Hillary Clinton snaps at questioner who accuses her of taking money from fossil fuel companies.

Courtesy of TPM: 

Hillary Clinton appeared flustered Thursday when an attendee at a campaign event in New York state asked her if she would reject campaign donations from fossil fuel companies, responding by accusing rival Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) campaign of spreading "lies." 

"I do not have—I have money from people that work for fossil fuel companies," Clinton said, waving her finger at the woman who asked the question. "I am so sick, I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me. I'm sick of it." 

Greenpeace posted video of that exchange online.

Earlier this same day Sanders said this at a Wisconsin rally:

"We don't represent Wall Street. We don't represent the drug companies or the fossil fuel industry. We don't want their money," Sanders said at the rally.

Before I chime in I wanted to share this comment over at TPM that I thought did a pretty good job of explaining why Hillary was a little testy over this question:  

She's making a distinction between taking money from people who work in particular industries and taking money from the industries (which might still be illegal, I haven't checked this week) or their PACs or trade associations. And on one hand, that's a fair gripe and on the other it isn't. 

The reporting sites do tend to just aggregate all the money by the contributor's employer and report as money from that industry. And in some cases, at some companies, with regard to certain employees, that's true--a hat gets passed among executives at some totally not mandatory cocktail party fundraiser the CEO just happens to be holding to which his senior executives just happen to be invited, and it's understood that the check will be written or the Company will be very unhappy. 

But it's also unfair to assume that everyone who writes a candidate a check is doing it on behalf of, or because of, who he or she works for. Plenty of people write campaign checks because they support positions contrary to the wishes or interests of their employers. If some oil employee believes greenhouse gases are destroying the planet and cuts a check to Hillary or Bernie, it's crazy to think they should send that money back because of who the check writer works for. And I'm not seeing any sign that Bernie does that, btw.

Yes, that's an excellent point, with a better explanation than I could have provided. (NPR says that donations from employees of fossil fuel companies only account for two-tenths of one percent of Clinton's overall donations. Hardly enough to signify that they have some special access to the candidate.)

However putting all of that aside the real problem for me is that it feeds into a certain meme put forward by the anti-Hillary folks, and that is that she is not good with people and overly secretive and defensive.

Much as President Obama could not provide ammunition for his opponents to frame him as the "angry black man" Hillary cannot provided ammunition to characterize her as "a bitch."

As Q would say, "Never let them see you bleed."

New report from Greenpeace suggests that the world could be completely off fossil fuels by 2050.

Courtesy of Reneweconomy: 

A new report released by Greenpeace International on Monday has reinforced the view that there are no major economic or technical barriers to shifting the world to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050; nor to the complete phase-out of fossil fuels. All we need now is the political will to do it. 

Greenpeace’s Energy [R]evolution scenario 2015 phases out coal, oil, gas and nuclear energy as fast as technically and economically possible, by expanding the renewable energy share to 42 per cent in 2030, 72 per cent in 2040 and 100 per cent in 2050.

The report also says that the transition will cost a great deal of money, as much as  1 trillion dollars a year, but that the savings are even larger.

“The investment costs for the switch to 100% renewables by 2050 is about $US1 trillion a year,” the report says. 

“But because renewable energies don’t need fuel, the average fuel cost savings are $US1.07 trillion a year. So the investment over the period is met in full (107 per cent) by fuel cost savings, with the cross-over happening between 2025 and 2030. 

Beyond 2050, there are no further fuel costs in renewable energy, thus stabilising energy costs for socities, as well as reducing energy sector emissions to near zero.

I don't know it all might be a little too optimistic, but then again if we don't commit to making it happen we'll never know.

Of course, as we know, the oil and coal companies will do everything in their considerable power to delay this as long as possible.