This might make you mad. That’s even more reason to read about it.
$1.9 million in environmental justice grants 10th May 2010 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded $1.9 million in environmental justice grants to 76 non-profit organizations and local governments working on environmental justice issues nationwide. The grant program supports Administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s priority to expand the conversation on environmentalism and work for environmental justice.
And it isn’t just in the USA, the EPA is giving US taxpayer money to Brazilian programs. Think that’s bad? They are giving money to China too, as if the Chinese need our help.
Project Title: Methane Atlas Energy Gen. in Brazilian Landfills
Grant ID Number: XA – 83604601-0
Recipient Name: Abrelp Associacao Brasileira De Empres De Limp Pub
Award Date: 01/08/2011 Cum Award: $160,000
Project Start: 01/08/2011 Project End: 31/01/2013
To develop a publication, the “Atlas of GHG Emission and Energy Potential by Waste Destination in Brazil.” This will provide up-to-date information on waste management in the country, the types of final waste disposal in each geographic area broken down by state, waste management as a renewable energy resource for Brazil, the potential for GHG emissions reductions, and finally the viable end-use options to be applied in the sector.
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Project Title: Scale-up of Biomass Stoves in Western China
Grant ID Number: XA – 83366201-2
Recipient Name: China Assoc. of Rural Energy Industry
Award Date: 28/04/2010 Cum Award: $230,000
Project Start: 01/08/2007 Project End: 31/01/2011
The China Association of Rural Energy Industry will help 100,000 Chinese adopt cleaner technologies that improve health while protecting the environment (reducing deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions).
Full report here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/sample_grants.pdf
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It has always been about money, glory and power. Opportunists saw a great new bubble to get their investments into and make a killing. Calamatologists saw undeserved Nobels and fading glory and politicians saw control over their citizens.
When the CAGW scam is over we need justice. Never (?) in the history of mankind have so many been previously fooled by so few but it’s turning.
Sad that teenagers are too lazy to educate themselves and accept what they are spoon fed without question. China is the largest emerging economy and the point of manufacture for all this ‘new clean’ technology. US borrows from China and returns lots of interest already. With this scheme, Americans will buy cookstoves from the Chinese, then give them back. In short, they don’t need our help, they already own clean stoves, this is simply a play for cash.
ali says:
August 28, 2012 at 11:50 pm
Grrr it makes me so mad. That money could have bought 1.1875 cruise missiles instead.
Ali I am in full agreement with you. The money would have been going to some average Joe’ paycheck to make his mortgage, buy food or pay for the over priced electicity we have foisted on ourselves. Again I concur let’s keep it in America.
Romney has already made the statement that when he becomes President that since 42 cents of every dollar we spend is borrowed from China, that anything that does not justify borrowing money from China will be cut. The example he used was public broadcasting. I hope that this BS is also on the table.
Oh and Ali, I hope he cuts the military as well.
Oh, Sorry.
Romney/Ryan 2012 !!
We are living in a dystopia, and most can’t even see it. Remember, in 1984, Brave New World, etc. it is not the majority who recognize the horror of the dystopia. It is a few individuals.
November scares me.
“So we are borrowing money from China so we can give it back to them in grants? Couldn’t they fund their own projects with the enormous amount of interest we pay them on the debt we already owe them?”
Um not really, the money we pay them in debt service is used to pay for their military buildup. There’s nothing left over for their environmental programs. They definitely need our help.
Environmental justice means moving factories out of the working-class neighborhoods where the people who need factory jobs live.
In an odd backwards way, giving part of this money to China might actually help America by a microsmidgen. If China uses the money for its intended purpose, Chinese factories will find it marginally harder to operate, which might give a very slight comparative advantage to American factories. If EPA figures this out, it will cancel the grants to China, since its sole raison d’etre is to assassinate America and advance China.
@omnologos:
I heard that comment a lot as a credit counselor: It’s only a three dollar latte. We only go to the movies a couple of times a month. We eat out because it’s more convenient–we HAVE to eat, don’t we? All these people had the same thing in common: They were heading for or landing on bankruptcy. That $3 latte twice a day was $120 a month. Movies, another $60. And eating out more than doubled food costs. You statement applies to the billions more in grants handed out every day, as well as these mentioned in the article. Americans are very, very bad with economics and that is not something we should be proud of. It’s dangerous. Even our “responsible” leaders are afraid to cut most funds for fear the looters and moochers will prevent them from being re-elected (which is probably true). So the decent into bankruptcy just goes at a slower rate. It does not stop.
@Garrett: There is a huge difference between this grant stuff and homeowners and wage earners making their homes more energy efficient. The money the wage earner uses is his own and this is his choice. The grants are money wrenched from the wage earners and used for the government’s pet projects. Consider how you would feel if Ms. Lisa declared your home a wildlife preserve, led tours, made you plant what she wanted the visitors to see, keep wildlife protected including those fuzzy little rodents, etc. Still sound like a good idea? Didn’t think so. These ideas never sound as good when it’s your back yard they’re using and you actually have to live with personally.
Reblogged this on Is it 2012 in Nevada County Yet? and commented:
It has always been about following the money. Look at where your tax dollars are being spent. If you are not happy, then it is time to change the leader in this country.
Last time I voted for Obama. Not this time. This make so sick. Absolutely crazy I visited the site and here’s the first line “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded $1.9 million in environmental justice grants to 76 non-profit organizations” .
Why is the EPA allowed to give grant money away outside the country? Shouldn’t such money be considered “foreign aid” and administered by the State Department?
Why not use the money instead and use it to help Americans? After all, the money was collected by the US government from Americans on the promise to benefit Americans.
Wasn’t it the Founding Fathers of America that said that all governments over time become the enemies of The People they govern? That governments ultimately act to help themselves, in the name of helping the people.
What to put America back to work? Move the EPA to China.
Vote the bums out? Can we not see that our public dialogue is limited to Team A and Team B? Would you like the red or blue kool-aid? The web does facilitate slipping some things by the gatekeepers (e.g. wuwt; wikileaks; antiwar.com) but the bulk of voters are not ready to evaluate information for themselves and break out of the false dichotomies. I fear that even as fewer and fewer get their info from newspaper and TV news (i.e., the older generation dies), the diseducaters will meet them at their preferred medium and the majority will always be functionally illiterate, unable to see that they are being herded. Worse, those capable of critical evaluation are still products of a fractured society and culture, unable to achieve dialogue for an ever-increasing lack of commonly shared beliefs. A few dollars to China and Brazil is laughably small change–a distraction Does no one remember the greatest theft in history–the corporatist team A and corporatist team B approved bailouts?
Everything produced in America is heavily taxed and regulated. By moving factories offshore, companies can largely escape these costs and bring the goods into America at much lower cost. Over time, this has killed manufacturing, employment, property prices and tax revenues in the US.
Would if not make much more sense to eliminate taxes and regulations on workers and production, and instead apply the taxes and regulations to goods and sales? In this fashion, anything sold in American would be subject to the exact same taxes and regulations, regardless of where it was manufactured, and there would be no advantage in moving manufacturing offshore.
80 years ago, before the “global economy”, before “free trade”, Congress decided the income tax was a better tax than the sales tax. Since that time the rules have changed, but Congress has not recognized the reality.
By taxing production, the US is forcing companies to move to China and India to remain competitive in the face of a global economy and free trade. However, if Congress was to remove the taxes on production and replace them with taxes on sales, then all products, regardless of place of origin would be equal.
By eliminating taxes on production, US manufacturing costs would be substantially lower, resulting in significant costs savings to US manufacturing. Since the US has large economies of scale, this would immediately change the incentive for companies to re-locate offshore. Thousands of companies would return to the US to reduce transportation costs, resulting in an economic boom in the US.
With this boom would come jobs, a reduced tax deficit, and increased property prices. This would restore confidence to the US economy and the banking system, and end the up-coming foreign debt crisis with China.
The imbalance in trade with China cannot end well otherwise. The British Opium Wars provide a historical perspective on what is to come if current trends are allowed to continue.
environmental justice was coined to help redistribute wealth.
nothing evil there huh…..
Absolutely another excellent reason the current administration and all its appointees must be thrown out this November!
To understand the effects of taxes on production, consider the income tax. Most people pay a marginal income tax of roughly 40-50%. The first dollar in income is rarely taxed, but the last dollar you earn each year is highly taxed.
So, if prices go up (inflation) 4% a year, it would be normal to ask for a 4% raise in wages to meet the increased costs. However, this 4% raise would be taxed at the marginal rate, meaning that the government would take almost half of your raise in taxes, leaving you with an increase of slightly more than 2%.
So, over a period of 20 years as costs double due to inflation, your wages will double, but almost half of this will go to taxes. Over a period of 40 years, when costs double again, another half of your increased salary will go to taxes.
What this means that over a period of 40 years, one full salary will be lost to taxes. A second salary will be required to make ends meet. Which is exactly what has happened. In the 1960’s most families were able to get by with one working parent. In the 2000’s most families required two working parents to get by.
Where will the third working parent come from in 20 years, when income taxes and inflation erode another full salary from the two working parents? We are half way there now.
LazyTeenager says:
August 29, 2012 at 12:49 am
Hmmm. I seem to remember that many of you were so incredibly, incredibly concerned about how the poor people of the world will be affected by not having access to cheap energy.
Now coal is cheap of course but in China it brings tears to your eyes. The sulphuric acid aerosols are trying to eat yours eyes out.
So maybe a few measely dollars donated to the poverty stricken Chinese is something you shouldnt be complaining about.
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Perhaps they should spend a few of their “measely” dollars on that stuff….. and we can spend our measely dollars on people in our own country.
How is it that all of you CAGW “disciples” understand that ……. oil and gas are finite resourses and will not last forever …….. and yet seem to feel that US tax dollars are an infinite resource that can be spent without regard to anything.
Lazy Teenager and Garrett,
You both know eff all about China and how money sent there gets used. Just STFU on things you know nothing about, which applies to anything viewed with commonsense and anything honest or truthful related to AGW related matters.
J says:
August 29, 2012 at 6:48 am
Vote the bums out? Can we not see that our public dialogue is limited to Team A and Team B?
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Proposition X – all ballots shall contain the option “None of the Above”. If “None of the Above” is the majority vote in any election, a run-off election shall be held, and the candidates on the first ballot shall be barred from seeking office, having already been rejected by the voters.
In this fashion, the electorate has a choice. Otherwise, the parties in power control the choice by limiting the options presented to the voters. Team A: well meaning incompetent. Team B: results oriented crook. In both cases the voter would be better served by “none of the above”. At least they would still have their tax money in their own pockets.
In this country, we have a constitution that theoretically places limits on what our government can do and I can’t find anywhere this is authorized under the powers granted to the government. We also have the right to petition our government and seek redress, so any citizen has the right to complain.
Also, when the government does something, it’s no longer charity.
Don’t fret! This money will enrich some Chinese corrupt official. He will embezzle these funds and flee to a life in the good ol USA.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19406886
It’s just another recycle plan. GK
LazyTeenager says:
August 29, 2012 at 12:49 am
Now coal is cheap of course but in China it brings tears to your eyes.
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It is burning dung which is the most common fuel source in the 3rd world that brings tears to your eyes. Dung is all that is left after the trees have been burned.
Coal is the fuel that lifted the developed world out of poverty, and allowed us to replant our forests instead of burning them as firewood.
Coal is also the main competition for oil, and it is what prevents big oil from raising prices even higher.
Air pollution from coal kills the old. Poverty kills the young, before they get a chance to grow old. Thus, the affluent fear coal, while the poor welcome it.
Coal is also by far the fastest growing energy source on the planet in terms of actual delivered power. (Solar and wind are growing fast only because 1000 * 0 = 0)
From the point of view of the 3rd world coal is the most convenient power source, because it requires no special handling, not special containers, no pipelines or specialized infrastructure. You can haul coal in trucks. You can dig coal with construction equipment.
Until WWII and even later, coal was the energy source of choice to heat homes even in the first world. Many older homes and office buildings still have remnants of the coal bins and furnaces that once heated them.
If coal is so bad, why were people not dropping in the streets by the thousands back in the day? How did our forefather’s survive the coal trains of death? Why did they switch to oil only after it became more convenient?
more soylent green! says:
August 29, 2012 at 7:51 am
In this country, we have a constitution that theoretically places limits on what our government can do
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This didn’t stop Obama from raising mileage standards on cars. Question: since it is traffic jams and stop and go driving that is the biggest waste of fuel, why doesn’t Obama simply outlaw traffic jams?
Mexico solved the traffic jam years ago. When stuck in traffic inch ahead until your bumper touches the car ahead of you.. Then lean on the horn and at the same time stand on the gas pedal. With everyone in line doing this traffic moves quickly without delay, saving billions of dollars each year in foreign oil imports.