environment Politics: corporate irresonsibility denialism energy renewables
by Warren
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Year 4, Month 4, Day 6: I’m Not The Only One
Elisabeth Rosenthal has an excellent piece in the NYT on our visions for a future energy economy:
WE will need fossil fuels like oil and gas for the foreseeable future. So there’s really little choice (sigh). We have to press ahead with fracking for natural gas. We must approve the Keystone XL pipeline to get Canadian oil.
This mantra, repeated on TV ads and in political debates, is punctuated with a tinge of inevitability and regret. But, increasingly, scientific research and the experience of other countries should prompt us to ask: To what extent will we really “need” fossil fuel in the years to come? To what extent is it a choice?
As renewable energy gets cheaper and machines and buildings become more energy efficient, a number of countries that two decades ago ran on a fuel mix much like America’s are successfully dialing down their fossil fuel habits. Thirteen countries got more than 30 percent of their electricity from renewable energy in 2011, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency, and many are aiming still higher.
Could we? Should we?
Waxing epistemological here for a minute. March 24:
Resistance to social and technological advances is always rooted in a poverty of imagination. American conservatism’s failure to entertain hypotheticals ensures that their anticipated futures are merely copies of the past — thinking vividly on display in our political and media culture as the necessity of shifting rapidly away from fossil fuels becomes obvious in the light of the climate crisis.
Actually, two mutually reinforcing failures of imagination are at work here. On one hand, the resistance to renewable energy sources, while partly explained by the undeniable cupidity of corporate interests, is at its core a refusal to allow any alternative to the approved vision of a future energy economy. On the other hand is the incapacity to imagine the terrifying realities of the present moment, in which a runaway greenhouse effect is dessicating farmlands, breaking the Arctic, and casting in doubt the future of our civilization and our species.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes corporate irresonsibility denialists fossil fuels Heartland Institute
by Warren
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 1: Let’s Socialize The Profits And Privatize The Losses For A Change!
The Concord Monitor runs an AP article titled: “Climate change skeptics take aim at state energy mandates.” It’s our old buddies at the Heartland Institute!
The Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank skeptical of climate change science, has joined with the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council to write model legislation aimed at reversing state renewable energy mandates across the country.
The Electricity Freedom Act, adopted by the council’s board of directors in October, would repeal state standards requiring utilities to get a portion of their electricity from renewable power, calling it “essentially a tax on consumers of electricity.” Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have binding renewable standards; in the absence of federal climate legislation, these initiatives have become the subject of intense political battles.
The legislative council, or ALEC, is a conservative-leaning group of state legislators from all 50 states that has sought to roll back climate regulation in the past. It lost some corporate sponsors early this year because of its role promoting “stand your ground” laws that allow the use of force in self-defense without first retreating when faced with a serious threat.
But the involvement of the Heartland Institute, which posted a billboard in May comparing those who believe in global warming to domestic terrorist Theodore Kaczynski, shows the breadth of conservatives’ efforts to undermine environmental initiatives on the state and federal level. In many cases, the groups involved accept money from oil, gas and coal companies that compete against renewable energy suppliers.
The Heartland Institute received more than $7.3 million from Exxon Mobil between 1998 and 2010, and nearly $14.4 million between 1986 and 2010 from foundations affiliated with Charles and David Koch, whose firm Koch Industries has substantial oil and energy holdings.
James Taylor, the Heartland Institute’s senior fellow for environmental policy, said he was able to persuade most of ALEC’s state legislators and corporate members to push for a repeal of laws requiring more solar and wind power use on the basis of economics.
“Renewable power mandates are very costly to consumers throughout the 50 states, and we feel it is important that consumers have access to affordable electricity,” Taylor said. “We wrote the model legislation and I presented it. I didn’t have to give that much of a case for it.”
Taylor dismissed the idea that his group pushed for the measure because it has accepted money from fossil-fuel firms: “The people who are saying that are trying to take attention away from the real issue – that alternative energy, renewable energy, is more expensive than conventional energy.”
Fuckers. Sent November 25:
Heartland Institute spokesman James Taylor’s confident assertion that “renewable energy, is more expensive than conventional energy” is disingenous at best, mendacious at worst. While oil, coal and natural gas appear cheaper initially, once externalities are included, the cost goes through the roof. What “externalities?” Well, let’s start with the enormous government subsidies to fossil fuel industries — since our tax money is what makes the price of these conventional energy sources so low to begin with, we’ve already paid once at the pump before we even start filling our tanks.
Next, let’s remember that tankers run aground, pipelines leak, and pumping stations can aren’t exactly disaster-proof. Who cleans up after catastrophic spills? Once again, American taxpayers are on the hook; while companies may pay some fines, these never actually cover the cost of such a disaster. Instead, mopping up and decontamination comes out of our wallets. The public health and environmental effects of coal and oil are handled similarly.
On a larger scale, the grim fact is that America’s military power is often part of the geopolitical strategy of energy. Would conservatives be beating the war drums so vigorously if Iran had no oil? These costs should properly be added to the bill for fossil fuels as well. Finally, it’s no longer feasible to deny either the existence of global climate change or the role of conventional fuels in the accelerating greenhouse effect. Far from being cheap, fossil fuels may well wind up costing us everything we value, and more.
Warren Senders