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.
Joel O’Bryan says: @ur momisugly March 7, 2014 at 8:46 pm
Bill McKibben is charlatan. So good in fact that you could put his picture and bio next to the word in the online dictionary as a prototypical example of a charlatan….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
But you would have to remove that photo and Bio from Astroturf organizer.
I Wonder how much they are paying for Astroturfing now? In Bosto in ~1985? Astroturfing the Seabrook Nuclear plant was paying ten buck an hour – (ad in Boston Globe)
This is an Astroturfer being interviewed
http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/steven-crowder-on-calpirg-astroturfing.html
jaymam says:
A closeup of the boxes:
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/rkistner/IMG_2318.JPG
Looking at how the carton flaps in the carrying holes are sticking out horizontally, those boxes were never carried any distance with much weight in them. Otherwise, the effort the carrier brought to bear on those flaps should have creased and distorted them out of true. Note that one of the flaps isn’t even horizontal (just barely sticking out of its hole) and many of the carrying holes are blocked by the fresh paper identifying the organization responsible for “gathering” the signatures. Those pieces of paper were obviously stuck on at the last minute and the claimed numbers written on them afterwards—probably on site. Normally, you’d label a box then bring it over, not the other way around.
Martin C says: @ur momisugly March 7, 2014 at 9:56 pm
….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.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The boxes next to it are stacked crooked so would also show signs of the bottom box being crushed. Those boxes are five high. If they were three quarters full of paper the bottom box would be showing major signs of crushing. (We use these boxes for attic storage and they aren’t good for storing paper much over three boxes high without badly crumpling.)
The gray haired lady in front looks my age. I am strong for my age and can lift and carry 50 lb feed sacks but I could never carry a banker box full of paper that way. (OUCH)
Eighteen boxes have visible numbers written on them. By columns, they are
8052, 930, 204500, 52823
63482, 42252, 17189, 25852, 27638
44836, 185218, 84855
58641, 22835, 36445
4724, 19440, 323
Total 900,035. If those numbers represent number of comments in each box, I see that at least two boxes have fewer than a thousand.
For reasons others have stated, I don’t believe that you can fit 204500 sheets of paper (400 reams!) into one box. I am willing to believe you can fit a petition with 204500 signatures into one box; at 50 signatures per sheet that would be 8 reams. I wouldn’t be surprised if those “signatures” were collected via web page, with no attempt made to weed out phonies and duplicates. And if that’s how they collected signatures, it’s also possible that some of the signers belong to multiple groups and clicked multiple times.
Of course, if you can fit 204500 “comments” into one box, you don’t need 100 people to carry “2 million comments”. Ten people would suffice.
I wonder if someone will subpoena the outtakes?
you have to remember these are magic boxes for alarmists, the more they look into them the higher the temps, sorry higher number of signatures they will find, they like to put any number that comes into their head on the outside of the box irrespective of what is actually inside.
Just the fact that they have a box in one hand is proof enough to them that it is full.
If questioned that the box looks empty of any meaningful information they will become very vocal and scream denier.
Following up, I see that 350.org, for one, was collecting online comments. http://act.350.org/letter/kxl-sprint-day-4/ It was possible to send a personalized comment, but I wonder how many people just clicked for the default boilerplate comment.
Well spotted.
From Bill McKibben’s admitted lying about his (lack of) Indian heritage, to his work as a big green lobbyist, it seems difficult to find something about this man that is authentic or honest or rational. His work to hurt America and our environment by stopping a pipeline that will safely and efficiently deliver desperately needed oil is cynical, but very lucrative for him. In other words, he is a typical big green lobbyist/parasite, manipulating those with money to give some of their money to him at the expense of our future.
I just checked some of the names on the list.
Ivanna Complain, I.P. Freely, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Abraham Lincoln, Mike Rotch, Al Coholic, Jack Bauer, Jason Borne, Cheech Marion.
One page per petition, box completely filled =5000 pages per box. Each box weighs between 50 and 60 lbs. It takes 400 boxes. They had 24 boxes and from the look at the carrying slots they weren’t full. Multiple signatures per page could be any number of boxes. You notice they didn’t pull one out to show the petition.
Save a tree by using electronic records? Maybe they don’t know that most paper is made from trees specifically grown for paper pulp. Pulpwood is a crop.
Thumbdrive? My WWUT web page has an ad for a 32Gb micro ultra SD card. About the size of your thumbnail. Nothing so big as a thumbdrive needed.
Bill McKibben disappoints.
Comments were limited to no more than 50 per person per organization? Stunt all the way.
Keith W. says:
March 7, 2014 at 9:01 pm
All right, let’s do some basic math here. 2,000,000 comments, assuming one page of paper per comment. 100 “handlers” for all of them. That means 20,000 pages per person. Those boxes are smaller than the standard case of printer paper one can buy at an office supply store. Those cases hold ten reams (500 pages) of paper, or 5,000 sheets. That means each person would need to be carrying four such boxes. Shall we talk physical impossibility here?
You are assuming that each piece of paper only has one comment, but they could have ten. Notice the conditional “could”. Not that I think it is actually like that, but just considering it as a reasonable doubt.
I once saw a history of the start of Home Depot narrated by one of the original founders. He confessed that on the day of the grand opening of the first store they had stacked hundreds of empty boxes and paint cans around the store to give the impression of a large and well endowed company. When I was in junior high school I knew a girl or two who did a similar thing.
Environmentalism.
It’s about stopping the import of Canadian oil via a pipeline.
Environmentalists prefer Warren Buffet’s freight traings. Because that form of transport is twice as expensive and uses more energy.
It’s not about stopping the import of oil. After all, Uncle Warren is a friend of the environmentalists, and he needs to eat too.
Berényi Péter says:
March 8, 2014 at 2:41 am
“You have got it wrong, it is not about photography.
Trees are actually evil, a pest thriving on CO2, disgusting mold on the face of Mother Gaia.”
Trees have also conspired to create vast coal seams, in a kind of suicide attack, giving rise to the evil coal industry which poisons the planet.
“… but they could have ten. ”
The boxes were EMPTY. The whole thing was a charade.
The only thing they can do to save face is to say that they never printed out 2 million “comments” and that he boxer were a symbolic representation.
In which case they lied about the need to “100” people to carry them. They didn’t the needed about a dozen (two boxes each without any effort).
Either way McKibben LIES.
So senate committee needs to be asking some very pointed questions about auditing and counting of the claimed “2 million” and exactly what a “comment” represents.
Is climatedepot down just checking here
Please , someone with US voting rights , find out the senators that will be on that committee and prime them about this fake claim.
Get them to ask some probing questions about auditing and counting of this list.
Eliza says:
March 8, 2014 at 5:15 am
“Is climatedepot down just checking here”
Works fine for me.
http://www.climatedepot.com/
Looks like Jo Anne Nova is also down. Crossed checked with other skeptic sites they are OK. Beware of a cyber attack
Well this is what I am getting
could be a local problem
Unable to connect http://www.climatedepot.com:80.
Non authoritative – host not found.
Check
The boxes in the photo of the stack don’t look like heavy boxes full of paper.
Tom in Florida
it’s like Joey in friends, he used boxes with a tarpaulin over them to make it look like he had a Porche.