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.
I’m a bit surprised this came out in the wake of the assassination of a top Exxon-Mobil official in Europe a few weeks ago, presumably by someone who shares the sentiments of this video-maker. Or did it come out before?
Without fossil fuels hundreds of millions more children would die each year. What keeps the incubators going? Ambulances running? What energy is used to delivers food and clothing to stores etc, etc, etc.?
We are dealing with a bunch of shameless, hypocritical fraudsters of the highest order.
November 21, 2002
Exxon gave a climate research grant to Stanford University to the tune of $100 million
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/21/us/exxon-led-group-is-giving-a-climate-grant-to-stanford.html
“Big Oil Money for Me, But Not for Thee”
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/02/17/big-oil-money-for-me-but-not-for-thee/
CRU took Shell and BP money too.
Exxon like many other fossil fuel companies are divesting from oil fields. Google ‘ Exxon divest oil field or Exxon sell oil field, do the same with other oil companies, they are even willing, to sell of assets they just bought, and take hundreds of millions of dollar losses in their desperation to dump fossil fuel “assets”. Look up what petrobas are doing with the refinery they just bought in Texas. See how big a loss Connoco took on the sale of one of their fields. BP have sold major fields from the US to Russia from the arctic to the UK Shell have dumped anything they can in Africa and East Asia. I could go on. A black swan has flown in to the fossil fuel markets and its name is LENR.
george e. smith says:
> Well gasoline is still about the cheapest liquid you can buy. Cheaper than milk, and cheaper than water… The better grades of water from the organic (carbon distribution) stores can cost as much as $30 per gallon.
What can be a better grade of water than steam-distilled? It costs around $1 per gallon at most places and 80c at WalMart. You are not talking about analytical-grade pure water sold by Sigma Aldrich, are you? But that’s not “water”, for the purposes of comparison.
Unfortunately we have to take these people seriously because the country just re-elected a president who thinks much the same way
———
I dont like the advert.
But blaming it in Obama is
A) irrelevant
B) likely wrong
Seems like some one is trying too hard with the kitchen sink.
Should be possible to find a graph of domestic USA oil production during recent years. If that production had increased during Obama’s presidency then your claim is toast.
what is this $10billion subsidy they mention? Can’t find it on their website
@Khwarizmi :
“Carbon” is not environmentally unfriendly.”
It’s not the carbon, per se, that concerns me, but rather toxic metals such as mercury. See, e.g.: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2008/2008-11-21-092.asp.
Also, drilling for oil at the bottom of the ocean, at absurd pressures, is asking for trouble. BP’s despicable performance (countenanced by the corrupt Obama administration) didn’t help, either, unless you consider humans and dolphins suffering internal hemorrhaging a good thing. (http://www.garynull.com/home/dahr-jamail-bp-dispersants-causing-sickness.html). And if we already had fusion energy, what would be the point of shipping tar sands goo across the country? What of water requirements, and toxic wastelands, left behind? (http://www.desmogblog.com/top-10-facts-canada-alberta-oil-sands-information).
More CO2 from fossil fuel burning would be a good thing. However, even if it turns out that there are other desirable organic by-products of fossil fuel burning, the general case, so far as I know, is one of toxicity.
Fusion power plants would have a certain measure of radioactivity that would have to be dealt with, but nothing like fission plants.
@Ian Walker: “A black swan has flown in to the fossil fuel markets and its name is LENR.”
Do you have solid info on a connection between abandoning oil fields and commercialization of LENRs? Or are you basically making a reasonable assumption?
The child in the video is wearing a nebulizer. It enables the child to inhale medication into its lungs. A child using a nebulizer is likely to be suffering from a respiratory disease such as asthma, tuberculosis, pneumonia or cystic fibrosis. There is no evidence that children living in warm climates suffer more respiratory problems.
Obviously the greatest danger to children’s health is poverty. In poor communities children are frequently underweight or starving, the water is often unsafe, sanitation and hygiene are poor or non-existant. Smoke from solid fuels being used indoors to cook and light the home is a major cause of respiratory illness in children living in poverty.
To improve the lives of such children, particularly in the third world, the standard of living needs to be raised and to do this they need access to cheap energy from oil, gas and coal. Exactly the opposite of what the video claims.
In fact the world’s population has increased from about 1.6 billion in 1900 to nearly 7 billion today primarily due to the benefits the human race has gained from carbon-based fuels and the way they enable us to live and make progress.
But as readers of WUWT know there is a clear and extremely nasty pattern emerging of CAGW activists and propagandists using children for political ends. In videos children are made to do dangerous experiments or are blown to pieces for not believing in CAGW. This latest video is simply another example of what amounts to political child abuse.
The American Lung Association (ALA) has used children to promote the Clean Air Act which is beneficial when applied to soot or lead but idiotic when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims that carbon dioxide is a pollutant which must be regulated. The EPA has granted the ALA over $20 million in the last ten years which is probably why we see adverts like this:
http://www.newsrealblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/upton-billboard.jpg
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oarm/igms_egf.nsf/Reports/Non-Profit+Grants?OpenView
metamars says:
December 10, 2012 at 4:02 am
In that case, we should get the carbon out of mercury so we can demonize the latter properly.
Umm, hang on – I think I need more coffee. Unfortunately, all I have is inorganic water.
I notice the smokestack in the background (which seems to have acquired lots of smoke thanks to
video editing). Never heard of using gasoline for a smokestack operation. My thanks to the video for pointing out Exxon’s sins – will buy from BP and Shell from now on.
I feel terrible. I made some good money buying and selling Exxon (and others like them) stock over the years. Had I known they hated my children I would never have done that.
OH wait the profits I made on the stock plus the dividends paid to me helped pay for some of the things my children needed as they grew. So never mind. I feel fine after all. Loved the two for one splits.
Went to the website – they are apparently supported by something called Environmental Action,
which basically wants donations, not discussion. They claim we know global warming is true because some economists said so. Right. I always send my climatology questions to an
economist. Well, since economists are so crappy at predicting future economies, they must be good when it comes to future climates. The logic seems solid to me, being a blithering idiot.
How much tax do Exxon and the rest pay to the US Govt?
Over here, the UK govt collect Corporation Tax, Fuel Duty, VAT and North Sea Oil taxes, which amount to tens of billions every year. Take that away, and we really would be broke.
I wonder how many would starve world-wide, without the fossil fuels used to grow and distribute food?
Two centuries ago, it took 19 people working in agriculture to feed 20. Without modern farming methods and fossil fuel powered equipment such as tractors and combines, the developed world could not feed itself. There would certainly be nothing left over to export to the world’s hungry.
For every seller, there must be a buyer.
Exxon couldn’t make a penny if people don’t buy what they are selling.
Liberals don’t hate companies, they hate humanity itself.
Wow, this post seems to have attracted a lots of folks who sport tin foil habidashery.
Who funds sites like the one highlighted?
Reminds me of campus doomsayers with tall placards spouting scripture. The difference is that this form now appears to be the state religion. Which is exactly why our wiser founding fathers championed the cause of separation of church and state. We should demand the scrubbing of this religion from state rotundas as stridently as we did Bethlehem’s Christmas story.
LazyTeenager, you are so naive. All presidents are well known for being womanizers. They strive and scheme to make whoopy across the political spectrum. Obama is no different. Have you considered this, how will Obama get his ship to come in on carbon taxes if he completely restricts oil production? He gets in bed with whomever and whatever it takes to further his agenda. Just like all the others have done before him.
“Indeed, if gasoline producers stopped producing, wouldn’t everyone, including the children, die practically on the spot?”
If people take just lesson away from the events around Hurricane Sandy it should be this.
Mike
There’s a blog with comments here:
http://priceofoil.org/2012/12/06/exxon-hates-your-children-satire-with-a-serious-message/
I haven’t attempted a comment yet to test moderation level. I’m counting to a million and reminding myself that it’s likely they’ve been duped and don’t really know how ignorant they are before commenting.
Owen in Ga says:
December 9, 2012 at 5:56 pm
“@TImothy Sorenson: There will be no defamation suit in this case for fear of invoking the Streisand principle. Maybe 200 people knew about this video before WUWT put this article up. ”
That assumes that nobody reads Twitchy. Also, you can count on the leftist blog faction, DailyKos etc to promote it. Astonishingly they have quite a bit of traffic.
I would care to ask for one example, as it is too easy today to make assertions which do not have any backing or substantiation; also please do not lump the Tea party or conservatives in with a perceived ‘right wing’.
.
Pure psychological projection on their part. They are in fact the ones who hate, and not just Exxon, but humanity itself.
Dennis Nikols says:
December 9, 2012 at 6:29 pm
—
The claim that the right has been involved in class warfare is only true if you are one of those people who believe that objecting to having one person’s money stolen in order to give it to others is class warfare, and believing that you have a right to have other people’s money spent on you isn’t.
As to Free Market not working, when has it ever been tried. What we have today is that middle ground that you claim you want and it is failing.