods and Fantasies

“The stuff about ‘we’ and the federal v private argument is pure politics and just not necessary”
So let me get this straight, AndyL. The President can lie with impunity because he is a politician engaging in pure politics. He can take credit for accomplishments he personally tried to squash. You feel justified in defending his right to delude the people, heaping praise upon himself (via his vague use of the word ‘we’) while vilifying those who actually produced the accomplishment. Is that how you feel?
The point that Mr. Middleton is making is that the President does not have complete control over the private development of energy, but he does have more authority over federal energy production. Where the president has authority, production was way down. Where private entities have more authority, production was up, despite the Presidents policies and limited powers that made it more difficult to accomplish this achievement. Simply put, the President took credit for something his actions opposed.
I am not sure how Mr. Middleton could have pointed out this blatant deception without making the distinction between federal v private energy production. I am not sure how he could of revealed this callus lie without pointing out the Presidents vague us of the word ‘we’. Perhaps you could rewrite Mr. Middleton’s words in such a way that would reveal the Presidents deception without a discussion of federal v private. It would be like writing about Nixon’s downfall without the use of the words ‘Watergate’ and ‘cover up’. The words are rather vital to the story, aren’t they?
If a character in a movie takes credit for something that he actually tried to thwart, that character is instantly recognized as scum, and is almost always the antagonist of the story. At best, he is viewed as pathetic. Yet, when the President does it in the midst of a stream of lies, you feel the need to defend him, by attacking those who reveal the deception. Why is that? What is this really about? Is it the ‘politics’ of which you accuse Mr. Middleton?

@Tom in FLA: I agree that back in JFK’s days democrats were more conservative. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for it.” I directly contrary to Obama’s belief that only the Federal Government can help the people of this country from cradle to grave. I am sickened by the American people who vote for this nonsense.

DGH says:
February 14, 2013 at 8:08 pm
So TSK, Catracking and I agree…
1. The moratorium on exploration permits that the Administration imposed was a bad decision.
2. We produce more oil at home than we have in 15 years despite the moratorium.
DGH it was not just a bad decision it was illegal and the Judge’s decision was ignored and consequently the Administration was declaired in contempt of court.
Does it bother you that the administration does not respect the court? It bothers me as it reflects on the attitude of following the law and the power of the 3 rd estate.
Also show me where I said that…” we produce more oil at home…” as you indicated.
If we do produce more oil at home, any honest person would admit that it is in spite of the current administration policies which via the EPA et. al. have tried to curtail drilling and production.
We know that current increase in oil production has primarily occurred on non federal lands, Clinton policy of incentivizing deep water drilling in the Gulf, and Bush policies near the end of his administration as shown in the 2008 bump when restrictions expired.

Some more facts for those who want you to believe the Administration encouraged drilling on Federal Lands, read below.
Also this explains why Bush received large revenues in 2008 and they have fallen off substancially under the current administration
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/267095-interior-proposes-shielding-federal-lands-in-west-from-drilling
“The Interior Department on Friday issued a final plan to close 1.6 million acres of federal land in the West originally slated for oil shale development.”
“The proposed plan would fence off a majority of the initial blueprint laid out in the final days of the George W. Bush administration. It faces a 30-day protest period and a 60-day process to ensure it is consistent with local and state policies. After that, the department would render a decision for implementation.”
“The move is sure to rankle Republicans, who say President Obama’s grip on fossil fuel drilling in federal lands is too tight.”
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/267095-interior-proposes-shielding-federal-lands-in-west-from-drilling#ixzz2KzoklW2p
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To those who object to the politics of this post, if CAGW (or “Climate Change) hasn’t become political then why was it even mentioned in a political speech? When has the actual science behind the hypothesis and/or models been openly debated? If you think it has then please tell who did it and when.
The “We” thing. Sure, it’s common for a politician to take credit for something someone else has done. But here Obama is implying that his policies have been responsible for any increase in oil and gas production despite the fact that his policies have done everything in his power to restrict them. (Kind of like him claiming 6+ million new jobs and ignoring 5+ millions old jobs lost since he was elected.)
He’s using CAGW as a lever to more power and this post took out one of his fulcrums. Don’t like that? Tough.

Bair Polaire says:
February 14, 2013 at 9:59 pm
“With all due respect Mr. Middleton, your personal claim to the success of “the oil & gas industry” seems to be even less well funded than the President’s. Have you invested YOUR own money to “build that”? Or have THEY spent THEIR money on the services of a geoscientist like you?”
That was a nasty and uninformed comment. I am sure Mr Middleton is well worth whatever compensation he receives.
I can’t speak for his employer but a lot of the oil industry has offered savings and investment programs for years where the employee either purchases stock or are rewarded with stock of the Company under various programs. Employees of many companies own a significant portion of the company via stocks. My father worked for Sun Oil company in the 50’s and acquired a lot of stock as a blue collar worker.
You would be surprised as to the amout of stock employees own. Many blue collar workers have become financially comfortable in retirement as the result of participating in the programs.
So to answer your question, yes employees of many oil companies do have a stake in the profitability of the company, and this is frequently reflected in the commitment and loyality by employees to do things right to keep the operations running. It is their money, not the government’s that is on the line in the oil business.
They did invest and build that!

D B Stealey: The issue is that we are living a problem and you did a good job describing the essence. My concentration is on what is it? How do we recognize the symptoms and what can we do about changing the situation. It is not giving optimal results. I am making no claim that I am right but I offer these thoughts because I am searching for a better world view. Is it necessary to know exactly what is happening inside the black box if every time I put a dog in I get a cat out?
I am not impugning Themistocles, but rather pointing out the relevance of the dilemma that he had and how the permission of misinformation for the “larger good” has been subsequently embraced as a successful, over used, damaging tool of politics. It is nothing new. When Identified it should immediately disqualify the person who delivers the message. It doesn’t. IN some cases it increases the individual’s political stature. WHY? I have to chuckle I immediately thought to propose the comment “I knew Themistocles and YOU are no Themistocles.” You do understand my point. I have no issue with your throwing up a wall of compare and contrast, it is useful and to the core of the observation I was making. Al Gore is one in 330 million… Americans. Isn’t he passing himself off to the “believers” as your Themistocles? For many he leads he can do no wrong in his green crusade against the economic foundation of Western civilization.
I could have cited the “Taqiyya” for a similar example of permission given to misrepresent for the cause. (‘Umdat al-Salik), pg. 746:
Nietzsche: Nachlass The Notion of Will to Power is revealed as a foundation derivative of Theory of Will to Power suggests a creative misrepresentation “interpreting “would improve our satisfaction.
I am of the opinion that ‘permissive misrepresentation for the cause’ is the essence of the phenomena that we are experiencing.
Propaganda, politically correct thinking and deliberate misinformation of the public on a regular basis are tools that I believe were honed during WWII and in the subsequent Cold War. With the communications revolution, it has become more effective and easier to communicate. Intentional coordination of carefully chosen narrative is the life blood of many financially successful international organizations. See Fenton Communications. They are good at what they do and are proud of their power to create and maintain a global narrative for the benefit of their clients. The clients are willing to pay them handsomely for results. Their clents are coordinated through a common interest. Control of the flow of information and what is on point to achieve a result is a specialty of Fenton Communications. I choose them as my example because of their international presence, pride in their ability and transparency. I see a changing political climate that has enabled this manipulation by providing successful manipulation without negative repercussions. Over time there appears to be no linkage to the manipulated narrative and parties responsible when the body politic’s helpless decision produced bad results.
There is plenty of contrary information in the record but from my perspective having been on the periphery and observing. In the 1970’s when the activists lost hope for the popular revolution in the US, (“Les Miserables” without the massacre), they were also confronted with the picture painted by the Gulag Archipelago. They transformed themselves into a “Green” movement. This transformation was brilliant! Aren’t any of us green at heart? The problem was that they perceived the value of a crisis in order to provide the narrative for the constituency. The outward goal was laudable the foundation was the same, to produce a new world order. I am not sure that goal is in my best interest. If it was then they would not need to hide it by levels of misrepresentation. The crisis is whatever fills the bill. They found out about the interstadial period. Probably in Nat Sci 6 .They found out about the increasing CO2. M King Hubbard was suggesting the doom of the age of hydrocarbon energy and by extension the end of western civilization. There are many more examples.
We were not taking care of our environment and there were some pretty graphic and shameful examples available. The US industrial machine was the former enemy and now the obvious enemy of the earth. There is nothing more worthwhile than to be passionate about taking care of our planet. Good people recognized that the Appalachian Trail was being turned into a 2,200 mile garbage dump and self-policed a new and appropriate respect. The fear of an oil spill stopped oil refineries in Maine yet after 40 years our neighbors to the north with new refineries have saved their economy by providing us( while still exposing us to the risk) with what we would not allow ourselves. There are a majority of good people who are passionate about leaving the planet in better condition than we found it and the foundation of the passion is compelling. I join them but I diverge where it is deemed necessary and appropriate to lie.
At the same time a great and cynical political opportunity was presenting itself. When interstadial climate change and CO2 became the scare mechanism there were serious objections raised to the legitimacy of the claims. My observation was that when the radicalized or politically motivated were confronted with more contrary data than they could deal with or ignore, the last straw that they grabbed was for permission to misrepresent in the pursuit of a greater cause. One of them introduced me to Themistocles as a practical political lesson of how to get good done “creatively.” Not having taken a government course in permissible misrepresentation, I cling to his excuse as my personal Political Science lesson.
Carbon dioxide lags temperature change in the record and therefore cannot be the cause of climatic temperature change. 16 words. QED or put up. Next problem.
It is completely understandable to me that a true believer would embrace any excuse to succumb to the fallacy of authority or any other fallacy offered. It is reasonable to expect any ideology to cling to every straw to maintain its narrative. Thus the difficulty of changing the narrative based upon data reveals itself.
As a study of persuasive dishonesty and manipulation I give you the former Vice President of the United States who has been leading the political power grab to control CO2 and personally profit by Carbon Credit Trading. His efforts have been completely consistent with the thinking of world transformation into a “new order.” The funding for this change is in the ceding of taxing control over CO2 production to the United Nations.
Can any objective individual accept a photograph of a polar bear on an ice flow as proof of anything more than summer weather? What is more interesting could a person as smart as Al Gore who graduated with honors in “GOVERNMENT” and a D in Nat SCI 6. ( Man’s Place in Nature) actually believe the fallacy filed narrative he was presenting to his loyal, trusting followers. It is impossible to defend the misrepresentations on the basis of ignorance. They fail simple tests of logic. Because they are so transparently false they can only be explained as willful, permissable misrepresentation for the cause. All brought forward with intent and cynicism by the “Great Leader.”
Time is a cure for many ills. We can inspect his cynicism in the choices he made as he dismantled his political machine and sold out his believers to REALLY BIG oil. Does the dedicated Gore warrior for saving the earth wake up to the realization that the leader had no qualms put 100 million in his pocket and sold out to the enemy? It may be too much to comprehend.
It perks my ears up even today as I hear pleas for absolution for lies or stretching the truth because of the worthiness of the cause; any cause. Often we see these excuses in the context of the present data driven retreat as the alarmist models are no longer taken seriously by the few people who even care. The misrepresentations have by cleverness become folk lore.
So why beyond the fact that radicalized people want to believe has it been so hard to bring science through the period of manipulation. I believe that the decisions based upon misrepresentation and the cause itself has significantly hurt our country and quality of life. If you believe in the intent then this effect was intentional. Is it treason? It is counter intuitive that our society would cling fiercely to harmful decisions. Why? Isn’t the definition of “stupid” the act of willfully doing something that hurts you and everyone else too? Perhaps we are being “helpless” which is is doing something that hurts yourself and helps some one else. Why would we?
I suggest that the political and financial power to be gained by having the public cede control over the carbon based economy made significant investment and coordination between common allies the narrative profitable inevery sense of the word. There exists a small strong political and financial group that does benefit when the body politic engages in stupidity or charitably helpless acts. Bandits are those who steal from others for their own benefit. These are the entities that benefit.
There is a significant common interest across a broad spectrum of opportunistic individuals and organizations. Political consensus is only needed long enough for the body politic to cede the power. They have been very close to succeeding even while the data is showing that the models used to create the narrative fail. The proof of a larger goal is that the narrative isn’t changing with the data. It is telling to read the cynicism of the elite think tank, Club of Rome.
Where can we find examples of the inertia that is slowing the paradigm shift we might expect?
A short course on fundraising for nonprofits is “ We request your support because there is a significant global problem, and our organization does a fine job addressing a small but significant part of the problem.” If you want to raise funds to save the polar bears it is particularly helpful if someone with gravitas declare them, endangered due to climate change that we are responsible for. Help save the polar bear from ….them (Us). Out comes the memory of the picture of the polar bears enjoying the bergy bit on the fine summer day, and the authoritative but illogical cause driven narrative. The groups that benefit from the narrative are linked, opportunistic and as a minimum loosely coordinated. Evidence to refute the statement of linkage is propaganda.
When the Canadian government releases contrary data it is merely an inconvenient counterpoint in a mass of posturing by organizations that are not going to let go of the narrative easily. Trot out a contrary opinion through a competent media blitz and the Canadian scientific data and conclusion is ignorable. Ideologues and those who are the bandits must retreat slowly at best. Can you imagine, “ Yup our bad, thanks Canada the Polar Bear is OK guess the problem doesn’t exist. We are no longer needed and we’ll declare success and go out of business.” What about the cute little panda?
Darwin made the comment on the enervating damage to scientific progress by the use of false facts. His observation is just as true today. If we step back to gain perspective we are seeing the struggle Darwin understood personally. There are plenty of other examples but I like Darwin. The resistance to new interpretation of data is a fundamental to the nature of the advancement of science. Scientific method demands skepticism. Skepticism is not a pejorative in science only in politics. Today we see the difficulty that scientists are experiencing as they laboriously bring forward the data that refutes the bandits political narrative. The frustration I feel is global and beyond a graph of data vs models that a fourth grader could interpret. And an astonished realization that data is of no interest or import and so the narrative doesn’t experience the pressure to appropriately adjust.
The sad reality is that the truth is fairly boring and the truth is continuously under attack by the whole universe of clever lies. In an hour a convenient misrepresentation for the cause of the bandits can be born and released all over the world. Refuting anything the imagination can conjecture from a scientific perspective now requires a rigorous program that in itself is vulnerable to intentional misbehavior ( for the cause) that was revealed in the University of East Anglia e-mail leaks.
Look at this lineage: Students for Democratic Society, Environmental Defense Fund Al Gore and Carbon credit trading, Barry Schaff Environmental Media Services, Real Climate, Fenton Communications, Tides Foundation , 350.0rg, Heinz Foundation, Science Communications Network, Nasa, Goddard, James Hanson, Michael Mann, University of East Anglia, IPCC, United Nations, Club of Rome, WWF, Sierra Club, Green Peace, Disney, National Geographic etc.. Add your own experience of additional connections in this framework it is already impressive in its reach.
It is instructive to look at the membership of the Club of Rome and google their contributions. ( Club of Rome is just a convenience and I don’t mean to pick on them except for the fact of the transparency between their membership, publically stated goals and the consistency of the easily researched member activism.) I am very skeptical that someone or an organization or a movement has my best interest at heart when I catch them lying to me or advocating lies. Catching a lie is the irrefutable warning that the information received is asking for me to make a decision which is not otherwise in my best interest.
1991- Because of the sudden absence of traditional enemies, “new enemies must be identified.”[2] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill….All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”[3]
Now that the data clearly doesn’t support our narrative ( my comment). “ It is time to take climate change action to the streets.” Attributed to Michael Brune, Sierra Club Director Feb 13. 2013. James Hanson was also arrested February 13th 2013. This is pretty desperate stuff.
Michael Brune: “And so we know that we can’t win on climate change if we continue to dither, if we continue to talk about it but not do anything. And so, the Sierra Club is engaging in civil disobedience for the first time, because we have a moral catastrophe on our hands, and we need to do everything that we can to compel stronger, bolder action.”
If climate change is natural and the data shows that the alarmist models fail and the premises of AGW are inconsistent with the observed data, and there is no indication that changes in CO2 production and taxation will do anything but harm our quality of life, what is the desperate individual’s motivation?
Does this indicate that the Club of Rome approach to their larger goal isn’t working with in the time frame that the false narrative is viable or is civil unrest and intimidation just another convenience when the misrepresentation for the cause fails to produce the sufficient momentary consensus to cede power?
In my opinion these things are worth contemplating by a group of, as George Bernard Shaw would point out, UNREASONABLE people.