Images from: National Resources Defense Council blog
Guest essay by Taylor Smith
Last week I attended an Environmental Protection Agency “Public Listening Session” held here in Chicago. I had only been to one other such hearing in the past as a college student, when my professor took myself and the rest of the International Studies class to see a public hearing on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s famous Act 10 legislation.
Public hearings I would soon learn (before I would ironically go on to land my first job in government relations), are not the most thrilling experiences in the world. But in fairness, it’s not like I was expecting much: For basically a whole day, one speaker after another testifies to a panel of government officials about why they support or oppose a certain policy. Usually the speakers are an eclectic mix of industry representatives, activists, academics, students, and even religious leaders.
Although the EPA hearing yielded the same mix of speakers, this time I noticed they were all wearing green Sierra Club “Climate Action Now” shirts.
The reason for this, I would later learn, was that the Sierra Club had mobilized hundreds of activists, transported them via bus (I presume of the fossil-fuel powered kind), prepped their testimonies the night before, and completely dominated the morning speaker slots. (There were several coal industry representatives in the morning, and a few other dissenters, including Heartland Policy Adviser Paul Driessen, who covered his experience here). By the afternoon, the Sierra Club had completely monopolized the speaking time (at least in the room I was in).
After the hearing, everyone was invited to a “Climate Social” held at the Sierra Club’s office with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon, and Illinois state Sen. Michael Frerichs.
Now maybe it’s just me, but I felt a slight level of discomfort when I saw a single organization dominate a “public” hearing in the way that they did. I don’t care what the organization is or what they say they stand for, because if their 2011 listed revenue is over $97 million, then you know not all of it could have fallen in their laps from heaven.
Left: NRDC Chicago Staff: David Weiskopf, Blake Korb, Sylvia Garcia-Sadowski. Images from: National Resources Defense Council blog
For example, we know Chesapeake Energy, a large natural gas producer, contributed more than $25 million to the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign— the same campaign whose organizers were at the hearing and bused several people down from around the Midwest and prepped their testimonies.
But going back to the policy discussion, two things struck me about the speeches I heard — from both the climate activists, and the few coal-affiliated dissenters:
1) Lots of talk about reducing carbon dioxide, hardly any on reducing temperature. As I wrote to the Baltimore Sun once, the question shouldn’t so much be “How much carbon dioxide can we possibly reduce?” But rather, “How much temperature can we realistically save?” The latter question provides a much clearer picture when assessing exactly how much CO2 reduction would be worth its economic cost. The former doesn’t attach any long-term value to CO2 reduction, as if any CO2 reduction were worth its economic cost. Handy for political expediency — which as anyone who works in government relations knows, is half the political battle.
So why is temperature discussion always ignored? One reason might have to do with Dr. Pat Michaels’ research, which found if U.S. CO2 emissions were to be reduced to zero, the resulting temperature decrease would not be scientifically detectable.
So it should be obvious why many climate activists don’t like discussing temperature reduction relative to reducing CO2. But many speakers from the coal industry also didn’t like discussing temperature, instead discussing how electricity prices will go up or how jobs will be lost. Those points are important. But unless a more concrete value is ascribed to the amount of CO2 that activists say needs to be reduced, it’s always going to be perceived as outweighing any economic cost.
2) China and India. According to Diana Furchtgott-Roth:
Other countries are increasing emissions. China, India, and Germany are expanding coal consumption, according to the International Energy Agency. Global coal use will rise by 1.2 billion tons in five years. “By 2017,” according to a December 2012 IEA report, “coal will come close to surpassing oil as the world’s top energy source.”2 Mr. Obama’s reductions in U.S. emissions, with their associated costs, will just be a drop in the global bucket.
Which leads to two additional key quotes:
Even if rising greenhouse gas emissions are affecting the climate, actions by the United States will not be helpful in the absence of changes by China and India.
and
To reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in a less costly manner, America could assist China and India develop shale gas from hydrofracturing and build natural-gas fired plants to reduce their reliance on coal. Or, America could ship coal to China, because U.S. coal burns cleaner than Chinese coal. The majority of China’s coal (54 percent) is bituminous, which has a carbon content ranging from 45 to 86 percent. On the other hand, 47 percent of the U.S.’s coal, a plurality, is subbituminous, which contains a carbon content of only 35 to 45 percent.
But many of the Sierra Club activists opposed both hydrofracturing and nuclear. So what exactly would they support? Short of a blackout?
“Green” is the new red. However, it is even more virulent and more dangerous to democracy and to humanity.
Astroturfing by phony NGO’s is major industry.
Sierra Club and Greenpeace and the other big green companies are multi-billion dollar rackets that produce nothing, do almost nothing to actually help the environment, and shake down corporations and governments with greenmail.
The “sierra-club”, thru lawsuits & prb’ly kickbacks, pretty much dictates what American Electric Power (I’m a stockholder) does nowadays.
“But many of the Sierra Club activists opposed both hydrofracturing and nuclear. So what exactly would they support? Short of a blackout?”
In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt invented an electrostatic motor that pulled energy out of thin air. And that’s what the greens want for the future — imaginary devices to provide clean unlimited power. And preferably these engines grow on trees, as long as the trees aren’t GMO.
Big companies partnering with big government isn’t communism, but it’s the form of socialism more correctly known as ‘fascism.’
BTW: Fascism is not about race or hyper-nationalism or anti-Semitism but is a form of socialism that appears to be capitalistic because it permits the private ownership of the means of production. See Mussolini for more information. Also see The Road to Serfdom in which Hayek comments on how easily Marxist and Communists easily transferred their alliance to fascism because those ideologies were/are so similar.
Excellent article!
=============================
pyromancer76 says:
The Sierra Club has been taken over by died-in-the-wool socialist-communist-farthest left activists. Like most other boards of our environmental organizations, they weaseled their way into control and then pretended they are the mouth pieces.
Actually, they are the mouthpieces. That was the long term goal. This insidious takeover has happened to so many formerly respectable organizations that there can be no doubt it was a planned campaign. The KGB did not end with the coming down of the Berlin Wall. They just changed their name to the FSB. The players remained the same.
The confused ‘Dumb Scientist’ regularly trots out his long list of professional societies such as the AMS, the APS, etc., in his appeals to authority. As Prof Richard Lindzen writes, those societies have been taken over by activists who now speak for the 99% of rank-and-file members, most of whom who do not agree with the publicly stated positions. Those positions are political, not scientific.
Now the Sierra Club has been taken over by hard-Left ideologues, who forced a coup against the former Sierra Club president and board. They now control hundreds of $millions in annual income, to be used in agitprop like this takeover of the EPA’s ‘public listening’ session.
Most Americans are not even aware of what is happening, or that the corrupt EPA condones and encourages this self-serving propaganda.
Many scientists don’t bother to understand the epistemology of social science, so they think using terms like Marxism or socialism are epithets – because elites in society tell them this is so. This dates back to McCarthy’s days – but what never gets mentioned by the leftists is that since Soviet archives were opened (for a while, before Putin closed them again) it’s been shown that many of McCarthy’s targets inside and outside of govt were in fact Soviet agents of influence.
Today we face a fully fused, Marxism based left due to their own efforts to rationalize their competing, idiotic beliefs. “Interectionalism” is the innocuous term used to bring together 3rd wave feminism, queer theory, Critical Theory (overtly Marxist in origin), Rawlsian Social Justice and environmental activism. This unified ‘critique’ of society is the ideological basis for much of what goes on in the environmental movement.
Put more directly and simply for those who’d rather do math or study particles. when Marxists deliberately infused post modern and post structuralist thought (a la Foucault or Ford or Derrida take your pick) with Marxism, this gave permision for the ‘justice’ crowd to abandon antique notions of “reason” and even the meaning of language. You see, due to this special knowledge, they can “see” the power structure that controls everything (and of course it’s controlled by evil, white, male capitalists) and our use of reason and data and argument itself are innately corrupt.
The political strategy of the old left and New Left expressly permits anything in the acquisition of power to dismantle the innately immoral, repressive and exploitative power structure we troglodytes fight to maintain. AGW introduces the highest moral imperative to do so in their minds – the very survival of humanity and the planet (trying not to giggle). This gives them moral license to do anything and say anything. In other words, their enterprise is innately intellectually corrupt and in fact, anti-intellectual.
Dismissing people who note this as somehow uninformed or crazy only reveals your own ignorance and sadly, most scientists have little substantive knowledge of what’s going on in the social sciences and humanities. Many scientists in academic settings actually turn a blind eye to the inanity of the social justice warrior types as they know if they object their will be trouble and as long as they can do their science, many don’t really care. They end up like the smug commenter on this thread, treading a ‘middle position’ that doesn’t even actually exist…
It is great for Glenn to note that we need to acknowledge that this broad Marxist agenda is out there. It is all in writing over the 100 plus years of Marxism. It is not acknowledged for three reasons: first, addressing injustice simply is a good idea, so that does not raise eyebrows – the end game is universal misery, but making the world a better place sounds good enough to any of us and all of us; second – they have realized they cannot use the terms ‘socialist,’ ‘marxist’ or ‘communist’ and get anywhere in the U.S over the recent 100 years, so they have been surreptitious about their agenda – they have a different meaning for the word ‘democracy’ than the widely recognized concept formerly taught in public school civics class. third, they have teamed up with single-issue advocates to mutually advance agendas, and those people are truly interested in their causes. as an example, there most definitely have been ‘civil rights’ issues to address in the U.S., large employers should not be exploiting workers, and the environment needs to be conserved or managed. So, one labor union activist may simply be seeking a more fair work situation for himself/herself or colleagues, while his or her buddy left new York to come down to west Virginia specifically to organize and unionize yet another group of laborers not to improve coal-mining but to lead to the eventual workers revolution.
I used to be active in democratic party politics. not any more. being for the promotion of illegal immigration does not make sense to me, but if your political ideals include no nations, then you don’t really care about borders. in the democratic party the more powerful positions still require the candidate to have religion (we could even handle a Catholic when considering JFK), but rank and file the “democratic” party is generally hostile to religion, except certain Marxist-centered religion, such as the Marxist-origin ‘liberation theology’ of our president’s home church. In the most recent demo nominating convention, “we” boo-ed God – thrice. There are those who mix religion and Marxism, but Marxist thinking is largely clearly atheistic. A hand up? Sure. A hand-out? maybe not so much. But many in the “democratic” party have adopted the socialist view that wealth needs to be redistributed, even if that means one person never works, or works very much, his or her entire life. Jess Jackson Jr has advocated that we each are entitled to a job, a car, a college degree, and a home. Entitled. Sounds good, but that is fundamentally a different model of civics and government than our current system.
Why do I not like it that a great portion of democrats favor everyone being entitled to a home? Because the only way to do this is to have us all in one of those soviet apartment block buildings. as lousy as our current system is, I don’t see Marxism as improving things for anyone except the party bureaucrats.
We democrats have not noticed the reddening of the demo party – the reds formed the knee-jerk “McCarthyism” meme – I have in recent years had a long-term ‘democrat’ colleague tell mme that there are no communists in the united states of America – that is all McCarthyism john birch red-meat-for-conservatives rhetoric.
with Occupy, we passed a point where anyone with half a brain could reasonably defend that position. But many of us ‘democrats’ carry on with the ‘McCarthyism.’
as noted above, many of the suspected reds were reds! The NYT just ran an opinion piece on ‘my mother, the secret socialist.’ these people have writings and organizations, etc. We ‘democrats’ just have a cult-like blind spot.
So, yes – this has crept up on us. I don’t believe there is middle ground – they are agenda driven. The thinking has gotten into govt and education very well, and into John Muir’s organization as well.
One more quick point. I’m a frequent visitor/reader here, but normally don’t pipe up as I’m not a scientist nor am I technically informed enough to participate in the debate’s productively. I am somewhat numerate and am very interested in science, but I don’t have a substantive contribution to make usually, so I just spectate. I love the dialog her and learn so much from it.
My comment is not meant to drive dialog into a political ditch here as frankly most political conversations are not productive in my opinion. However the worldview of the left is central to the promotion of AGW. I think the saddest part of all that is that many well meaning people have been duped by these frauds. Most of us do not have the ability to sort out these arguments – or may just not have the time to. So, we end up trusting sources and sadly, that trust has been abused.
This is nothing new in dealing with leftists. I actually have very little hope of a resolution because society evolves forward, not backwards. In fact, I believe that in the U.S. we will continue to see govt grow, our freedom attenuate and and increase in the politicization of more and more areas of society. One very simple way of explaining what’s going on with AGW histeria is that it stems from the increased role of govt in funding science directly, and even more so, via higher education. Anything that comes under control of the govt will become politicized – it’s axiomatic.
I see no hope of rolling back the leviathan, rather, collapse and revolution are much more likely. Before that, we’ll likely end up in an authoritarian state with do-gooders running everything.
Okay, let’s return to our original programming now. Some thinker once said “Politics is a vexation of the spirit” (too lazy to google it, sorry). I find that very true. While I’m here, let me also say a huge thanks to Anthony Watts and everyone else here. It’s a huge help to skeptics like me.
@ur momisugly More Soylent Green:
In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt invented an electrostatic motor that pulled energy out of thin air. And that’s what the greens want for the future — imaginary devices to provide clean unlimited power. And preferably these engines grow on trees, as long as the trees aren’t GMO.
Ah, but remember: Galt destroyed his motor rather than let them use it. A pity we aren’t all so brave.
Glenn Donovan says:
November 21, 2013 at 12:50 pm
“I see no hope of rolling back the leviathan, rather, collapse and revolution are much more likely.”
=======================
Well, what the heck, you’ll probably read it here first.
“Revolutions” need to start somewhere.
It will be a slow roll back, in fact, it is happening right now.
Wishful thinking – don’t confuse Obama’s incompetence and inevitable fall from grace with the collapse of the left. Let me ask you, how do you think societal change happens? What would you do if you wanted to “fundamentally transform” a country?
First off, you don’t need a majority to control/change a country. You need to overtake the major institutions. The left knows this and very intentionally has overtaken education from top to bottom, and particularly the elite intellectuals in academia. Leftists dominate the “news media” (not talk radio, that is a reaction to it) whether it’s print, tv or web. They also dominate the non-profit/NGO community. Leftist values also dominate entertainment, the arts and literature. And this was all intentional.
Obama’s success or failure does not change these fundamentals. The left will simply revise history as they move forward, just as they have about Bill Clinton’s record or even JFK’s. Or as they have done at Northeast university, laying claim Lincoln as a Democrat. I’m not kidding, they have a plaque to Lincoln there and they close it with the label – Democrat. Students there don’t even know Lincoln was a founder of the Republican party. They don’t know that the Democrats opposed the civil rights movement and was the party of Jim Crow and segregation. Obama’s failure or success has no effect on any of that.
The demographics are in their favor as well. All the demographic groups the left panders too are on the rise – women, hispanics, blacks, the working class. Just look at how the under 30 crowd votes, the future is extremely bleak for those trying to stop the left.
Not imaginary, according to promoters of the Papp engine, which is a potential Deus ex Machina that would be even more remarkable than Rossi’s e-cat “cold fusion” gadget. It uses, supposedly, some sort of unknown nuclear reaction triggered by a spark in a sealed cylinder containing a mix of noble gases in a modified gasoline or diesel engine to provide 6000 hours of free 150 horsepower. The designer, Bob Rohner, a former assistant to Joseph Papp, wants beaucoup bux before revealing the secret. He & his deceased brother allegedly got it perfected and running six months ago. (An earlier version was supposedly debunked.)
Here’s the link to the home page of his site — click on the tabs at the top for more. It’s worth it just for entertainment value, which I fear may be all it amounts to. Still, you never know . . . .
http://www.rohnermachine.com