Billionaires fund attacks on climate science

[Glacier]

I don't know if you've noticed, but the American government is on the brink of bankruptcy. You don't hand out more money at a time when you cannot afford to do it.

There are already lots of green projects in the U.S. and Canada. A whopping 7% of Texas' power comes from wind. This is huge. It's more wind power than all the wind power in Canada and Denmark (the wind capital of the world) combined.

[logicalview]

There are plenty of efficient, environmentally forward ways to generate power. Look at Hydro, Solar, Wind and Nuclear. Then there are programs like the above mentioned, essentially taking waste and creating energy with it. The problem is these kinds of programs do not necessarily benefit an economy or corporation, so there is little incentive unless public policy-makers make it happen. Without knowing a lot about how Sweden or Germany run their programs, I am willing to bet their Solar Power programs and Waste Incineration programs are either largely publicly funded or subsidized at the very least. m

Wind and solar are anything but efficient and wind isn't even environmentally friendly when you factor in bird kills, noise, pollution generated by construction and environmental costs of disposition. But if all current "environmentally friendy" iniatives were judged this way then no one would drive a Prius either.

[logicalview]

500,000 Iraqi's are not killed on behalf of "Al Gores business plan".

They are killed on behalf of Standard Oil's business plan.

The minute the likes of Al Gore and David Suzuki can command armies and get countries to invade countries is the same minute I start to think that "green companies" have more to lose that oil companies.

These type of blind zealot answers really serve no purpose other than to turn a complex issue of taxpayer subsidized energy into a black and white "us vs them" nonsensical argument. It just polarizes the debate in an attempt to make anyone who doesn't think we should throw billions of dollars at every idea no matter how far fetched as morally inferior. That's just wrong. Yes wars get fought over resources like energy. So that means every shyster with a bad idea should get a multi-million dollar taxpayer funded pay day? Ridiculous.

[SurplusElect]

Oil companies are bigger than governments. Oil companies get countries to start wars on their behalf so they can make more money

Standard Oil sold more oil to Germany during WWII than it did to the Allies.
They were charged but not convicted of treason - guess why?

You really think the biggest companies on the planet are going to let some hippies and scientists stand in their way?

They kill 500,000 people and its "part of business".

Yet you are afraid of the grand power and global influence of - the hippies.

[StraitTalk]

Wind and solar are anything but efficient and wind isn't even environmentally friendly when you factor in bird kills, noise, pollution generated by construction and environmental costs of disposition. But if all current "environmentally friendy" iniatives were judged this way then no one would drive a Prius either.

Okay. Okay. I really can't stand hearing this same song and dance and please, if you plan to live up to your username, you need to base your argument on a little more or at least bring up some evidence.

I'll approach it point by point.

Kills Birds: Yes, it does, and I hope this is something they can soon fix. But let's put this into perspective, shall we?

According to http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/pol ... 032212.pdf, an estimated 440,000 birds are killed annually by Wind Turbines in the Unites States of America. That is a whopping number of birds no doubt, and no matter what, it has to come down. But did you know, 80,000 birds are killed every year by airplanes (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/off ... dogs_N.htm), and between 1 and 9 million birds are killed annualy by flying into buildings in Toronto alone? (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/world ... d=all&_r=0)

I'm not trying to justify it by any means, just trying to provide some perspective as numbers are just numbers unless you know relatively what they represent. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in the United Kingdom feels that appropriately situated Wind Farms pose little threat to birds. (http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/policy/w ... index.aspx)

Noise:

A wind energy trade organization in the UK, "Renewable UK" has said that the noise measured 300 metres from a wind farm is less than that from road traffic or in an office. Where this still might become a problem is even with the quiet sound, some claim it has caused mental and physical complications like vertigo and headaches. I have no sources on this, but I've read it all over the place. The simple solution to this is again, placement. You can't base the noise issues off of complaints from people who have them in their backyard. There are plenty of places we can put wind turbines, and so far the best idea I've seen is large wind farms situated in the ocean many kilometers off the shore in shallow areas to prevent both noise and bird mortality issues.

Pollution (Generated by the construction):

Okay, I really hope you're kidding on this one. You don't even have to read any further to know that any kind of construction creates pollution. This isn't the magical fairy land of far-far-away where some energy sources are pollution-free to build. Let's look at a couple of our alternatives..

- Coal Mines:

"Coal mining can result in a number of adverse effects on the environment. Surface mining of coal completely eliminates existing vegetation, destroys the genetic soil profile, displaces or destroys wildlife and habitat, degrades air quality, alters current land uses, and to some extent permanently changes the general topography of the area mined, This often results in a scarred landscape with no scenic value. Rehabilitation or reclamation mitigates some of these concerns and is required by US Federal Law, specifically the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977."

( U.S. Department of the Interior. 1979. Permanent Regulatory Program Implementing Section 501(b) of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977: Environmental Impact Statement. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior.)

Here is a beautiful example:

http://thieverycorp.files.wordpress.com ... mining.jpg

- Nuclear Power: I don't think I have to go into much detail here. Approximately 10,000 tonnes of high-level radioactive waste are created every year around the world and must be stored in safe, remote and often geologically deep locations. You can read about it here: Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power. Many would argue that currently it is a very manageable levels as long as it's dealt with responsibly, and there are even methods to reduce the radioactivity down from thousands of years down to hundreds. There is, the obvious construction of these facilities which, no kidding, creates pollution, but apparently that is worth mentioning as you used it as an argument against Wind and Solar...

- Hydro-Electric Power: Again, the construction is quite intensive and with all construction comes pollution. Feel free at any point to indicate what you meant as an alternative when you used this as an argument as I am already annoyed I have to counterpoint it. This is one of the cleaner forms of electricity today, and China has recognized this as they are currently working on something like a dozen or more Hydro-electric projects to reduce their dependence on fossil-fuel powered plants.

The major downsides are that they displace people and wildlife on massive scales. They harm local ecosystems and can devastate fish populations in many situations, depending on location.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... eDam01.jpg

I am not sure what you meant by the the "environmental costs of disposition." Feel free to elaborate on that.

In conclusion: If there was an easy answer, we'd already be doing it. You have to look at this with an Investment vs Return attitude. What is it going to cost in regards to money, wildlife, quality of life, pollution, etc.? How much money will it save, how much wildlife will it affect, and how much less pollution will it create in it's lifetime before it has to be replaced? This above-all is the most important thing to look at. It's not black and white and I really dislike how so many treat it that way.

[logicalview]

Oil companies are bigger than governments. Oil companies get countries to start wars on their behalf so they can make more money

Standard Oil sold more oil to Germany during WWII than it did to the Allies.
They were charged but not convicted of treason - guess why?

You really think the biggest companies on the planet are going to let some hippies and scientists stand in their way?

They kill 500,000 people and its "part of business".

Yet you are afraid of the grand power and global influence of - the hippies.

Sigh. That wind rushing by your ears Bago was my point. I'll try one more time and will try to stick to the renewable energy tangent this thread has taken, even though I think it would be hilarious to hear how a company that went defunct in 1911 was still able to sell oil to the Nazis in the 1940's. Let's stay with this Middle East nonsense. There are many reasons why people are supportive of alternative energies to fossil fuels. Why you continue on promoting what is the worst possible reason is baffling. People in general hate the sanctimonious preaching method coupled with red herrings. You are taking a complex multi-layered issue and using self imposed false guilt as some sort of tool to justify turning a blind eye to billions of dollars of malfeasance in the renewable energy industry. Most people just aren't going to buy that blarney, and sadly you'll lose more people than you gsin with this approach. Even sadder, I doubt you will ever understand this.

Carry on, I do find your butchering of historical events to suit your agenda quite entertaining!

[kibbs]

It is true we have no real power over the powers that be.Green politics and wind and solar are all just consumer shifts and not true environmental solutions.With India and china just starting to pollute we have another century of environmental destruction and mass consumerism before even the global consciousness begins to change .True green tech is still being abandoned globally .Animals and bikes are passe

[logicalview]

Strait:

Firstly, I commend you on the effort it took to make that post. Secondly, I regret I am traveling and so won't be able to give you the reply you deserve. Thirdly, I suggest if you are amenable that we start a new thread regarding wind power if you really want to get into this topic. Finally, I admit I probably have gone a bit overboard with all the "fraud" talk and that's been not very conducive to discussion. Let's just say that I feel claims by climate change alarmists have been grossly exaggerated, and that despite billions of taxpayers money being spent, researchers in this field of "science" haven’t made even a minute correlation between increased C02 in the atmosphere and changes in earth's climate. Zero. Anyone who says otherwise is blatantly lying. At any rate...Here's a much too short response on your good post:

Re pollution from building wind turbines:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive ... KDynLsRY...

Hope the link works. Essentially, wind turbines require magnets made from rare earth minerals. The process to make them is just plain awful for the environment. But out of Site, out of mind right?

Birds: once again the argument that bird kills by turbines are okay as its all relative. Remember to tell the animal rights people and environmental extremists the next time 100 ducks die in a tailings pond and they have a heart attack. Also - have a check on what turbines have done to the bat population in Southern Alberta.

Finally, you ignored the biggest elephant in the room, efficiency. Wind turbines are horribly inefficient. Got to run, will try to post more later.

[Static]

Alternative forms of energy will become mainstream form of energy once the alternative becomes price competitive, period.

[SurplusElect]

I think it would be hilarious to hear how a company that went defunct in 1911 was still able to sell oil to the Nazis in the 1940's.

Carry on, I do find your butchering of historical events to suit your agenda quite entertaining!

Rockefeller, Jr. appointed William Farish chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey which was later rechristened Exxon. Farish lead a close partnership with his company and I. G. Farben, the German pharmaceutical giant whose primary raison d'etre was to occlude ownership of assets and financial transactions between the two companies, especially in the event of war between the companies' respective nations.

This combine opened the Auschwitz prison camp on June 14, 1940 to produce artificial rubber and gasoline from coal using proprietary patents rights granted by Standard. Standard Oil and I. G. Farben provided the capital and technology while Hitler supplied the labor consisting of political enemies and Jews. Standard withheld these patents from US military and industry but supplied them freely to the Nazis.

Farish plead “no contest” to criminal conspiracy with the Nazis. A term of the plea stipulated that Standard would provide the US government the patent rights to produce artificial rubber from Standard technology while Farish paid a nominal 5,000 USD fine

Frank Howard, a vice president at Standard Oil NJ, wrote Farish shortly after war broke out in Europe that he had renewed the business relationship described above with Farben using Royal Dutch Shell mediation top provide an additional layer of opacity. The letter explicitly stated that such an agreement would continue even if the two countries went to war which in fact happened on December 8, 1941.

The Truman committee, which was investigating various aspects of wartime industrial affairs, also found out from the Justice Department that Standard Oil had withheld patents from the US Navy which had been supplied to the Nazis. Worse yet, the department revealed that Standard Oil had been supplying the Luftwaffe and German Navy gasoline and tetraethyl lead.

[logicalview]

*removed/Jo*

[SurplusElect]

How did the Luftwaffe get their planes off the ground if the only people producing tetraethyl lead gas were "Standard Oil" break up companies? The facts are there and part of the public record.

This is not the most celebrated part of WWII and "a free market economy". When you get to write the history books some facts stay up front and some stay in the back pages. IBM made the machines to count Jews as they went into the gas chambers. Bayer made the gas that killed them. Lots of companies profited while selling their wares to Germany. Gotta love Capitalism!

The point is that if these oil companies will gladly profit off of slave labor in Auschwitz , you think they will have a problem selling lies that will ruin the planet just so they can make more cake?

They can snap their fingers and start wars and kill for profit.

[logicalview]

How did the Luftwaffe get their planes off the ground if the only people producing tetraethyl lead gas were "Standard Oil" break up companies? The facts are there and part of the public record..

Sigh. Many many companies, including many Canadian companies, sold product to Germany prior to WW2. It was called survival, as the world was in a major Depression, and the Germans were buying. So what? If you are trying to say that oil was sold to the Germans after they declared war on the US, please show us these "facts". Here's your "source": http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_04.htm a website for crackpots. I find it interesting that you use the term "facts", yet continue to quote no facts at all, but lie with impugnity. But that's not the point. The original lie about how "Standard Oil" supplied the Germans with more oil in WW2 than the Allies has suddenly changed, without any apology from you whatsoever. That was a huge massive lie. Did you not think you wouldn't get caught? Seriously - why would you tell such a massive lie?

IBM made the machines to count Jews as they went into the gas chambers. Bayer made the gas that killed them. Lots of companies profited while selling their wares to Germany. Gotta love Capitalism!
..

Yes it is IBM's fault that they built a machine, and the Germans used it as part of their accounting systems. By this same misguided logic, Boeing is to blame for 9/11 because they built the planes that were flown into the towers. This is just plain crazy. Of course many companies "sold wares to Germany". No one was at war with them until 1939. Only a fool would judge the actions taken by people 70 years ago. I have no doubt your relatives sold goods to pre-war Germany, as did many others, and they made a profit. Would you have been happier if they had not profited, but instead just given everything to Germany for free? Nuts!

The point is that if these oil companies will gladly profit off of slave labor in Auschwitz , you think they will have a problem selling lies that will ruin the planet just so they can make more cake?

They can snap their fingers and start wars and kill for profit.

And my point is that this is a terrible and silly point. Snap their fingers and kill for profit? I think you watch too many movies Bago. Good grief. What bugs me most is that people like you just want to spin anything and everything done by anybody in the past who wasn't a rabid socialist extremist in a terrible light. Take the Rockefellers for instance. You could write a whole book about the bad things they did. You could also fill a much bigger book with all the good they did with the money they made. With the introduction of fuel and automobiles, the Rockefellers single-handedly saved many species of whale from extinction. They also made the horse and buggy obsolete, which was important because inhalation of horse fecal matter was becoming a major health hazard in many urban cities. There is a reason Bago why most old houses in New York city only have living quarters on the second story - this was because there was always 8 feet of horse dung piled up outside. Here's some more good things the Rockefellers did to balance some of your hyperbole, rhetoric, and complete misrepresentaion of historical events for your own agenda:

In 1884, Rockefeller provided major funding for a college in Atlanta for African-American women, which became Spelman College (named for Rockefeller's in-laws who were ardent abolitionists before the Civil War).[68] The oldest existing building on Spelman's campus, Rockefeller Hall, is named after him.[69] Rockefeller also gave considerable donations to Denison University[70] and other Baptist colleges.

Rockefeller gave $80 million to the University of Chicago[71] under William Rainey Harper, turning a small Baptist college into a world-class institution by 1900. He also gave a grant to the American Baptist Missionaries foreign mission board, the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society in establishing Central Philippine University, the first Baptist University in Asia, in 1905 in the Philippines.[72][73]

His General Education Board, founded in 1903,[74] was established to promote education at all levels everywhere in the country.[75] In keeping with the historic missions of the Baptists, it was especially active in supporting black schools in the South.[75] Rockefeller also provided financial support to such established eastern institutions as Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley and Vassar. The study had been undertaken by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; it revolutionized the study of medicine in the United States.

Despite his personal preference for homeopathy, Rockefeller, on Gates's advice, became one of the first great benefactors of medical science. In 1901, he founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research[74] in New York City. It changed its name to Rockefeller University in 1965, after expanding its mission to include graduate education.[76] It claims a connection to 23 Nobel laureates.[77] He founded the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission in 1909,[74] an organization that eventually eradicated the hookworm disease,[78] which had long plagued rural areas of the American South. His General Education Board made a dramatic impact by funding the recommendations of the Flexner Report of 1910.

He created the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913[79] to continue and expand the scope of the work of the Sanitary Commission,[74] which was closed in 1915.[80] He gave nearly $250 million to the foundation,[68] which focused on public health, medical training, and the arts. It endowed Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health,[74] the first of its kind.[81] It also built the Peking Union Medical College in China into a notable institution.[70] The foundation helped in World War I war relief,[82] and it employed William Lyon Mackenzie King of Canada to study industrial relations.[83] In the 1920s, the Rockefeller Foundation funded a hookworm eradication campaign through the International Health Board. This campaign used a combination of politics and science, along with collaboration between healthcare workers and government officials to accomplish its goals.[84]

Rockefeller's fourth main philanthropy, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Foundation, was created in 1918.[85] Through this, he supported work in the social studies; this was later absorbed into the Rockefeller Foundation. In total Rockefeller donated about $550 million.

Rockefeller became well known in his later life for the practice of giving dimes to adults and nickels to children wherever he went. He even gave dimes as a playful gesture to wealthy men, such as tire mogul Harvey Firestone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller

No one is perfect. People you support today thinking they are doing good may be responsible for the next horrible atrocity committed on mankind. That's just the way it goes.

[SurplusElect]

*removed/Jo*

[SmokeOnTheWater]

*removed/Jo*