Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Gov. Bill Walker signed an administrative order Tuesday creating the Alaska Climate Change Strategy as well as forming a leadership team to address climate change in Alaska.
The order also calls for state departments to review previous work on climate change and identify immediate responses they can take.
Walker said the time was now to take a stand against climate change.
"Alaskans should be at the forefront of innovation and response," Walker said. "In addition to developing solutions that ensure community and economic resilience while mitigating environmental harm, we must also engage with national and international partners to strengthen Alaska's voice in global decision-making."
Walker identified the challenge of moving toward renewable energy sources for a state that is so heavily dependent on fossil fuel production, both practically and fiscally.
Walker noted that, while the Legislature continues to struggle to balance the budget, issues related to climate change cannot wait for fiscal stability.
"It’s certainly a challenge in the fiscal situation we’re in right now to go out and look for new money," he said. "There may be ways we use the existing funds more efficiently, and I think we just need to be thinking a little more long term in some of the decisions we make."
As an Alaskan I am very heartened by this proactive attitude coming from the state government, but as a progressive I worry that this is still much too tentative of an approach and decades too late to make enough of a difference.
It should also be noted that President Obama laid out very comprehensive plan for helping Alaska tackle this issue, but when Trump came in he trashed the entire thing.
The same certainly could happen with this if Alaskans are ignorant enough to replace Walker with a GOP governor.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry is cooking up a case to stifle further federal support of renewable wind and solar energy. He’s ordered a dubiously sourced staff study that is aimed to paint renewables as an unreliable source for the nation’s electric grid.
The study, due June 23, seeks to determine whether federal tax and subsidy policies favoring renewable energy have burdened “baseload” coal-fired generation, putting power grid reliability at risk. It is being spearheaded by Energy Department political appointee Travis Fisher, who’s associated with a Washington policy group that opposes almost any government aid for renewable energy.
Fisher wrote a 2015 report for the Institute for Energy Research that called clean energy policies “the single greatest emerging threat” to the nation’s electric power grid, and a greater threat to electric reliability than cyber attacks, terrorism or extreme weather.
The Institute for Energy Research and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance, has been the “influential force in shaping Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle Obama administration climate initiatives,’’ according to Bloomberg News.
The Energy Department is closing an office that works with other countries to develop clean energy technology, another sign of the Trump administration’s retreat on climate-related activities after its withdrawal from the Paris agreement this month.
The 11 staff members of the Office of International Climate and Technology were told this month that their positions were being eliminated, according to current and former agency employees. The office was formed in 2010 to help the United States provide technical advice to other nations seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The small office also played a lead role preparing for the annual Clean Energy Ministerial, a forum in which the United States, China, India and other countries shared insights on how best to promote energy efficiency, electric vehicles and other solutions to climate change.
After all of the hard work that President Obama put into making this country energy independent and moving us away from planet killing fossil fuels, here comes this Texas shit kicker to undo the whole thing.
And while we are all distracted by the Russian investigation Trump and his progress hating cohorts are slowly dismantling all of the advances we have made in the last eight years.
And it is not just in renewable energy. They are also undermining our civil rights, our education system, and even our access to affordable health care.
We need to keep all of this fresh in our minds as we approach 2018. Because that will be our first opportunity to start to put things right again.
With all eyes on President Donald Trump’s announcement to withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has signed an order to “jump-start Alaskan energy”—meaning, in this case, to drill for more oil.
The order pertains to two places: the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska (NPR-A), the largest block of federally managed land in the United States, and the coastal region of the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the so-called “1002 area.” It calls for a “lawful review and development of a revised Integrated Activity Plan” aimed toward increased petroleum production from these lands, Zinke said in a statement. The move will reassess the current management plan, and it calls for an update to estimates about quantities of oil beneath the ground within three weeks.
Attempts to drill in ANWR have been repeatedly defeated in Congress and face stiff opposition from Native Alaskan groups. The announcement was decried by environmental groups. Kristen Miller of the Alaska Wilderness League told the Associated Press that Zinke's order upsets a management plan that the Interior Department spent years creating with tribes, local governments, the state and others. "We and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who actively supported the current management plan will not sit idly by while this administration tries to give these public lands wholesale to the oil industry," Miller said. “ANWR is a national treasure and an amazing piece of land,” echoed Nicole Whittington-Evans, the Wilderness Society’s Alaska regional director, speaking to Fox News. “It is not a place where oil and gas development should be allowed.”
My assumption is that this is nothing more than throwing a bone to Trump's fossil fuel company benefactors so that they can brag to their investors that they are pursuing new drilling opportunities.
We are still in the throes of a crude oil glut, and even without this new exploration in Alaska 2018 is poised to be produce record oil output.
Simply put it is incredibly expensive to drill in the arctic, and that is even before the numerous court battles that are certain to slow down exploration.
It is time for the Republicans to face the fact that renewable energy is the future, and their insistence on pushing for more fossil fuel production is akin to old time investors pouring money into the building of new horse stables and buggy manufacturing plants while the whole world fell in love with the automobile.
The United States will pull out of a landmark global coalition meant to curb emissions that cause climate change, President Donald Trump announced Thursday.
"The United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord," Trump said to applause from the crowd gathered in the White House Rose Garden.
He added that the U.S. will begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accord or a new treaty on terms that are better for American businesses and taxpayers.
"So we're getting out, but we will start to negotiate and we will see if we can make a deal that's fair," he said.
Yeah that suggestion that Trump is going to try to get us a better deal is all bullshit.
Trump has no intention of working that hard unless he gets something from it personally.
JAKE TAPPER (HOST): And Dana, I know a line that the president said that struck a lot of us was when he cast the Paris agreement as quote, "a massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries."
DANA BASH: Right, because the whole theme against President Obama during both of the elections against him was that he was a Democrat who wants to redistribute wealth. That is a buzz word, a signal to conservatives that we got your back and we're going to make sure that sort of the big bad Democrats who want to socialize and globalize and do everything that would hurt you and your jobs won't happen.
And there were a series of those buzz words, it was almost like mad libs for conservatives, this speech, and it was a long one. The thing -- one of the things that struck me is after all of the reporting that we've done about the discussions, and the debates, and the pressure that he got from his daughter, from his -- Ivanka, from his son-in-law Jared, from his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson -- there wasn't an olive branch in here.
It's like those people were walled-off in the writing of this speech, and it was clearly written by the Steve Bannon and Stephen Millers of the world.
And that's really it in a nutshell.
This speech is clear indication that Stephen Bannon is back in the driver's seat and that Trump is dancing to the tune that he is playing.
Reactions to this speech have been rather vocal to say the least.
The Secretary-General of the UN was also quite unhappy:
The decision by the United States to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change is a major disappointment for global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote global security.
California Rep. Speier claims that Trump has now made himself irrelevant.
Rep. Speier on President Trump's decision to pull out of the climate deal: "He has made himself totally irrelevant" https://t.co/Rs1iv6n9db
"The nations that remain in the Paris Agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created," Obama said. "I believe the United States of America should be at the front of the pack."
He added: "But even in the absence of American leadership; even as this administration joins a small handful of nations that reject the future; I'm confident that our states, cities, and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way, and help protect for future generations the one planet we've got."
So What Happens to Earth Now? Still Don't Care? Proof You Should ...and More Proof... ...and Even More Proof... ...Or the Imminent Collapse of a Key Ice Shelf... ...Or Antarctica Turning Green ...Or California's Coast Disappearing Into the Sea
Of course Trump also had his supporters for this decision.
Of course most of them believe that there is no definitive proof the earth is round, think dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time, and believe Donald Trump is really worth 10 billion dollars.
The details of this transition are spelled out in a new, must-read, 4000-word article in the Financial Times, “The Big Green Bang: how renewable energy became unstoppable.”
What is most remarkable about the article is that it appears in the Financial Times. The free-market oriented paper is the “most important business read” for the world’s top financial decision makers and “the most credible publication in reporting financial and economic issues” for global professional investors, according to surveys.
Electric cars that were hard to even buy eight years ago are selling at an exponential rate,” explains FT’s environment correspondent Pilita Clark, “in the process driving down the price of batteries that hold the key to unleashing new levels of green growth.”
Indeed, one key reason the clean energy revolution is unstoppable is the dramatic and ongoing improvements in battery cost and performance. Advanced batteries are game-changing not only for the electrification of transportation, but also for the continued rapid penetration of renewables.
Just another reminder that though it appears at times that we are in the craziest of times politically, we are also witnessing the dawning of a new age technologically.
And in fact it is this very technology that will undercut the funding from fossil fuel companies that traditionally favor conservatives, and even remove the main reason for meddling in the affairs of Middle Eastern countries to gain access to their oil supplies.
Despite what Donald Trump has promised coal is not going to see a resurgence, and it will be President Obama's investment in renewable energy that will see us to a brighter, and less polluted, tomorrow.
Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell is to increase its spending on renewable energy to $1bn (£800m) a year, its chief executive announced as he warned the public’s faith in the industry was “just disappearing”.
Ben van Beurden suggested the public backlash against fossil fuel firms could threaten the industry’s future.
He also said it was essential that countries imposed a price on carbon emissions to help phase out the use of coal and oil, sources of large amounts of greenhouse gases that are driving climate change.
This perhaps surprising message – a request from a business for governments to make their costs higher – was delivered at an energy conference in Texas, Reuters reported.
Well we knew this had to be coming around at some point. After all just about the whole world is now focusing on renewable energy now.
I just can't help but wish Shell and all of their other big oil buddies would have done this twenty five years ago when it would have actually made a big difference.
The oil giant Shell issued a stark warning of the catastrophic risks of climate change more than a quarter of century ago in a prescient 1991 film that has been rediscovered.
However, since then the company has invested heavily in highly polluting oil reserves and helped lobby against climate action, leading to accusations that Shell knew the grave risks of global warming but did not act accordingly.
Shell’s 28-minute film, called Climate of Concern, was made for public viewing, particularly in schools and universities. It warned of extreme weather, floods, famines and climate refugees as fossil fuel burning warmed the world. The serious warning was “endorsed by a uniquely broad consensus of scientists in their report to the United Nations at the end of 1990”, the film noted.
“If the weather machine were to be wound up to such new levels of energy, no country would remain unaffected,” it says. “Global warming is not yet certain, but many think that to wait for final proof would be irresponsible. Action now is seen as the only safe insurance.”
A separate 1986 report, marked “confidential” and also seen by the Guardian, notes the large uncertainties in climate science at the time but nonetheless states: “The changes may be the greatest in recorded history.”
The predictions in the 1991 film for temperature and sea level rises and their impacts were remarkably accurate, according to scientists, and Shell was one of the first major oil companies to accept the reality and dangers of climate change.
Of course after this very accurate film was produced for public consumption Shell then apparently had a change of heart and spent millions essentially fighting back against the facts shared in the video, undermining renewable energy policies, and spending billions to conduct tar sand drilling.
It should also be noted that uncovered emails, going back as far as 1981, demonstrated that oil giant Exxon was also well aware that Climate Change was a real danger and that it was man made.
Essentially this just demonstrates that these oil companies have known for decades that Climate Change is caused by their own activities as fossil fuel companies and that they have aggressively worked to keep that knowledge out of the hands of the public while continuing to negatively impact our environment.
Another chapter has begun in the decades-long battle over drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan introduced legislation Friday that would open a section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to limited oil and gas exploration, according to a news release from the U.S. Senate Energy Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
The proposed Alaska Oil and Gas Production Act would allow development of 2,000 surface acres in the refuge’s coastal plain. When the refuge was expanded and renamed under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980.
1.5 million acres — often referred to as section 1002 — was designated as a deferred oil and gas development sigh that requires congressional approval to be developed. Oil and gas exploration would occur within the 1002 area.
“For nearly 40 years, Alaskans have proven that we can responsibly develop our natural resources while protecting the environment,” Murkowski said in the news release. “Alaskans overwhelmingly support responsible development in the non-wilderness portion of ANWR and there is no valid reason why we should not be allowed to proceed. Allowing development would create new jobs, reduce our deficits, and protect our national security and competitiveness for a generation.”
Of course as every Alaskan knows this is the holy grail of Alaskan politics, and no politician, on other side of the ideological fence, can be elected without voicing support for the opening of ANWR.
However the article also mentions that by the time oil was discovered, drilled out of the ground, and ready to send through the pipeline ten years would have passed.
That is ten more years of progress with renewable energy research around the world, ten more years of moving away from fossil fuels, and ten more years of oil prices dropping until it is no longer financially viable to explore and tap new sources of crude oil.
I think that this is a pipe dream. (Pardon the pun.)
I am not saying that it cannot pass with a GOP majority in the House and Senate and Trump in the White House, I am simply saying even if it does pass it is unlikely that Alaska will see any revenue from new oilfields in ANWR.
I also think that many of our politicians already know that and are only playing this game because they feel they have no choice.
Donald Trump’s transition team has issued a list of 74 questions for the Energy Department, asking agency officials to identify which employees and contractors have worked on forging an international climate pact as well as domestic efforts to cut the nation’s carbon output.
The questionnaire requests a list of those individuals who have taken part in international climate talks over the past five years and “which programs within DOE are essential to meeting the goals of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.
”Trump and his team have vowed to dismantle specific aspects of Obama’s climate policies, and Trump has questioned the reality of climate change. The questionnaire, which one Energy Department official described as unusually “intrusive” and a matter for departmental lawyers, has raised concern that the Trump transition team is trying to figure out how to target the people, including civil servants, who have helped implement policies under Obama.
Well it appears that Muslims and Mexicans are not the only groups that Trump wants identified and rounded up. It is also any scientists or Energy Department employees who might not be on board with raping the planet and ushering in a global climate Armageddon.
I am almost afraid to wake up tomorrow to find out about the next terrifying thing that Donald Trump is planning for our country.
Courtesy of Truth Out: In late June, due to glaciers melting at unprecedented rates, the side of a mountain nearly a mile high in Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park, which had formerly been supported by glacial ice, collapsed completely. The landslide released over 100 million tons of rock, sending debris miles across a glacier beneath what was left of the mountain. This is something that has been happening more often in recent years in the northernmost US state. While Alaska's local conservative media often tend to feign ignorance of the cause of such phenomena, what's causing it is all too clear. The state has been hitting and surpassing record temperatures over the last year, and the same can be said for the globe. It's plainly obvious why ice is melting at record rates.
To see more stories like this, visit "Planet or Profit?" Mountains that have been largely covered by glaciers for eons are losing their ice cover and the soggy, unstable land underneath is giving way. The landslides are usually large enough to cause seismic tremors and sometimes, when close enough to the ocean, tsunamis. Also in June, Arctic sea ice had melted down to a record low, with 29,000 miles of it disappearing each day. By month's end, the sea ice was 100,000 square miles below the previous record for June -- set just six years ago -- and more than half-a-million square miles below the 1981-2010 long-term average, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Excepting March, every single month of this year thus far has set a new record low for ice cover in the Arctic. To Alaskans, at least those who are not making a living off the oil industry that dominates the state's financial and political economies, the evidence before them is impossible to ignore.
That last sentence is key.
The first Alaskans to start making a stink about climate change up here, after the scientists of course, were the rural natives whose subsistence lifestyles were the first to feel the impact of melting ice, changing migration routes, and unpredictable weather patterns.
But these days the changes are so obvious that you would have to be an idiot on the level of a Palin not to recognize that stepping outside your house is akin to being transported thousands of miles away into an environment that is only minimally reminiscent of the place where those of us living here in the 1970's and 80's knew to be our home.
It is likely much too late do anything to significantly impact the changes that are only right now starting to come our way, but doing nothing means we have failed to recognize the fact that we have an obligation as residents of this planet to contribute to its survival.
Sorry scratch that, the planet will be fine. It is OUR survival that we need to be concerned about.
Perhaps that is enough to kick start our desire for self preservation so we can start voting some of these Koch sucking Republicans out of office and replacing them with politicians who see the big picture and will vote for policies to dramatically reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and start spending some serious money on renewable energy sources.
President Obama’s climate change policies would be undone. Regulations on greenhouse gas emissions would be eliminated. The Keystone XL pipeline would be built. There would be no international agreement to prevent catastrophic climate change.
That is what Donald Trump’s energy policy would look like should he be elected president, the presumptive Republican nominee promised on Thursday before a pro-fossil fuel development crowd in Bismarck, North Dakota.
In a speech laying out his energy agenda for the United States, Trump promised to undo essentially every major policy developed in the last decade intended to slow human-caused global warming.
“We’re going to cancel the Paris climate agreement,” Trump said, referring to the landmark agreement between nearly 200 nations to keep the world from warming more than 2°C above average preindustrial levels. Climate scientists largely consider 2°C to be the limit for acceptable global warming before irreversible catastrophic impacts begin to occur.
This bloviating POS does not care one little bit about protecting this planet for future generations.
Undoubtedly he would invest in air conditioner manufacturing, water filtration companies, and personal breathing apparatus outlets in order to profit off the increased heat, lack of potable water, and air pollution that would surely occur in the wake of his presidency.
The man is a monster of almost comic book villain proportions and if the American people do not awaken to that reality they may finally see the death of America that has been predicted for so many decades, and perhaps even substantial damage done to the planet in general.
I know that sounds like hyperbole but if you are paying attention I imagine that you would agree with my assessment.
The back and forth between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton regarding campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry has reached a fever pitch.
Speaking to a packed house eastern Wisconsin, Sanders twice said Clinton owed his campaign an apology.
“We were not lying, we were telling the truth,” the presidential hopeful said after bringing up an incident yesterday in which an activist asked Clinton if she would stop taking money from the fossil fuel industry. Clinton responded aggressively and accused the Sanders' campaign of lying.
“The truth is that Secretary Clinton has relied heavily on funds from lobbyists working for the oil, gas and coal industry, according to an analysis done by Greenpeace,” the senator continued this evening.
Of course this is in response to Clinton's outburst on that rope line the other day.
However as it turns out if there are any apologies forthcoming, they may need to come from Bernie Sanders.
The Sanders campaign is exaggerating the contributions that Clinton has received from the oil and gas industry. In the context of her overall campaign, the contributions are hardly significant. It’s especially misleading to count all of the funds raised by lobbyists with multiple clients as money “given” by the fossil-fuel industry.
The Post then gave Sanders three Pinocchios.
It has to be remembered that not only is Sanders accusing Clinton of taking money from the fossil fuel companies, but that the money will buy political favors from her should she become President.
That is a fairly spurious allegation based on supposition not fact.
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."
If elected president, Democrat Hillary Clinton says she can create enough green energy to power every home in America by the end of her second term.
“By the end of my first term, we will have installed a half a billion more solar panels, and by the end of my second term, enough clean energy to power every home in America,” Clinton said at the Blue Jamboree in Charleston, S.C., on Saturday.
The Democratic presidential front-runner said her plan to subsidize alternative sources of energy would not entail a middle-class tax hike.
In fact, Clinton said she would reduce taxes for working-class families.
“And people say, well, can you do that without raising taxes on the middle class? Absolutely,” she said. “That’s why I’m going to be fighting for tax cuts that help hard-working families get ahead.”
Okay look I am already supporting Hillary, and I think her path to the White House is fairly free of serious obstacle, however I am going to say right here that if she makes promises like this she sure as shit better be planning to keep them.
Getting the country off of fossil fuels and onto renewable energy sources is a big deal to the progressive community, and if she fails to keep this promise she risks losing their support not just for herself, but for the Democratic party altogether.
Do I think it can be done?
You bet your ass I do.
And I think if Hillary is serious about making this happen, that she can do just that. So long as she recognizes that the blowback from big oil is going to be unprecedented.
And that is saying something considering what we have seen during the Obama administration.
The city of North Vancouver, British Columbia passed a law this week that mandates climate change warning stickers be applied to gas pumps in the city. The vote makes the city the first in the world to implement such a law. The City Council still has to approve designs for the stickers, but a city staff report recommended including messages such as “Get $5,000 toward a purchase of a new electric car” or “Idling your vehicle for more than 10 seconds wastes more gas than restarting your engine” on the stickers.
“The message is that burning fossil fuels causes climate change and … to add a positive spin, here are some tips when using your automobile on how to make it more fuel efficient,” North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto told the CBC.
The effort to get the stickers on gas pumps is being spearheaded by a Toronto-based group called Our Horizon. Rob Shirkey, executive director of the group, told ThinkProgress that the main point of the stickers isn’t to get people to completely stop driving — it’s to change their way of thinking about climate change.
Hey, it worked with cigarettes.
And remember just like cigarette companies oil companies also hired their own scientists to spread misinformation, and worked to downplay any science which demonstrated safety concerns associated with their product.
Personally I would love to see these all over the world.
Other oil companies might soon find themselves in prosecutors’ crosshairs just as Exxon Mobil is being investigated about whether it hid information about climate change.
Exxon Mobil is now being scrutinized by the New York attorney general about its record on climate change. Other companies, such as BP, Shell and Texaco, which is now part of Chevron, were also among those that questioned climate science and joined organizations that fought policies designed to tackle the problem. According to energy industry experts, those companies could also be investigated to determine whether their public stance on the issue coincided with their internal discussions.
“Exxon Mobil is not alone,” Stephen Zamora, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, told The New York Times. “This is not likely to be an isolated matter.”
“There was a concerted effort by multiple American oil companies to obscure the emerging climate science consensus throughout the 1990s,” Paul Bledsoe, a former White House aide to President Bill Clinton on climate issues, told the Times. “This group may be vulnerable to legal challenge.”
Okay I am not only crossing my fingers in the hopes that New York DOES sue these oil companies, but also that other states follow their example and do the same.
I also agree with Congressmen Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier that the federal government needs to launch an investigation as well. Which I hope would end with ALL of the oil companies facing serious charges of endangering the lives and well being of the American citizens in federal court.
These assholes put our lives, our children's lives, and even the future of this planet in jeopardy, all in the name of making a profit.
Personally I think being sued for billions of dollars is too good for them.
Do you think we could being back the firing squad?
President Barack Obama on Friday rejected the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, ending the political fight over the Canada-to-Texas project that has gone on for much of his presidency.
Secretary of State John Kerry concluded the controversial project is not in the country's national security interest, and Obama announced from the White House that he agreed.
"America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change, and frankly approving this project would have undercut that leadership," Obama said.
Damn, now THAT'S my President!
Man you just KNOW this is going to drive the conservatives off the deep end.
Who am I kidding? Nowadays they have taken residence off the deep end.
Update: Well speaking of off the deep end, we all knew this was coming:
ANOTHER OBAMA SCREW UP
President Obama is stoked to kill the Keystone Pipeline to transport needed clean, safe, friendly energy to hungry markets. This dumps his promise of "working toward energy independence" and his supposed support for an "all of the above energy plan" into the crapper. Be prepared for actions like this in his final months in office - the expeditious transformation of America via nonsensical acts such as this, for it will be attempts at a rapid decline until and unless this Administration's equal branch of government - our elected legislative branch - doesn't start fighting back to protect America's economic opportunities leading to security and solvency. Step it up, politicians. Concerned voters - you, too. Remember, we can survive this President and his baffling blunders, but can we survive the people who voted for him - twice - and still believe he walks on water?
- Sarah Palin
"Expeditious?" Well it looks like SOMEBODY finally cracked open that thesaurus they received in the tenth grade.
And fess up, which one of you thinks the President walks on water?
The United States formally denied a request on Wednesday to pause the review of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, a decision expected to lead to the project's rejection by the Obama administration.
TransCanada Corp's request to the State Department for a delay was seen by many as an attempt to postpone the decision until after President Barack Obama left office and a new president more friendly to the plan took over in 2017.
The White House declined to comment on the State Department's decision.
There was a lot of hand wringing after news broke about Transcanada's request, with many fearing it was a strategic move to keep the deal alive until a Republican won the White House.
However it appears that most of that concern was for naught.
I think that much like that drilling project by Shell in the Arctic, that President Obama has had a plan all along, and as usual played it close to the vest.
I have every confidence that he is going to going to kill this pipeline deal, and therefore relieve Hillary of the responsibility, and secure his legacy as a warrior against climate change.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wants ExxonMobil investigated by the Department of Justice.
In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Tuesday, Sanders charged the oil giant of engaging in a cover-up to intentionally mislead the public about the reality of human-caused climate change, and by extension the risks of its carbon-intensive product.
“It appears that Exxon knew its product was causing harm to the public, and spent millions of dollars to obfuscate the facts in the public discourse,” Sanders wrote. “The information that has come to light about Exxon’s past activities raises potentially serious concerns that should be investigated.”
The information Sanders cited was a recent investigation by Inside Climate News, which found that the ExxonMobil conducted research as far back as 1977 affirming that climate change is caused by carbon emissions from fossil fuels. At the same time, the oil giant gave millions of dollars to politicians and organizations that promote climate science denial, and spent millions more lobbying to prevent regulations to limit carbon emissions.
Now see THIS is the kind of thing we should be spending taxpayer money to investigate instead of Hillary's e-mail server.
Damn Bernie is really working to seduce me again. And I have to admit I am falling for it.
This is EXACTLY the kind of hard charging leadership we need running this country.
P.S. By the way some of you may remember that IM covered this information about Exxon back in July. Nice to see that somebody is finally going to do something with it.
Fortune 500-listed companies Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson, NIKE, Inc, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Steelcase, Voya Financial, and Walmart have pledged to source 100 per cent of their electricity from renewable energy.
The pledges are part of the “RE100” global campaign by non-profit groups, The Climate Group and Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), which encourages companies to commit to 100 per cent renewable energy.
CEO of The Climate Group, Mark Kenber, said: “Research shows that the most ambitious companies have seen a 27 per cent return on their low carbon investments – no wonder new names keep joining RE100.
“Lowering risk, protecting against price rises, saving millions and boosting brand is what shaping a low carbon economy is all about,” Kenber said.
“Today these companies are signalling loud and clear to COP21 negotiators that forward-thinking businesses back renewables and want to see a strong climate deal in Paris.”
The private sector is key to reducing global carbon emissions as it accounts for more than half of the world’s electricity consumption.
Some of the companies have target dates as far out as 2050, but others are shooting for faster turnarounds at around 2020 or even 2015.
A company called Steelcase reached their goal last year.
All in all it indicates that if a corporation really wants to commit to becoming 100% fossil fuel free, they can do it.
And that is good news for the future of this planet. And you know, those of us living on it.
