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Tag Archives: ExxonMobil

What’s Behind the Pretty Face and Promises of the EnergyTomorrow Ads?

November 27, 2012

To listen to some of their ads you wouldn’t know that the promises lobbyists for oil, coal and natural gas are making about being energy independent are based on wishful thinking , deluding the American public that stalls our need to convert to clean renewable energy now.

Does this lovely lady look familiar?  She should.  You may have seen her warm and smiling countenance on a previous post of mine here.    It is more likely however that you have seen her more recently as the face of the pro-fossil fuel website, EnergyTomorrow.org, on TV ads sponsored by their lobbyist, the American Petroleum Institute(API).  These ads promote misleading information giving the public a half-baked view about the abundant energy below our surfaces to make America energy independent again.  Something we haven’t been since the 1950’s

Her name is Brooke Alexander, a former soap opera star, beauty queen and a former FOX correspondent.  Her new gig encourages viewers to “learn more” about how “we can secure our energy future”   Supposedly we have enough untapped oil & gas resources “to power 60 million cars and heat 160 million households for 60 years” Ms Alexander assures us in her ad here.

But learning more at the EnergyTomorrow website is like getting the news from FOX.  It’s all heavily slanted with circumspective data and substantial omissions.  And it doesn’t hurt when a smart, pretty woman is making the pitch for the likes of Exxon-Mobil, Conoco and Chevron.

Technically Ms. Alexander’s comments are correct but here’s what’s missing in her message:

In the oil & gas industry, resource means the amount of gas or oil that remains underground, and reserve means what could be produced from the resource.

Only a portion of the resources could be recovered technically.

Only a portion of the technically recoverable resources could be produced economically.

Only a portion of the economically producible resources could be produced into supply. That is called reserve.    SOURCE 

Much of the oil resources in North America touted in these ads are expected to come from the tar sand pits out of Canada.  The oil from these tar sands takes enormous amounts of energy to convert into liquid gas adding that much more CO2 into the atmosphere, warming the planet even further.  The ads also conceal the fact that any oil or gas we bring up from below the surface is not ours entirely.  All oil and gas are part of a global market.  Nor will its close proximity to us, like in Canada, mean cheaper gas.  The price of oil is set on world markets.

Within the United States, foreign companies are acquiring stakes in oil resources that can now be extracted with fracking, but regardless of where the oil is produced and who produces it, the price of oil is set on the global market. Such globalization means that widespread drilling and fracking for oil in the United States will do nothing for American consumers who are paying the high price of oil.    SOURCE 

So what “portion” of that oil and gas is actually capable of being converted into real sources of energy for consumers?   Well, according to Bill Powers, author of the upcoming book,  “Cold, Hungry and in the Dark: Exploding the Natural Gas Supply Myth”, there may be only 5-7 years of shale gas resources after the realities of extraction and production confront the industry.

My thesis is that the importance of shale gas has been grossly overstated; the U.S. has nowhere close to a 100-year supply. This myth has been perpetuated by self-interested industry, media and politicians. Their mantra is that exploiting shale gas resources will promote untold economic growth, new jobs and lead us toward energy independence.

In the book, I take a very hard look at the facts. And I conclude that the U.S. has between a five- to seven-year supply of shale gas, and not 100 years. That is far lower than the rosy estimates put out by the U.S. Energy Information Administration and others. In the real world, many companies are taking write-downs of their reserves.   SOURCE    

Powers is the editor of Powers Energy Investor and according to his website  has “devoted the last 15 years to studying and analyzing various aspects of the energy sector”.

Another expert in the field is Arthur Berman.  Berman is a petroleum geologist, Associate Editor of the American Association of Petroleum Geolgists Bulletin and Director of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil. He maintains the blog Petroleum Truth Report.   Berman tells us that the declining rates of shale gas validates Powers’ assessment about severely limited supplies.

“I’ve looked at this”, he tells James Staffiord with OilPrice.com.  “In the Eagleford shale, which is supposed to be the mother of all shale oil plays, the annual decline rate is higher than 42%”.  They’re going to have to drill hundreds, almost 1000 wells in the Eagleford shale, every year, to keep production flat. Just for one play, we’re talking about $10 or $12 billion a year just to replace supply.”    SOURCE

It appears then that if you take the industry’s perception of North American reserves and fill in the blanks they are leaving out with Berman and Power’s assessments, then the reality is not all that rosy about securing America’s energy future.  I heard essentially the same talking points at a recent Planning and Zoning Council meeting here in Denton.   Out of about 50 attendees to this meeting most were citizens and students who were there to oppose considerations by the city for drilling new wells within city limits, citing the unresolved hazards of leaks and water contamination from fracking fluids.  Two young and attractive ladies however were there to state the case for the gas well drillers.

These two women gave only their names and addresses, indicating that they were nothing more than mere residents who saw positive contributions for drilling more wells.  But clearly they were there to promote the industry’s talking points about “energy security and independence” and “job creation”.  One read directly from written notes in a monotone voice without looking up while the other ad-libbed essentially the same comments but with little conviction about what she was saying, unlike those who gave testimonials in opposition to inner city gas well drilling.

America will never be energy independent because no matter how much we produce we will still consume more at current rates than we can produce.  Friendly tar sands oil from Canada won’t change that picture either.

[There is] the distorted viewpoint that the U.S. will soon become energy independent and will no longer need to import foreign oil. The U.S. has used more oil than it produces since records were kept in 1920 but became a true net oil importing country after World War II.   SOURCE 

The Fossil Fuels Job Myth

The notion too that oil and gas production creates thousands of jobs is somewhat dubious.  For instance, one report shows that direct hiring specifically related to oil extraction and production is a far cry from the claims of 1 million jobs being touted by the industry.  The 1 million figure relies on the multiplier effect where the true figure of 36,000 oil related jobs created will be expected to impact other businesses in their community and this only occurs after about seven years according to one report.

While job estimates, using a so-called multiplier effect of spending, are common in economic impact calculations, the “direct hiring” by the oil industry is far more modest [than other industries].

The 36,000 jobs specifically created to drill for oil and natural gas, refine petroleum or coal products, or for pipeline operation or in gas stations, came in well below “direct hiring” in other industries, which don’t enjoy the same tax breaks the Obama administration has been fighting to end for Big Oil.

The construction industry is prime among them — adding 69,000 jobs in 2011.

Roll into this the fact that these jobs also will continue to contribute to air and water pollution along with increasing green house gases that threaten our ecosystem and the image of an earned income becomes diminished with increased health care costs.  This information also ignores that job creation in renewable energy fields will easily supplant and even surpass job creation in the fossil fuel industry, absorbing a lot of the fossil fuel industry workers into the more green technologies.

… a 2009 report published by the University of Massachusetts found that net job creation is substantially higher with clean energy investments than fossil fuels at different educational levels. The paper determined that, when compared to fossil fuel energy, clean energy investments create 2.6 times more college degree jobs; 3.0 times more ‘some-college’ jobs; and 3.6 times more ‘high school or less’ jobs. While average wages are higher in fossil fuel, there are more types of all jobs in cleaner energy.

The Massachusetts researchers also found that a shift from fossil fuels to clean energy investments will yield a net increase in U.S. employment of 1.7 million jobs—i.e. an increase in 2.5 million jobs through clean-energy investments and a corresponding decline of about 790,000 jobs in fossil fuels. This assumes that there is available unemployed labor (there would be no change in employment if people had to be moved from one job to another).   SOURCE   

These are jobs that reduce potential health and safety hazards for workers and the people in the communities they are positioned near.  Healthier workers and their families are more productive and able to keep more of their earned income for other things outside doctor and hospital bills, such as college tuition and retirement savings.  But such positive outcomes are not something shared with you in ads aimed at continuing more of the same practices of extracting finite resources that are destined to expire in a lot less time than we are being led to believe.

Just Another Case of Corporate Profits Over  Human and Social Needs

So why the apparent deception by the oil and gas industry?  If the writing is on the wall as Mr. Berman, Mr. Powers and others are strongly suggesting, why not take all of the huge profits that the oil industry has seen (natural gas entrepreneurs are barely breaking even) and start making smarter, long-term choices that will not only be profitable for them but truly make us energy secure and independent?  Rather than invest vast sums in an infrastructure to accommodate the limited resources of fracture-extracted carbon products, especially natural gas, why not reinvest and re-tool for the inevitable conversion from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy sources?   There clearly is a future for those who become engaged at these early stages.

It appears the answer lies within the concepts of short-sightedness and simple greed.  The current leadership within the oil industry is tied to the past and like anything else, real change is hard to turn towards when your bread has been so amply buttered for several decades now by bleeding every conceivable drop of carbon-based material from the earth.   The record profits that the oil giants have been experiencing of late will not be apparent early on with clean, renewable energy sources as the conversion process begins to reconfigure their industry, even with the aid of government loans and start-up financing that will be at their disposal.  This is a turn off for people who have become accustomed to a steady flow of great wealth.

The corporate mind is too locked-in to profits rather than making contributions to a future that essentially has them leaving their comfort zone and consists of unfamiliar risks.  A global market makes for a bigger playground to continue their old practices and as along as they can still influence the governments of various nations, including our own, there’s no reason or incentive to consider human and social needs over stock holder and investor expectations.

The new entrepreneurs whose efforts will usher us into the 21st century with green, clean innovations to fuel our autos and heat our homes are in place and waiting to be unleashed.   But as long as the aging fraternity of oil, gas and coal still hold most of the cards with their influence in Washington and state legislatures, progress will be sluggish and consumers will have to tolerate the consequences of this greed and short-sightedness; the biggest consequence being ever more numerous and larger natural disasters from man-made climate change.

Resources:

Shale Gas Bubble About to Burst: Art Berman, Bill Powers (DeSmogblog.com)

Why Fracking for Oil and natural Gas is a False Solution 

Posted by in Energy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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The Risk of Putting a Venture Capitalist in the White House

October 3, 2012

There are no comparisons to be made. This is not like war or plague or a stock market crash. We are ill-equipped, historically and psychologically, to understand it, which is one of the reasons why so many refuse to accept that it is happening.  What we are seeing, here and now, is the transformation of the atmospheric physics of this planet.  – author George Monbiot 

At a time when a growing consensus of climate scientists are telling us more severe climate change from increased atmospheric CO2 brought on by our use of fossil fuels is highly likely, do we really want a climate skeptic in the Oval Office ?

 

There’s an argument to be made that what Mitt Romney has done all of his life as a venture capitalist won’t significantly serve him in creating real job growth.  This type of work entails providing capital, usually other people’s, for business start-ups or expansions. They look for a high rate of return for their investment but often know very little about the business they are risking other people’s money with.

Critics within his own Party have challenged his business skills referring to venture capitalists as vultures, who “sit there, and … wait until they see a distressed company, … then they swoop in and … pick the carcass clean and fly away,”  says Texas Governor Rick Perry.  Newt Gingrich said it really isn’t good capitalism.  I think it’s exploitive. I think it’s not defensible,” he told reporters in South Carolina back in January.   

Economist Dean Baker agrees with both Perry and Gingrich

Bain Capital is not about producing wealth but rather about siphoning off wealth that was produced elsewhere in the economy. There is no doubt that one individual or one company can get enormously wealthy if they are able to do this successfully. However you cannot have an entire economy that is premised on the idea that it will siphon off wealth produced elsewhere.  SOURCE

So, not only is there reason to doubt that Romney’s business model will serve the nations’ need to create real job growth but it brings into question his ability to address perhaps the worst issue we and every other nation are currently facing – climate change from anthropogenic global warming.

I can imagine the heads of many people exploding at the thought of this.   Huh?  What’s that?  Are you talking about what Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe and a few other politicians are calling “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated against the American people.”?   Our nation desperately needs jobs and your raising the question about a hoax?  

Yep.  I am indeed.  And here’s why.

GLOBAL WARMING IS NO HOAX!

Recent studies have shown that unless we start taking more dramatic steps to curb the CO2 content being emitted into our atmosphere from spent fossil fuels, the destruction from climate change on global societies “could claim the lives of 100 million people in the next two decades and lost economic prosperity in world economies would be measured in the trillions of dollars”

Findings contained in the “Climate Vulnerability Monitor”—a study sponsored by 20 nations and conducted by the humanitarian and development research organization DARA—point to unprecedented harm to human society and current economic development if runaway carbon emissions are not contained and new models of energy generation and consumption are not pursued.

“A combined climate-carbon crisis is estimated to claim 100 million lives between now and the end of the next decade,” the report said.

Oxfam International executive director Jeremy Hobbs told Reuters that the costs of political inaction on climate were “staggering”.

“The losses to agriculture and fisheries alone could amount to more than $500 billion per year by 2030, heavily focussed in the poorest countries where millions depend on these sectors to make a living,” he said.   SOURCE  

If this analysis turns out to be accurate, jobs will be the least of our worries in a few short years.  It’s not that we won’t be busying ourselves with some kind of work but it will be that of making preparations to survive food and water shortages, not to mention attempts to barricade our borders from the hordes of people making their way to our shores to escape the serious consequences of climate change they have already encountered in their homelands, like Africa and third world nations on the Asian continent.

Not only does Romney have dubious credentials to spark economic growth for anyone other than the top 1% but he apparently doesn’t have an urgent sense of the threat that man-made global warming poses for civilization.  Climate change, like many of the businesses he invested in, is not something Romney knows a great deal about.

To his credit he did say “that the world is getting warmer, [and] that human activity contributes to that warming.”  But he’s clearly paying lip service to the threat of global warming when he confesses that he believes “there remains a lack of scientific consensus on the issue.”

FACT:  97.5% of climatologists who actively publish research on climate change responded yes when asked the question “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?“

The belief that there is no consensus by climate scientists on man’s contribution to climate change is scary in light of the facts that more than contradict this.  This dangerously naive view is the same position that the Koch brothers and the CEO of Exxon/Mobil hold.  These are people who have paid millions to various groups to dispute the climate science for obvious reasons that will impact their long-term economic self-interests.  So for Romney to take this tact is to side with these nefarious corporate shills and risk the future of not only our economic survival but the survival of the planet itself, a risk that voters just can’t take.

So how would Romney the venture capitalist, who knows very little about this critical issue, take his Bain Capital expertise and try to employ it in the face of these likely catastrophic scenarios?  Believing that people like Exxon/Mobil’s CEO Rex Tillerson and oil supply billionaires Charles and David Koch are the job creators, would he view 100 million lives as a necessary loss to insure the continued profits for those in the fossil fuel industry?   Tillerson characterized these devastating climate change scenarios as something  that “could be solved by adapting” to such risks.  Easy for him and his wealthy cohorts to say who probably have secluded and well-stocked fortresses in remote areas around the globe when natural disasters occur.  

It’s very likely that when many of these 100 million human beings start dying off that they will instinctively move to those regions that still have ample supplies of food and water.  Western Europe and the North America would be two areas at the top of their list.  Is it any wonder then that Romney and the GOP are diametrically opposed to any spending cuts for the military as part of any deal to reduce the deficit?

So it might not be outside the realm of probability to think that rather than taking the steps necessary to reduce man-made global warming, Romney would instead instinctively act on his business model that always seeks to assure the highest return on his investment?  One way of doing this might be to advise the wealthy capitalist that share his aspirations to invest in all things related to security?  Just think of all the job creation such activity will generate.

Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians did what was in the best interests of this planet and its occupants rather than the self-interests of a small group of very wealthy people?

Why do we foolishly buy into the notion that people who have accumulated vast sums of wealth are necessarily smarter than those who don’t?  Are material assets realistically the true measure of wisdom and insight?  Obviously you must have a certain amount of genius to be a successful entrepreneur to create and run a productive enterprise but does this genius translate into all other fields of thought?  If this line of thinking were true then why couldn’t you trust your heart valve replacement to your podiatrist?  Both of them have earned a degree from an institution of higher learning.

Yet people like Rex Tillerson, the Koch brothers, Donald Trump and other prosperous people are weighing in on this issue of climate change as if they had equal insights into this phenomena at the same level as, say, Dr. James Hanson, who first laid out the threat of global warming to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works back in 1988.

Dr. James Hansen

Should somehow we find Romney winning the election next month, I would like to believe that he has been speaking out of both sides of his mouth over the last two years just to appease the various groups in order to win the nomination for more nobler purposes than what he has demonstrated thus far?  I would like to believe that he is smarter than someone who thinks global warming is a hoax and that man-made climate change is not a conspiracy by Al Gore and a handful of scientist to get rich off of higher energy prices.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Romney’s strategy to create the 12 million jobs – a promise he has made but has yet revealed to anyone how he would go about it – were to be achieved by implementing the recommendations of those who strongly support reinvesting in cleaner, renewable energy sources?  Not just here in the U.S. but around the globe, especially in those countries who will be hit the hardest by climate change.  According to a 2008 United Nations Environment Program report we can transform our dying planet effected by fossil fuel consumption to a sustainable one by the next generation through the primary use of clean, renewable sources, IF we act now to reduce our use of dirty finite sources of energy.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Romney really was someone who did care about the 47% he says don’t pay taxes and are dependent on the government?  Wouldn’t it be nice if his plans really did entail measures to refute those in Congress who continue to support Big Oil while stiff arming efforts to expand renewable energy sources to rebuild our economy?

Climate change from increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere is a threat to our livelihoods as well as the future of our children and grandchildren.  Rather than the failed 20th century policy of trickle down economics and the 19th century belief that it’s “everyone for themselves”, wouldn’t it be nice if Romney was part of the 21st century thinking needed to prevent further deterioration to our ecosystem?

And now a little number to accommodate my post this morning sung to the tune of the Beach Boy’s “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”

(Yes, yes.  It’s a little hammy but hey!  Lyric writing is hard work, right Mrs. Romney?)

Wouldn’t it be nice if we were smarter

Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long

To change the ill effects of green house gases

In the kind of world where we belong

You know its gonna make our lives much better

If we could all just simply come together

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up

In the morning when the day is new

No longer ever having feelings of worry

If we’ll still be here in 2052

Happy times together we’d be spending

If glacier melts were not soooooooo unending

Wouldn’t it be nice

Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true

Maybe then there wouldn’t be a single thing we couldn’t do

We could be healthy

And then we’d be happy

Wouldn’t it be nice

You know it seems the more we fight about it

It only delays the urgent need to change it

So quit talking about it

Let’s all save the ice

Good night deniers

Sleep tight skeptics

RELATED ARTICLES

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The Fragile Earth

Climate Denial Crock of the Week

Does Mitt Romney Really Understand Energy?

Posted by in 2012 Presidential Elections Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Political Language, Brought to You by Corporate America

April 23, 2012

By and large, language is a tool to conceal the truth - George Carlin

 

 

The amplified political hyperbole that is increasing as the end of the political season winds its way towards the November elections leaves little to the imagination and with hardly any substance for critical thinking.  This art form, that has been mastered by the Republicans for the last three decades, has taught Democrats that they too must incorporate emotional language and over-the-top rhetoric to persuade voters to choose a side.

The claims by extremes on both sides of the political divide that generate bitter feelings become verbal daggers that injure and rupture the civil dialogue that struggles to get some footing in a conversation that should be helping us move forward as a nation in the 21st century.   But who and what motivates this form of communication, to what extent and to what end?

George Carlin sums it up pretty well

 

Carlin makes two cogent points that all of us need to assimilate into our thinking as we decide how we will vote later this year.

  1. “Politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice.  You don’t”
  2. What the “real owners” of this country (wealthy, corporate special interests) don’t want is “a population of citizens capable of critical thinking …”

Both political Parties appeal to the average American but both have too many deep ties to wealthy special interests.  Yet one more than the other has gone out of its way to serve this wealthy special interests above and beyond what seems sane.  Anyone who reads my blog regularly knows this comment is aimed at the GOP, the Party that’s lost their traditional ties with the values and ideas of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and climbed on board the gravy train of the Koch Brothers, Goldman-Sachs, Rupert Murdoch, Exxon-Mobil and Richard Mellon Scaife.  Men and financial institutions who serve their profits and investors over the needs of a public left to fend for themselves when economic hard times hit us.  These are the people who foster the notion that “trickle down” economics really works and who put their vast wealth behind people and organizations who aid them in spreading this message.

Be very cautious then of those who use language that unflinchingly supports corporate special interests in the guise of being “free market” champions while denouncing government as an evil that needs to be shrunk to a size that can be drowned in a bath tub.  Claims by some of an out of control government are more likely to be fostered by those who would create a smoke screen to avert attention from those who themselves benefit greatly from government largess, such as the oil, coal and natural gas industries and many top financial institutions.

Honest application of free market principles along with reasonable restraints and some government oversight is the best combination to ensure greed will be kept in check and opportunity limited only by the people’s lack of energy and drive.  For those who would praise the business model as one by which we should all be governed, keep in mind that besides the fact that many businesses fail, such models do not seek to create a broad consensus but one that benefits and enhances the fortunes of just a few -  their owners and their investors.  Consumers only have a voice after the fact when enough of them come together as a force to prevent corporations from practices detrimental to their health and well-being, making the business model a reactive one rather than a proactive force.

 

Our Constitution does not, contrary to fanatical points of view, countenance unrestrained free markets, nor did the father of capitalism, Adam Smith.  There is no guiding “invisible hand” of the markets that can constrain the insatiable greed of those who monopolize our natural resources and the elected officials who do their bidding.

It is true that capitalistic doctrines do not guarantee that all of us will share wealth equally but it does hold that when the rules are applied honestly and within a reasonable competitive framework, there will be equality of opportunity for all who strive to earn a measure of wealth that sustains them and their family.

Many of those who claim to want to “take our country back” have made a pact with the self-serving interests of Ayn Rand-style, laissez-faire free marketers such as the astro-turf front groups Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works that are heavily funded by Koch Industries.  They have allowed themselves to be enticed to relive an era that may have been simpler in so many ways but forget that it was a time when women  were considered second class citizens, blacks were still in bondage almost exclusively and only white, male property owners could vote.  They use the Constitution as a bludgeon to beat down those people who would argue that it is a living document.  Not as something that was etched in granite, but intended to “form a more perfect union” over time, implying that as the dynamics of our economy and culture changed, the flexibility of the law would adapt to the necessary changes to move forward in the future.

When you’re finished changing, you’re finished – Ben Franklin

 

The Constitution of the U.S. is worded in a broad defining language so as not to inhibit our future growth.  To presume that what it doesn’t specifically say can be interpreted as a statement that disallows a rationale look at issues unforeseen by the men of that time is to imply that the framers were troglodytes rather than the Renaissance men of vision they were  All of us need to be on alert from being lulled into an anti-government state of mind by people who promote the self-interest of a few over the general welfare of all people.

RELATED ARTICLE

Posted by in 2012 Presidential Elections, Corporate Influence Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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If my elected official is a person …

October 19, 2011

The Supreme Court ruled last year in Citizens United v. FEC that money is the same as speech, giving further currency to corporate personhood.  Money is a big motivator and you can find some highly motivated politicians in both Parties.  So next time you have contact with your elected official don’t feel uneasy if you think you’re really talking to a corporation.  You probably are.  I cite some examples here.

 

If my elected official is a person, why does it feel like I’m dealing  with a Pharmaceutical corporation?  Why do I get the feeling that their reason for not allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for millions of older Americans is merely a placebo suppository I’m expected to believe is really for my own good?

If my elected official is a person, why does it feel like I’m dealing with conEdison.  Why am I shocked when I read my elected official is opposed to the EPA monitoring toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants that can make me ill and kill me.

If my elected official is a person, why does it feel like I’m dealing with CIGNA Health Insurance Corp.?  Why do I feel that their explanations about “market-based solutions” to correct the high cost of health care is advise from Daffy Duck who’s on high levels of Demerol?

If my elected official is a person, why does it feel like I am dealing with Exxon-Mobil?  Why do I feel as I am being asked to bend over so they can apply some lubrication where the sun don’t shine?

If my elected official is a person, why does it feel like I’m dealing with Bank of America?  Why do I feel like every time I get a letter or an e-mail from congressman I’m being informed that my credit is still good but that now there will be a $50 surcharge if I don’t use their card more than once a week?

 

I support OccupyWallStreet

Posted by in Corporate Influence, Humor, Society and Politics Tags: , , , , , ,

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“CO2 is Our Friend” says Mass Producers of the Chemical – Big Oil, Coal and Gas

August 15, 2011

How far will some go to present a half truth as something more than it is?

Today’s lesson children is about the pros and cons of CO2.  The Oil, Coal and Natural Gas industries are here to prevent the bogey men in the climate science field from frightening you about it.  We have put together this colorful children’s book – and parents  need not be reluctant to enlighten their own misunderstanding of  CO2 – to convince you that there is no need to fear CO2 from our waste product gathering abundantly in the atmosphere.  CO2 is a vital life form and important for our survival


One of the great benefits of CO2 is that it is transformed into oxygen through the photosynthesis process that plants are associated with.  Oxygen is of course essential to all living beings so this transformation process is a good thing about CO2.  

I have taken the liberty here to present to you as I think the authors intended regarding a recent publication that was printed for attendees at the recent meeting of the American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC).   The publication is entitled “The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment” or “How humanity and the rest of the Biosphere will prosper from this amazing trace gas that so many have wrongfully characterized as a dangerous pollutant.”   The authors of the piece are C. D. and S. B. Idso.  S.B Idso, or Sherman to his father, C.D. Idso, is president of his father’s Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, an ExxonMobil funded think tank.  More about  this later.

The Idsos are some of those out there that think that all we need to know about CO2 is the brief positive side I presented at the beginning of this article.  There really is another side to the production of CO2 that doesn’t paint as pretty a picture, but it’s more scary stuff and there are those like Sherwood and C.D. who want to shield you from this.  This may seem a good thing because as children we don’t want to be afraid of our world, even if the danger is real and the failure to know about it will only make the threat worse.

A couple of the things you will not find in the Idso’s literature is that all things in excess are harmful and unless there are sufficient plants to convert this CO2 into oxygen it has no real value to life.  Mowing down forests to build another mall or housing developments could have a negative affect on this vital process.

People like the Idsos that fail to present a complete picture which includes the scary side of CO2, are also closely tied to those who make lots and lots of money from producing tons and tons of CO2.  So much in fact that the excess it creates throws the natural balance of CO2 out of whack on our planet and is having serious ill effects on all living creatures.  Who are these people you may ask?  They are of course the very people who provide the dirty, finite energy sources that fuel your SUVS and heat your homes and businesses.

 

These energy sources are referred to as fossil fuels because they are “formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms,” like dinosaurs and old trees.  When this fuel is extracted from its source under the ground and is spent as energy it returns the CO2 NOT to its original inert state but primarily into the atmosphere, mingling with other CO2 molecules that have been there for millennium.  This is where it can be a threat to all of us.

As the CO2 gathers in the atmosphere it adds to that natural contingent of CO2 along with the other green house gases of water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.  These green house gases in the atmosphere provide a barrier for our planet from receiving too much direct radiant heat from the sun while also capturing some of that heat to prevent the planet from totally freezing over.  Read all about it here.  It is this natural balance of chemicals thus that sustain the planet and once this balance is lost, life as we know it is altered significantly, even to the point of ours and the demise of all other life forms.

We were not aware of this reality until scientific methods and tools were able to measure such things as early as the late 19th century.  Scientists who specialize in this field are called “climatologist” and they have discovered that our planet has lost this natural balance a few times over the millions and millions of years that Earth has been around.  I know the Bible says that Earth has only been around for a little over 5000 years but the gentlemen who wrote this also thought the earth was flat.  We now know better thanks to scientists.

But I digress.  What does all of this have to do with scary stories of CO2 and the people who sell and support the use of fossil fuels.  Well, it seems they have become concerned about the prospects that this knowledge will have some adverse affects on their business and thus their ability to make money.  By making the public aware that the use of fossil fuels is adding to the greenhouse effect which is heating up the planet at higher than natural rates, they have become fearful that you may stop buying their products and convert to cleaner, renewable energy sources out of concern for your health and the health of your family.

Science is a tool for all mankind.  It is no different for those who run the fossil fuel industry.  It’s been utilized to make the fuel sources we use in a variety of ways.  So it is difficult for the fossil fuel industries to lash out at science as the bogey man, much like religion has done for centuries since Galileo pointed out the biblical error of the Earth being the center of the universe.

No, instead of making that mistake the fossil fuel industry simply claimed that the scientists that study climate change (remember what we called them – CLIMATOLOGISTS) were wrong in their findings.  But to help them do this they had to have other scientists refute that.  No one stepped forward immediately when originally asked so they told them that they would pay anyone who could find fault with the science of climate change to create the illusion that there was no real threat in using their product.

ZME Science blog puts it more succinctly:

“The thing is, you don’t have to convince people that climate change isn’t happening – all you have to do is cast some doubt on that, and people will no longer be certain, and this is a strategy that has been successfully tested by tobacco companies, almost at the same level, and coffee companies, at a much lower level. Basically, you keep the public confused about the idea, and a confused public is much, much better than a public who is against you.    SOURCE

 

Now, man being the self-interested slug that Ayn Rand says we are in her writings like Atlas Shrugged, provided the means to influence a few scientist like the Idsos (who by the way are not climatologists) to suggest that maybe global warming was not a threat or at least that man-made global warming through increased usage of fossil fuels was not a valid scientific concept.  However, there were only a handful of climatologists who were willing to sell their souls to the industry while the consensus of climate scientists refused to break from their discipline that held peer-reviewed documents strongly favored the effects of CO2 from fossil fuels on global warming.

So to counter this the fossil fuel owners convinced other scientists whose specialty was not in the climate science arena  (the Idsos work in the field of geology, or what most of us know as rocks) to get on board with them to refute the consensus and the preponderance of evidence that supports the climate science on man-made global warming.  Along with this endeavor they also started contributing to the coffers of some conservative politicians to go on the offensive with them, like Oklahoma’s Senator James Inhofe and Texas Congressman Joe Barton; those whose states had abundance resources of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.

Conservatives are natural enemies of liberals so they employed the straw man argument that all climate scientists and their lay supporters were liberals and were in on some sort of conspiracy with Al Gore to end the use of cheap, dirty fossil fuels so they could jack up energy prices and make a killing in the market.  They never really clearly explained this but most people are easily duped anyway, thinking that if rich people and their politicians are claiming this then it must be true.

 If Lucy is Big Oil then we must be Charlie Brown

But even this didn’t seem to be having the overwhelming affect on the public as they intended so they have tried to take the positive aspects of CO2 that I mentioned at the outset of this article and are now trying to convince that CO2 is our friend, not our enemy.  This is where the Idsos and their literature come in.  The fossil fuel-friendly industries like Koch Industries and Exxon/Mobil were handing this literature out to its political minions in New Orleans last week at the 38th annual meeting of the American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC).  ALEC is where big industries get together with your elected officials and create model legislation for them that helps their corporate interest while being passed off as legislation your elected officials created for the good of their constituents.

Now it is important to note two misconceptions on the front page of the Idsos’ literature.  First, CO2 enhancement is not an argument that has arisen within the climate science studies of man-made global warming.  This is another straw man argument that some in the climate deniers camp have been paid by fossil fuel producers to generate.  CO2, as was mentioned above is necessary to the vitality of all life and when present in proper amounts, does indeed enhance the biosphere.

Secondly, no one on the climate science side has “wrongfully characterized this ‘trace gas’ as a dangerous pollutant.”   This is another facade generated by climate deniers to throw poorly informed people off the track as to the core concern on this issue.  The front page of the Idsos literature is therefore gravely misleading.

So, don’t be deceived.  CO2 is good in proper amounts. But like anything in abundance it can prove harmful.  Merely ask any surviving suicide case (if you can find them) who used a plastic bag or an enclosed garage with the car engine running in their attempt to kill themselves.  And don’t be fooled with the argument that tropical fruit being grown and produced in northern Canada  is a boon for society.  Those who will experience the extreme heats and desertification of this climate change south of Canada will find little to cheer about on Canada’s new crop growing ability.

RESOURCE:

Wikipedia on Fossil Fuels 

Posted by in Climate Science/Global Warming, Corporate Influence Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Traditional Liberals and Conservatives Need to Resist their Neo-imitators

July 31, 2011

In political parlance for some time now there has been the distinction between liberals and conservatives and their extreme fringes.  But this political dichotomy no longer fully serves what’s being represented in government these days.  There is a new breed of conservative and liberal and though they have been around for a couple of decades now, little is made mention of them at the level it needs to be.  

Insert the prefix “neo” before both conservative and liberal and you find that you have a whole new animal, where both have one thing in common that their more traditional elements lack in comparison.  Both neos are corporate devotees, representing the interests of multi-national and highly profitable corporations along with financial investors and stockholders, over small businesses and the labor force in this and other countries.

Both new, corporate-friendly liberals and conservatives preach the benefits of the “free market”.  If a distinction can be made it’s that neo-liberals still try to advance the needs of the general populace with an emphasis on the powerless in societies while conservatives advance the notion that the wealthy will create jobs with their gains and thus allow the “natural consequences” of self-interests dictate who benefits and who doesn’t.

Where this change tends to harm the traditional aspects of the political divide is that corporations are now the main driving force in the halls of local, state and federal governments and their agencies that have been established to “serve the people”.  When push comes to shove, the individual, the community and the small business entrepreneur are shoved to the rear to allow room for the bigger, wealthier corporate interests.  I noted in an earlier article that an entity known as ALEC, the American Legislative Executive Council, has been making “model’ legislation that fits the needs around corporations and passed on to legislative bodies to be represented as the work of elected officials.

On their website, ALEC Exposed, the Center for American Democracy describes this shady group as follows:

ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) Corporations fund almost all of ALEC’s operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. We agree. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door.

More than 98% of ALEC’s revenues come from sources other than legislative dues, such as corporations, corporate trade groups, and corporate foundations. Each corporate member pays an annual fee of between $7,000 and $25,000 a year, and if a corporation participates in any of the nine task forces, additional fees apply, from $2,500 to $10,000 each year. ALEC also receives direct grants from corporations, such as $1.4 million from ExxonMobil from 1998-2009. It has also received grants from some of the biggest foundations funded by corporate CEOs in the country, such as: the Koch family Charles G. Koch Foundation, the Koch-managed Claude R. Lambe Foundation, the Scaife family Allegheny Foundation, the Coors family Castle Rock Foundation, to name a few. Less than 2% of ALEC’s funding comes from “Membership Dues” of $50 per year paid by state legislators, a steeply discounted price that may run afoul of state gift bans.

Some of the more well-known corporations that participate and fund ALEC are AT&T, Bayer Corp., Coca-Cola, Exxon/Mobil and of course, Wal-Mart.  The full corporate list can be found here.

The encroachment of wealthy and powerful corporations into our democratic republic has been a concern since the earliest days of our nation’s founding.  Joel Bakan informs us in his groundbreaking work, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Power. “that corporations were originally created for very limited purposes but that they have grown over time into entities in some ways more powerful than national governments.”

The first boost they received from their allies in Congress  and the Courts was in the 1886 Supreme Court decision in Santa Clara County v. the Southern Pacific Railroad.  The actual ruling does not connote corporate personhood but a pro-corporate court reporter who once worked for a railroad company conveyed to a publication, United States Reports, following the trial:

“The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations.”

From this point on, corporations were seen as persons by the Court.  Source

Just recently the Republican-appointed judges on the Roberts Supreme Court further enhanced the notion of corporate citizen in the highly controversial court decision, Citizens United vs the FEC, a decision that President Obama decried in his 2010 State of the Union Speech.

“In short, this decision gives corporations and other special interests the power to spend unlimited amounts of money — literally millions of dollars — to affect elections throughout our country.  This, in turn, will multiply their influence over decision-making in our government.”  Barack Obama, Jan. 2010


Thomas Jefferson conveyed similar concerns in stronger language over 200 years ago.  Shortly after the new Constitutional government was formed he expressed his hope that we, as a nation would “crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”  After leaving office he further contended in 1816 that “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

Other presidents in our history were equally fearful of the creeping hand of corporatism into our government bodies.  In 1864 Lincoln conveyed to Col. William F. Elkins in a letter stating “I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”  Nearly three-quarters of a century later Franklin Roosevelt would also write a military acquaintance, telling Colonel E. Mandell House, “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson.”


Today, many in the traditional groups of conservatives and liberals have been enticed to associate with these more  corporate-friendly versions, not realizing that the language they use, though familiar on some levels to them, is really new-speak to promote an interest that subvert real grass-roots efforts and small business concerns.  The Tea Party movement, originally an expression of this “independent” spirit that was more prominent in colonial days has been hijacked by moneyed interest and usurped the power of the people in more traditional conservative persuasions.

The neo-liberals have tried to make their more traditional elements look like radicals and something to be avoided.  An example of this was displayed by Obama’s former press secretary Robert Gibbs who “dismissed the ‘professional left’ in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, ‘They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality’.”

The “right” and the “left” will exist for the foreseeable future but right now the traditional members of both ideologies share a common concern and perhaps should join forces opposing the strength of corporate interests over grass-roots interests.  If we allow ourselves to be caught up in the neo conversion’s view of Americana, we may well find ourselves at a point similar to the early colonist in the late 18th century when the British throne and their aristocracy in the several states dictated life to their American subjects.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Obama is NOT “Caving” to Corporate Interests 

The Cult That Is Destroying America 

Posted by in Corporate Influence Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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Taxes – Every American Needs to Pay Their Fair Share

April 1, 2011

Those who have more are bucking the system and laughing all the way to the bank.

“I hope we shall… crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1816

The experience that Thomas Jefferson and other early colonials had with chartered corporations of the British crown and their monopolistic grants inferred to them left many  in the newly formed democracy with acrimonious feelings.  To men like Jefferson they were objects of greed that sought to expand their commercial enterprises beyond their charter’s grant.  This proved prophetic as corporate personhood proponents pushed their agenda through the courts in the 19th and 20th century; culminating in a status beyond most people’s wildest expectations in Citizens United vs. FEC just last year.

In that case the conservative majority in a 5-4 decision went beyond the actual merits of the case and declared that money was equal to speech and no entity could be prevented from spending on political campaigns.  This was a major departure from 100 years of legal precedent.  For all intents and purposes corporations now have virtually the same rights as citizens but without some of the responsibilities in areas that can ultimately create the monopolistic authority that many of the earlier colonials had dreaded.

Though there are efforts to undo what the Roberts court has created, it is likely that this  monster will never be completely put back in its container and we will have to deal with it at every point where it’s practices become corrupt.  No matter what the outcome of these efforts are we should perhaps address our concerns with the current status of corporations as “citizens” by keeping them under the spotlight and expose their abuses when they occur.

We should start with a practice that has been around for quite a while now and go after their legalized theft of depriving the U.S. treasury its due revenue from business taxes.  One of the most recent examples of this is where G.E.,  the largest corporation in this country, made some $10.3 billion in profits last year and paid zero dollars in taxes.   They were able to achieve this through the zealous efforts of their pawn’s in Congress who have enacted legislation enabling corporations to move their money to offshore and foreign accounts where corporate profits were immune from the laws of the land.

In fact, many of the loopholes that enable  corporations to eschew their fair share of taxes negate the oft heard whine by proponents that the U.S. has the largest corporate tax than nearly every other country around the world.  The rate is high at 35% but is seldom realized because of such loopholes that in effect create lower tax rates than many working families pay.  To pour salt into this wound, many corporations are also subsidized with federal funds as a part of other legislation that allows them to circumvent using their profits to reinvest in their business and instead often goes to their bottom line in the form of bigger dividends for shareholders and large bonuses for CEOs and other upper management personnel.

click on image to enlarge

Staying with the G.E. model, this multinational conglomerate receives 2 – 3 federal energy grants every month which has totaled over $300 million in the first decade of this century.  Subsidies during this period amount to $5.38 billion.  Furthermore, they spent $19.5 million lobbying the government for more subsidies while posting more than $2.94 Billion in net profits for the fourth quarter of 2010 alone.  And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it turns out G.E. doesn’t even create U.S. manufacturing jobs because all products G.E. makes are manufactured abroad in cheaper labor markets.

Exxon-Mobil who made higher profits last year than they or any other corporation has ever made, contributed NOTHING to the U.S. treasury in business taxes by virtue of their offshore shells that allow them to evade their responsibility to help pay for the physical and intellectual infrastructure this country requires to remain competitive with world markets.  In fact, a study by the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, the Government Accountability Office showed that two-thirds of all U.S. corporations paid no taxes from 1998 to 2005. (SOURCE)

Pat Garafalo with Think Progress’s Wonk Room reported back in April 2009 that major U.S. corporations were able to have their effective tax rate lowered so significantly that over $100 billion dollars in needed revenue passed to real citizens in this country and at a time when many were losing their jobs and their homes.  For all of the ranting and raving about the high tax rate U.S. companies have to pay, the legislation passed by corporate friendly legislators in Washington saw companies like G.E. obligated to pay taxes at only a 5.5% rate; a rate considerably lower than the 20-25% rate many real people pay who make less than $100,000 a year. (Corporations Lowering Their Tax Rate More Than 20 Points Due To Offshore Deferral by Pat Garafalo, The Wonk Room, 4/22/09)

In their zeal to regain the America they feel they have lost, Tea Party candidates have attacked public welfare spending to lower the deficit but have ignored the much larger corporate welfare that burdens this country.  As citizens we are obligated to pay our fair share of taxes.  Without taxes to pay for essentials that encourage business and promote the general welfare of its citizens, this country would come to grinding halt.   Yet it is the real people of this country who are left footing the bill for not only this but getting stuck with the tab for bailing out a crooked financial system while their friends in high places turn a blind eye to the abuses they have helped create.

How much more will the average working family tolerate before they fully grasp that those who cry the loudest about taxation are the least likely to have the best interests of this country at heart?

RESOURCES:

corporate personhood (wikipedia)

the legal fiction of corporate personhood

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