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It’s too bad that journalistic slant isn’t a form of energy because Juliet Eilperin would make the Washington Post the “Saudi Arabia” of bias.
Eilperin’s Oct. 24 article, “Global demonstrations to push for reduced carbon levels,” positively gushes over the events organized by 350.org, a global warming alarmist group that supposedly wants to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels from today’s 390 parts per million down to 350 ppm.
In covering the 350.org’s efforts, Eilperin doesn’t question its goals or efforts, nor does she interview anyone with contrary views.
Now compare her coverage of the 350.org event with her coverage of the skeptical Heartland Institute’s March 2008 global warming conference.
For the 350.org event, Eilperin apparently could not find anyone with opposing views. But for the Heartland event, Eilperin’s March 4, 2008 article…
… featured four ad hominem attacks from three environmental activists, abusing those who question global warming orthodoxy as members of a “flat Earth society” and participants in the “climate equivalent of Custer’s last stand…
Not only should you consider the other examples in my FoxNews.com column as well as some pointed out by ClimateDepot.com, but you also consider this: Juliet Eilperin’s husband works on climate issues for the Center for American Progress, a global warming-alarmist activist group.
Unbiased pillow talk?
Wouldn’t it be nice if every activist group owned its own Washington Post reporter?
Next, are the so-called climate skeptics so far out there that their views don’t qualify as within the realm of reason? Consider that the skeptics are holding their own, if not actually prevailing, in the battle for the hearts and minds of Americans on climate.
How powerful must the skeptics arguments be when this small, under-funded, rag-tag “band of brothers” has held off for more than 20 years the onslaught of the giant eco-industrial lobbying machine.
Finally, consider Obama chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel’s effort to denigrate and dismiss Fox News as a media outlet with a “point of view.” The White House may not like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, but at least those two don’t pose as unbiased journalists like Eilperin does.
Send your thoughts to the Washington Post ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, at ombudsman@washpost.com.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) released an updated 923-page version of the Kerry-Boxer global warming legislation late last night with new details on emissions allocations, which are similar to Waxman-Markey.
What will President Obama’s “smart grid” bring our way? Consider this excerpt from today’s ClimateWire:
Michael Godorov, PPL’s manager of smart meter operations, said that a real-time pricing strategy requires a big differential between peak and off-peak prices to be effective. “It has to be painful enough for a customer to want to save money,” he said. “If you leave it to the consumer, you definitely have to put in enough incentives. The market has to make it imperative for customers to manage their use.”
“How do we get people to care enough about this?” asked David Mohler, chief technology officer of Duke Energy, at a conference in Washington last month.
If millions of motorists with plug-in hybrids were to arrive home at 5 p.m. on the hottest day of the year and want to do a quick recharge on a 220-volt appliance circuit, the electricity grid would have severe problems handling the load, Mohler said.
“We should have an ability to differentially price that,” he said. The fast-charge price could be equivalent to $20 for a gallon of gasoline, he suggested. Motorists content to charge overnight, when power prices are lowest, might have to pay the equivalent of 75 cents a gallon — a bargain price. “Until we can give them a way to painlessly respond to that price signal, I don’t know how we get to where we need to go,” he said.
Companies like Dallas-based Oncor that have committed to smart grid and dynamic pricing strategies believe most consumers will come along. Oncor has outfitted a truck trailer with a mini-classroom to show customers how its smart grid would work, and more than 22,000 people have taken a look since last year.
“We’ve had some people say, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t want this meter.’ They don’t understand it,” said Oncor CEO Bob Shapard. “They don’t like people coming in their backyard to change it. ‘What’s the matter with the meter I’ve already got?'” they say. “You get some of that pushback. The lion’s share of our customers, though, takes the other approach. Virtually all the customers that have been coming through the education center are asking, ‘When can I get my meter?'”
Here’s what you need to know about the smart grid and smart meters:
Levi Strauss & Co. is so worried about CO2 emissions that it quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in protest over the Chamber’s opposition to climate legislation.
But if Levi Strauss were really concerned about CO2 levels, it would also go out of business.
According to the company’s own analysis, a typical pair of the company’s jeans is responsible for about:
70 pounds of CO2 emissions;
750 gallons of water use; and
111 kilowatt-hours of electricity use.
About 450 million pairs of jeans are sold in the U.S. annually. Of this amount, about one-third are sold by Levi Strauss.
Simple math indicates, therefore, that Levi Strauss annual sales of jeans are responsible for about:
7.5 million tons CO2 emissions — equal to the annual emissions of 625,000 SUVs;
112 billion gallons of water use — about the annual water use of 879,000 homes; and
1.67 gigawatt-hours of electricity use — about the annual use of 150,000 average homes.
To help Levi Strauss save the planet, then, the answer is clear: we should go naked and it should go broke.
Levi Strauss & Co. is so worried about CO2 emissions that it quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in protest over the Chamber’s opposition to climate legislation.
But if Levi Strauss were really concerned about CO2 levels, it would also go out of business.
According to the company’s own analysis, a typical pair of the company’s jeans is responsible for about:
70 pounds of CO2 emissions;
750 gallons of water use; and
111 kilowatt-hours of electricity use.
About 450 million pairs of jeans are sold in the U.S. annually. Of this amount, about one-third are sold by Levi Strauss.
Simple math indicates, therefore, that Levi Strauss annual sales of jeans are responsible for about:
7.5 million tons CO2 emissions — equal to the annual emissions of 625,000 SUVs;
112 billion gallons of water use — about the annual water use of 879,000 homes; and
1.67 gigawatt-hours of electricity use — about the annual use of 150,000 average homes.
To help Levi Strauss save the planet, then, the answer is clear: we should go naked and it should go broke.
At the urging of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Obama administration is throwing up roadblocks to BP’s upgrading of a large refinery in northwest Indiana.
Now that Sen. Lindsey Graham has teamed up with Sen.John Kerry in trying to foist cap-and-tax on America, one of Graham’s goons is offering advice to Republicans on how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
In an article about a new poll indicating that almost 80 percent of Americans don’t know what cap-and-trade is but that Republicans are almost twice as likely as Democrats to know about cap-and-trade, ClimateWire reports,
Republican pollster Whit Ayres downplayed the viability of phrases like “cap and tax.” For those opposed to the bill, he said, the most effective strategy is using third-party “validators” like the Congressional Budget Office to point out costs of specific provisions within legislation.
And he said the worst strategy for the GOP would be to deny that climate change is a man-made phenomenon, according to his polling research.
Although we are winning the battle against oppressive green climate/energy legislation — or at least holding our own against vastly better funded opponents — “Republican” pollster Ayres says we should change tactics — i.e., don’t say “cap-and-tax” and don’t question whether climate change is manmade. Ayres further advises that we should rely on “third-party validators” like the CBO — a group that thinks Americans will actually benefit economically from cap-and-tax (Oops… it slipped. Sorry, Dim-Whit.)
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of Ayres’ clients — do you think Ayres will follow the likes of Apple, Nike and Exelon and abandon the USCOC? Perhaps it should abandon Ayres?
BTW, don’t forget to check out Nancy Morgan’s terrific piece in today’s American Thinker, “The Seduction of Lindsey Graham.”
President Obama gave a nod yesterday to a budding bipartisan Senate effort on energy and climate legislation during a New Orleans town hall meeting where he also pledged to push for the bill’s passage once Congress finishes its work on health care.
“What I think we need to do is increase our domestic energy production,” Obama said in response to a question about environmental policy from an audience member. “I’m in favor of finding environmentally sound ways to tap our oil and our natural gas.”
Obama also mentioned his support for nuclear energy, one of two key points of possible Senate compromise as lawmakers look to pass a comprehensive energy and global warming bill in the coming months.
“There’s no reason why technologically we can’t employ nuclear energy in a safe and effective way,” Obama said. “Japan does it and France does it and it doesn’t have greenhouse gas emissions, so it would be stupid for us not to do that in a much more effective way.”
The Department of the Interior has frozen oil and gas development on 60 of 77 contested drilling sites in Utah…
… alleging…
… the process of leasing the land was rushed and badly flawed… including possible damage to the habitat of sage grouse, which is being considered for endangered species protection, and to avoid the dust and noise pollution associated with drilling operations.
Sounds pretty lame to us…
With respect to nuclear, President Pinocchio’s friends in the environmental movement yesterday sent this letter to Senators asking them to reject streamlining the licensing process for nuclear plants. Apparently, they like the status quo — no new nuke plants have been built in more than 30 years.
While President Pinocchio postures by saying thathe is for drilling and nukes, he knows his administration minions and political allies will kill both.
Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee
Duke Energy, the third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the U.S. utility sector, has spent more than $10 million to lobby Congress since 2008, helping to shape, it says, legislation to cap carbon emissions… [Waxman-Markey] gave Duke most of the credits it would need for the next 15 to 20 years for free.
“That was a major achievement,” said Duke spokesman Tom Williams. “I would say that was a major example of our [lobbying] presence paying off for our customers.”
Duke CEO Jim Rogers has “played the political winds like a master yachtsman,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, adding that the firm touts carbon controls while also expanding a coal-fired plant west of Charlotte, N.C.
“Master yachtsman”? Below is a more apt image of Duke’s “Skipper”:
In reality, Rogers has done nothing but betray his shareholders and customers:
…an open letter to U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue about the recent defections of companies from the Chamber…
October 7, 2009
Mr. Tom Donohue
President
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
1615 H St., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20062-2000
Dear Mr. Donohue:
We urge you to continue your strong opposition to the cap-and-tax bills passed by the House and now introduced in the Senate.
Much has been made in the pro-cap-and-tax mainstream press and trade media about the relatively few companies who have quit the Chamber over “cap and tax.” We say good riddance to rent-seekers and hypocrites:
Exelon Corp. is one of the very few utilities that are actually planning to make money off of “cap and tax” – up to $750 million annually per $10 increase in the price of CO2 – for doing nothing other than selling the free credits it gets from Congress, according to CEO John Rowe. Consumers and taxpayers are the ones who will be looted for this booty.
Apple Corp. said it was leaving the Chamber because of its supposed concerns for the environment. If Apple was really concerned about the environment, it would stop exploiting lax-to-non-existent Chinese environmental laws in the manufacture of its products. If Apple really cared about the environment, it would pressure China to adopt the Clean Air Act for starters. For all its green posturing, Apple should quit China not the Chamber.
Nike manufactures its shoes and clothes in sweatshops in Indonesia, paying its workers approximately $1.25 a day, while competitor New Balance manufactures its products in the U.S. So Nike wants new federal laws that place New Balance at a competitive disadvantage. Perhaps we are being too harsh. Maybe Nike is truly concerned about “global warming” increasing the temperature in its sweatshops and, thereby, decreasing the productivity of its near-slave-labor.
These are three companies out of the thousands that you represent. The Chamber has a long and proud history of being the nation’s strongest voice for American business. We are all depending on your leadership against “cap and tax,” which will do nothing but harm American businesses, families, workers, consumers and, ultimately, America itself.
