UPDATE: Bill McKibben doesn’t seem to want to address the question. See below.
Earlier today, 350.org’s founder Bill McKibben tweeted this:
[Source: http://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/442052998324551680 ]
Tom Nelson asked about those boxes and the environmental impact to which I replied:
[Source: http://twitter.com/wattsupwiththat/status/442055366595977216 ]
And sure enough, here’s a picture of those boxes full of comments delivered today by Bill’s claimed “100 people” from NRDC, 350.org, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth. League of Conservation voters, and many other environmental organizations:
![Comment%20boxes%20from%20KXL%20NID%20Delivery%20Credit%20Rocky%20Kistner%20NRDC-thumb-500x375-14923[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/comment20boxes20from20kxl20nid20delivery20credit20rocky20kistner20nrdc-thumb-500x375-149231.jpg?quality=83)
Source, NRDC news website. Credit Rocky Kistner NRDC Note some boxes don’t have labels. more on that below.
I made up a humorous comparison photo that speaks to the photo op issue:
But having finished that, I decided to look around a bit more for news, to see if there was a complete list of organizations involved and maybe an actual number of petitions. I found this video shot today of the march to deliver these described by Bill McKibben.
With 18 minutes to go, over 2 million anti-kxl comments into State Dept. Took 100 people to carry the boxes over. Amazing work by all!
(BTW: Note the banner says 1.5 million, in the news article, they say that another half million comments were added at the last minute, and the banner had already been printed)
And watching that video, I noticed something very odd at the 27 second mark, note the arrows:
Either those gnarly looking protestors are endowed with near superhuman wrist strength, or those boxes are empty.
It makes me wonder how many petitions they really delivered, and how many boxes were empty, but brought along just for the photo op.
Who knows with these clowns? So much for Bill’s required 100 people.
==============================================================
UPDATE: 3/8 10AM PST
No response from Bill since this post went up last night.
@billmckibben Hey Bill any comment on those "2million" KXL comments delivered in empty boxes? http://t.co/wnz0PlgKjQ
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) March 8, 2014
Readers that have Twitter accounts might want to ask him as well.
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I decided to track one of the groups listed on the boxes. Wanting to keep it simple, i went with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, since there was a low number on the box. I figured that might represent a low number of signatories or comments.. I found their stock email protest form for KXL at http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=3657:tell-the-obama-administration-stop-keystone-xl&Itemid=56. Based upon that box, they are listed for 930. Their website claims over a million. Who’s doing the math here, Michael Mann?
Perhaps there are multiple comments per sheet of paper. I can imagine each page containing the comment, “All work and no warming makes Bill a dull boy” typed over and over.
Now they are gearing up to fight replacing an older existing oil pipeline in MN. After a couple failures they determined some years ago the pipe had minor damage in shipment and there was a small potential for future failures. So they’ve run the pipe at 50% of rated capacity for years – with no problems. Now the owners want to rebuild the pipeline – which can continue operating for many more years as is – with new high tech pipeline with all the latest safety systems – and the idiot protesters are attacking.
Idiots.
Thanks every one for the math. We just bought 1500 pages (3×500’s) and needed a cart to walk it to the car ( ok, OK we also bought a box of corn flakes).
It takes a village of idiots.
Hmmm – I’d buy that if it was on a coffee cup.
Looking at the boxes themselves, they appear to be a double order of standard banker file boxes from Staples, 12 for $39.99.
http://www.staples.com/Bankers-Box-Stor-File-Basic-Duty-Storage-Boxes-Letter-Legal-Size-12/product_478887
At least three of the boxes are definitely mostly, if not entirely, empty, as you can see into the boxes through the handle holes. Those size boxes hold about six to eight reams of paper at most, based upon my retail and record keeping experience.
don’t you think they delivered the actual paper with a truck to the side door??? but used empty boxes for the march itself?? a demonstrational march is nothing more than a parade… sure hope you realists don’t think all them floats are reality. why would anyone carry boxes of paper down the street after hauling them in crates half way across the country?? and as for using a thumb drive or other electronics… talk to your legislature… their game,,, their rules.. personally ,, I would have used an appliance dolly, and a few less people for the actual delivery.. but that’s just how I ROLL!!! lol..
Many people have already comment on the number of comments x number of papers, the likely resulting weight, and the way they were being carried. Fully agree.
But even before I got that far in the article, I just looked at the stacked boxes in the photo and new it was a scam. None of the boxes on the bottom looked the least bit ‘distressed’ from the weight above them. Yes, these types of boxes are pretty strong, but there would be some amount of ‘distress’ or ‘distortion that would be visible. .
Now even if the ‘well stacked boxes wouldn’t show the weight, THE 2ND BOX FROM THE BOTTOM, 2ND COLUMN FROM THE RIGHT CLEARLY WOULD. The lid isn’t on straight, meaning the boxes above it would crush it down and ‘buckle’ it in the center IF they were full, or probably even 1/2 full. . But NOPE, it looks just fine. Meaning no weight of any consequence above it.
Bill Mckibben, what a charlatan, lying, loser- piece- of- (self-snip) ! ! !
I say again: The Athabasca Tar Sands deposit is one if the biggest oil slicks on the planet. We are trying to clean it up. (The biggest is The Orinoco Tar Belt, recently renamed The Chavez oil belt in thanks to the great dictator. So it’s OK to clean ghat one up? Eh Sean?)
Yeah, but how many of them does it take to change a light bulb?
Anthony, you’re starting to remind me of Steve McIntyre. Nice catch.
“Martin C says:
March 7, 2014 at 9:56 pm”
I was thinking the same. But still took 100 people to shift them…lol…
Alternate device to store the comments:
I took this picture myself, hope the link works.
Keith W commented on the Chesapeake mob.
I would think that the meaning of “Our movement sent more than one million comments on the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline to the Obama administration in just 45 days this spring.” is that the entire Anti mob did this, not the dozen or so Chesapeake mob members. So they are probably correct, (if ill-advised!).
Quick calculation on a napkin, 2 million comments, say 1 sheet of A4 paper for each comment, 2500 sheets in a single box (in 5x 500 sheet packs, standard packaging), looks like me that you need more than 100 boxes, more like 800 of them. That’s about 20 pallets completely stacked with 40 boxes each.
100 people to carry them? I could have had it done it with eight people. A two wheel hand cart with three 10 ream boxes on each, No problem. Or close enough for government work. It wouldn’t make a photo op though.
[snip]
“It’s worse than we thought! We’re all doomed – DOOMED, I say! We’re all gonna DIE!” – Bill McKibben
The most each one of those boxes can hold is 10,000 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper. 24 boxes = 240,000 votes. If the votes are 8.5 x 5.5 then, 480,000 max.
2 million ‘comments’ ….. or just 24 empty boxes?
Let’s ask Bill McFibbin……
Velcro says:
March 7, 2014 at 8:31 pm
Perhaps one of those boxes had a thumb drive in it
Naturally! 🙂
I am sure those 2M comments were also made by some computer program (not unlike the one that created all those fake “peer reviewd” studies…
Mike Croift says:
March 7, 2014 at 10:24 pm
Yeah, but how many of them does it take to change a light bulb?
Ten enviroMENTALists. One to hold the light bulb and nine to turn the yurt.
How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?
Only one…. but the light bulb really has to want to change.
H’mm
I note that they carefully use the word ‘comments’. Not letters or essays or objections.
A comment cou;ld just be ‘yeah!’ or ‘No KXL’ or ‘Fracking nein Danke’ Or ‘Down with BigOilFundedBabyEatingBloodSuckingClimateDeniers’. You can get maybe 50 such comments on a single sheet of A4. So maybe calculations based on the supposed number of sheets needed are using a false assumption. I’d not rush to judgement ithout sight inside those boxes.
Whether such comments are actually worth anything is another question.
Keith:
You only need one line pr petitioner so you can at least have 25 petitons pr page. Then you can write on the backside and use thin, recycled paper. That means you can divide Your number by 100 and each of a 100 boxes would way 3-4 pounds.
My problem is I can only count 24 boxes. That means each box weighs at least 12 pounds (easily hte double, not countingthe box itself) and then of cause you need 4 People taking turn carrying the boxes since they have a poster in 1 hand and only one free for the box. Imagine the strain on the wrist carrying those heavy boxes like depicted on picure 4 (follow the yellow arrows and you will get the point).
Joking aside, this is obviously taken from the “Manual of creating and sustaining a mass movement” and the chapter “How to get and direct media coverage”. They achieved their goal, getting their carefully framed image (and message) in the media. We can laugh at the dedicated few using every trick in the book to build momentum for a lost cause but their “dog and pony” show has delayed this project with years and managed to turn it into the litmus test of the governements comittment to the environment. Goebbels would be proud of them.
McKibben twits: “With 18 minutes to go, over 2 million anti-kxl comments into State Dept. Took 100 people to carry the boxes over. Amazing work by all!”
So we can clearly see that all the boxes are EMPTY. They are a “symbolic” representation of all the “anti-kxl comments” they got , presumably by some kind of on-line petition.
Now all I can see is in the photo op is TWENTYFOUR boxes. So “Took 100 people to carry the boxes” is an out and out lie. It took 24 people to carry 24 “symbolic” empty boxes. The rest of “100” were there for the shouting and the banner waving.
So now we know the boxes were empty, where are all the “comments” , what did they say ? Were the real contents of these comments provided to the state department in some electronic form, with the email and name of the contributors, properly vetted for dupes?
Who is auditing the comment count? NO ONE, it’s just a made up figure.
The boxes were empty, the “100” was a lie, the “2 million” is pulled from the air an unverifiable.
Yet watch out for this number being quoted as fact, like the 97% lie.
These guys are out to save the planet and any means will be justified to achieve that noble cause.