How do we know that Solyndra and First Solar and Fisker Automotive and thirty other failed Obama-subsidized green energy ventures are (or were) highly moral enterprises? Because they are all going bankrupt. They all produce less value for consumers than they cost in resources. That’s good because producing net value—making money—is the criterion of immorality.
Such, at least, is the message from ExxonHatesYourChildren.com, where an actor pretending to speak for Exxon smugly plays the Grinch:
Here at Exxon we hate your children. We all know the climate crisis will rip their world apart but we don’t care, because it’s making us rich.
Wait a minute. If they are getting rich, doesn’t that mean they have to be creating quite a bit of value? Doesn’t it mean that people need the gasoline that Exxon is producing and find it’s price inexpensive compared to the value they get out of it? Indeed, if gasoline producers stopped producing, wouldn’t everyone, including the children, die practically on the spot?
Condemning energy suppliers is just as perverse as condemning food suppliers. Unfortunately we have to take these people seriously because the country just re-elected a president who thinks much the same way, so witness the dripping hatred for mankind, made palatable (to some) by a sugar coating of anti-capitalism and class warfare. Here’s the video:
Here at Exxon we hate your children. We all know the climate crisis will rip their world apart but we don’t care, because it’s making us rich. That’s right, every year Congress gives the fossil fuel industry over ten billion dollars in subsidies. That’s your tax dollars lining our pockets, making a fortune destroying your kids’ future. At Exxon, that’s what we call ‘good business’.
The ExxonHatesYourChildren.com website was created by Andrew Boyd, an eco-leftist activist who was an originator of the class-war demagoguery of the Occupy movement. That’s why Boyd’s group is called “The Other 98%.” Boyd got in early, before his Occupy comrades decided that 98 to 2 was not enough advantage and changed their slogan to “the 99%.” These people have backing all the way to the top of the Democratic Party. New Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren claims to have laid the intellectual foundation for the Occupy movement and Obama himself endorses it (“we are on their side“).
Where are the REAL subsidies going?
Of course Boyd’s demagoguery goes beyond his explicit appeal to class warfare. His group is also fabulously dishonest. When they (and Obama) claim that oil companies are getting billions in subsidies what they mean is that Exxon gets to take advantage of the same tax breaks that other businesses do in order to keep a bit more of the money they earned. Keeping your own money is not a subsidy.
Want to see some real subsidies? Check out Obama’s bankrupt 33 (from The Heritage Foundation), with the amounts of direct taxpayer funding each received from the Obama Administration. The 19 asterisked companies have already filed for bankruptcy. The others are near bankruptcy:
1.Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2.SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3.Solyndra ($535 million)*
4.Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5.Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6.SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7.First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8.Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9.EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10.Amonix ($5.9 million)
11.Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12.Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13.A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14.Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15.Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16.Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
17.ECOtality ($126.2 million)
18.Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
19.Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
20.Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
21.Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
22.Range Fuels ($80 million)*
23.Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
24.Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
25.Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
26.GreenVolts ($500,000)
27.Vestas ($50 million)
28.LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
29.Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
30.Navistar ($39 million)
31.Satcon ($3 million)*
32.Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
33.Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)
As for “tax subsidies” (letting earners keep their money), the vast majority of those also go to “green” energy. From the Congressional Budget Office:
Since green energy is tiny compared to brown energy, the subsidy as a percentage of the industry is vastly larger for green energy than even this graph indicates. Heritage has run the numbers:
…wind energy companies, for instance, get about 1000 times the subsidies that oil companies do, per kilowatt-hour of energy produced.
Just for fun, somebody should ask some actual children what they would think of a character who tried to turn off the electricity and take away gasoline. It’s like the villain in a superhero movie. And that “climate crisis” that is supposedly going to “rip their world apart”? Notice that Boyd et al. lack the conviction to even call it “global warming.” Apparently they know full well that global temperature has not risen significantly in over a decade but are unwilling to relinquish the demagogic power that comes from blaming natural phenomena on their capitalist enemy.
Alex Rawls,
Your “dripping hatred” for the Obama administration, and by extension those of us who voted for Obama, is- to use your words- perverse. Your lack of perspective, blame, guilt by association, stereotyping, ad hominem attacks are the mark of a poor looser. Get a grip and join adult discussion. The Exxon bashing speaks for itself as being trashy and deserves our contempt. You don’t yourself need to be trashy and spew disinformation in order to criticize policy, mis- (or dis) information and things which are in poor taste.
And Alarmists complain that the Unabomber billboard was bad??
To Max Hugoson—–
GREAT comment. I know very little about the Koch brothers, but the more I learn, the more I like.
Reblogged this on Truth, Lies and In Between and commented:
Good read.
One of my Facebook friends posted the link to the video a week or two ago. So I posted a link to the 10:10 “No Pressure” video as a counter to this. 🙂
Simple truth is that many children would not exist without fossil fuel based fertilizers over this past century. Hydroelectric based ammonia and Chilean nitrates would have been insufficient. Agree about the Koch brothers. The media noise and political events we see today sort of read like Atlas Shrugged opening more poorly. Which was inspired by Rand’s experience in revolutionary Russia devolving toward the Bolsheviks.
you ain’t seen nothing yet.
keep paying your taxes; they’ll eventually nationalize your groceries.
you get what you settle for.
.
Outside of socialist goals (wealth redistribution and so forth) what do you see as positives in this present administration?
.
Excuse me, but while cowardice may be a plausible-sounding explanation for why Exxon-Mobil doesn’t mount a real climate-science education effort in their own defense, I don’t buy this explanation, at all. As for the Koch brothers being more inclined to defend themselves than Exxon-Mobil, I’m not seeing that, either. So they gave what for them is a small tip to Heartland – so what? They also helped fund the 2nd phase of the Tea Parties (frankly, corrupting the initial movement, to a great degree), and could easily use their influence to get Tea Parties to adopt educating about carbon realism, and the dangers of a carbon tax, as a major tactic.
Yours truly has proposed doing a national leafleting campaign, to educate the public about climate science. See here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/23/climate-ugliness-goes-nuclear/
I advised not waiting for Exxon-Mobil to help, because I don’t think Exxon-Mobil cares. If anything, they will make more money from carbon trading schemes, if they are being dealt in,, and via keeping their oil in the ground, longer, as prices rises are all but assured, given that we have passed peak oil. Climategate II showed the interest of Goldman Sachs in carbon markets, and it strikes me as entirely plausible that the global warming scam can be traced, as Jesse Ventura claims, to Maurice Strong, the Rothschilds, and the Rockefellers.
Meanwhile, I blame both CO2 climate catastrophists as well as skeptics, who call themselves environmentally friendly, for not pushing alternative energy R&D into carbon free, dense energy sources, especially fusion. They could do this via pushing for crowd-funding, if they happen to be ideologically opposed to governments investing $$. Eric Lerner has beaten the big hot fusion projects, but has to waste time and energy soliciting funding. See http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/08/1071933/-In-the-race-for-fusion-a-dark-horse-takes-the-lead
The US government (NASA) is acknowledging funding LENR (so-called ‘cold fusion’) research, but we know that it (US Navy, IIRC) was investigating LENR’s secretly, after supposedly being found to be a myth. See http://discovermagazine.com/2012/nov/27-big-idea-bring-back-the-cold-fusion-dream
CERN is also looking into LENRs.
They are betting that 50 years of dumbing down education will result in a large number, especially among the younger generations, to believe that nonsense. If we don’t take back the education system from the “experts” they will win that bet.
Very simple answer.
Several NYC hospitals lost emergency power during post-tropical storm Sandy.
That power was necessarily supplied by fossil fueled generators, as it was too windy for wind turbines(?) and too dark for solar power.
The fossil fuel might not have been supplied by Exxon-Mobile, but fossil fuel is fossil fuel, regardless of supplier.
I would imagine that the pediatric (you know KIDS) facilities depending on the emergency power quite appreciated it.
As for BP vs Exxon spills, Exxon would be like a priggish Boy Scout, insolently smug, not quite as sharp as the self image but at least somewhat contrite when confronted by a mistake with big consequences. BP is more like an alcoholic mafioso that keeps running people down without jail time, with lots of bodies. BP’s damage to the Gulf of Mexico is diluted, spread far and deep, simply hard to measure.
Lest someone think this view unacceptably harsh, I would suggest they review the multiple industrial catastrophes, and deaths, of BP more closely.
“If they are getting rich, doesn’t that mean they have to be creating quite a bit of value?”
No. The banksters and financiers get rich by ripping off the rest of us, not by creating value. Exxon may well be creating value, but you can’t deduce that from the fact that they are getting rich.
Well… lets be a bit more upfront eh?
Exxon and a few other oil companies do get breaks from the federal government that non-oil producers do not get.
They get a cut in the royalties that they have to pay for production in certain oil leases. Bad? Well, the Minerals Management Service, now known under the more socialist and green sounding “Bureau of Ocean Energy Management,” can not get anyone to bid on the really deep leases if the cost of putting the field into production is too high.
They do it because no one will touch it other wise.
See… the daily lease rate for Semisubersible drill platforms rated for 4000’+ Water Depth only runs about $414,000. That’s the average daily rate as of 8 Dec 2012.
How about a drill ship rated for the same water depth instead of a platform? Only $463,000… per day, average lease rate.
Source: http://www.rigzone.com/data/dayrates/
Didn’t a really, really great man, the 4th best President of the United States, belch out these famous words, “You didn’t build that. Someone else made that happen.” So wouldn’t it follow that Exxon couldn’t possibly be responsible for what Andrew Boyd and his thoroughly valuable group, ‘the other 98%’, claim? Couldn’t someone else have made those ghastly things happen? Who knows, maybe there was a great Andy Boyd sometime in Exxon’s past. And maybe he made it all happen. Maybe everybody made it happen. Maybe nobody made it happen. Maybe it never happened. It’s so cool. Anything can be anything anybody wants it to be.
Whoops. There are exceptions. And they appear to be the green energy firms. Here the POTUS is unarguably right. The owners didn’t build those things. Of course nobody did either. I wonder why. Maybe Boyd knows. Maybe the POTUS knows. He’s a smart man. Very smart.
sarc
I thought that oxygen masks were made of vinyl or pvc- it looks to me as though Exxon is trying to save that child in the video.
Real science with peer reviewed papers concerning Exxon Valdez can be found here: http://www.valdezsciences.com/index.cfm – very interesting.
I was in Seward a couple of years after the spill and many of the locals admitted (off camera) that the $1 billion that Exxon had spent in Seward after the spill was the best thing that had ever happened to them. The fisherman had never had it so good as being paid not to fish for 3 years and then having the benefit of replensihed stocks when they did get back on the water. Many felt that the next best thing that could happen would be another spill.
I agree, and I hope that Anthony allows more threads on the LENR topic here on WUWT. It makes our side look good to have something positive to offer. And it will make the capital-S “Skeptics,” who support the current climate consensus, look bad in the aftermath, for being wrong on both fronts. (They pooh-pooh cold fusion.)
Reblogged this on My Blog steady as we go and commented:
thanks for the truth being brought out in this blog……..
@ur momisugly Gary Pearse who says: The child with the plastic oxygen mask is being saved by a petroleum industry product. Imagine the oxygen mask made of ox leathe..
Thank you for that analogy–put right in persepctive.
Notice the sudden drop in Tax Preferences in 1988 under the pretend ‘oil man’ and New World Order frontman, Bush the Elder ? It is no surprise that the banking elite are determined to bankrupt all humanity and return the world to their neofeudalism. As VP from 1980 to 1988 the Big Bush directed the Iran-Contra operation and the S &L heist, which was documented in “The Mafia, CIA and George Bush” by investigative reporter Pete Brewton. As the Fall of the Berlin Wall swept the world, president Big Bush cast a billion Chinese into serfdom with his Nevil Chamberlin moment during Tiananmen Square. The two party puppet show is a distraction from the real fraud, the monetary system. For more on this read “The Creature from Jekyll Island” by G Edward Griffin on the history of the corrupt Federal Reserve System. A brief introduction is in the article “Fractional Reserve Banking Begat Faux Reality”. When your monetary system is a lie, then science and history must be preverted to support this fundamental fraud.
Imagine living in a place where 99% of people have no hydrocarbons. Life expectancy was 45 yrs. Death from violence common. Everyone wanted the money to buy transport (before housing and food) and worked hard to access vehicles. I lived there as a child, it left a strong impression on me. I lived in a second country where they succeeded in breaking those chains. Both countries pay only superficial lip service to Greens. No petroleum means no medicine, no transport, grass/timber houses, and periods of no food. All Greens should be forced to live like that, for a few years.
Well gasoline is still about the cheapest liquid you can buy. Cheaper than milk, and cheaper than water. Well you can buy some really cheap grades of water, but it can have all sorts of chemical poisons in it, Ozone killing chlorine, an even fluorine. The better grades of water from the organic (carbon distribution) stores can cost as much as $30 per gallon.
I wonder if Michael Lewis was living in Old Valdez, or perhaps in New Valdez. I’ve been to both; and even then, one was better than the other to live in.
RoHa says:
December 9, 2012 at 8:39 pm
“If they are getting rich, doesn’t that mean they have to be creating quite a bit of value?”
No. The banksters and financiers get rich by ripping off the rest of us, not by creating value. Exxon may well be creating value, but you can’t deduce that from the fact that they are getting rich.
————————————-
So untrue.
The financial industry is creating lots of value, just not for you, me and the little people.
You can bet Barney, Chris and friends are getting great value for their investments.
cn
Metamars –
skeptics, who call themselves environmentally friendly, for not pushing alternative energy R&D into carbon free, dense energy
“Carbon” is not environmentally unfriendly. The carbon-based living systems in “the environment” need carbon in the form of either CO2 or … hydrocarbons:
http://living-petrol.blogspot.com/ncr
The so called “green” alternatives, on the other hand, do nothing to enrich the biosphere, and are therefore not good for “the environment.”
Energy corporations, like Enron, are glorious free-market entities, and they would never conspire or collude to manufacture an artificial scarcity.