Big Green has more money, power and influence than Big Oil could ever dream of. It is a political Goliath
After years as a federal officer helping the Drug Enforcement Administration hunt drug lords across Central Asia, and years more teaching in Maryland classrooms, Robin Shaffer anticipated a quiet retirement watching the deep swells roll across the Atlantic and crash on to the broad Jersey Shore.
Instead, he finds himself embroiled in a fight. As a leader of a grassroots group, Protect Our Coast NJ, Shaffer, 53, is taking on an international company and politicians in Trenton backing Ocean Wind 1, a $10 billion proposal to line the Jersey Shore with 98 wind turbines whose 722-foot propeller whirls would dwarf the Washington Monument and Statue of Liberty.
It’s been an uphill battle, with the group “taking in nickels and dimes” and “selling T-shirts and magnets.” The local press seems indifferent to their cause, he said, noting that no outlets covered a public event he held at a pub, perhaps fittingly, with “Cheers” and "Frasier" actor Kelsey Grammer, one of Hollywood’s few prominent conservatives.
“There’s this argument made that we must be bought off, sort of, ‘Why fight the Green Revolution? Don’t you care about the environment?’” Shaffer said. “But we don’t have any corporate sponsors or major funding. It’s very much a David vs. Goliath kind of thing.”
Protect Our Coast NJ, an all-volunteer outfit with a budget of less than $100,000, is one example of an overwhelming disparity that has emerged in the debate over the aggressive push for renewable energy in response to what President Biden calls the “existential threat” of climate change. While once upon a time there may have been scrappy environmentalists combating the corporate might of Big Oil, major fossil fuel producers and conservative philanthropies provide little supporting research challenging climate change, Shaffer and other people interviewed for this article said. As a result, the money and the muscle and the lawyers are now aligned with what they call Big Green.
Government largesse, shot into the stratosphere by hundreds of taxpayer billions President Biden shoveled to green energy companies and backers through the Inflation Reduction Act, is just the crest of this wave of momentum on behalf of a “climate emergency.”
Powering the apparent juggernaut are philanthropists who have donated billions, corporate sponsors of environmental groups that look like a who’s who of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, attorneys at white-shoe firms and Ivy League law schools, prosecutors paid privately but operating under a district attorney’s umbrella, along with media and academics who hammer the narrative home.
“This whole movement is pushed by a small but very powerful elite that controls Washington and the media, but not the way your average American thinks,” said William Happer, an emeritus physics professor at Princeton University who founded the CO2 Coalition in 2015 to advance the argument that global warming is not an existential threat.
“You think, ‘What can you do?’” Happer said. “They have the media under control, they have politicians, professional and scientific groups and publications are controlled by them, and it’s all driven by money.”
The corporate sponsors of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), for instance, include titans of tech and private enterprise such as Amazon, Google, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Meta and others. Google is also working with the Sierra Club, while the Environmental Defense Fund lists General Electric and DuPont as allies on its website.
Liberal billionaire Michael Bloomberg pledged another $500 million to kill the coal industry in September, a massive injection of cash that brings to more than $1 billion the amount he has committed to his Beyond Carbon launched in 2019. Another $1.1 billion was pledged by liberal venture capitalist John Doerr to build a climate change school at Stanford University, and Tom Steyer, like Bloomberg a former Democrat presidential candidate, has put millions of his billions behind similar global warming initiatives.
Shaffer said Protect Our Coast is hiring attorneys he hopes “will do a good job,” but powerful lawyers are already aligned with the “climate emergency” camp. Since 2009 Columbia University Law School has had a Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, while the venerable New York firm of Shearman & Sterling, with 850 attorneys, is partnered with ACORE.
***************************************************
Scottish couple facing $33k repair bill after driving Tesla in heavy rain
It’s not abnormal for it to rain in Scotland. It is abnormal, however, for it to rain so heavily your electric car battery gives up the ghost.
A couple from Edinburgh was shocked after receiving a £17,374 (A$33,370) bill to replace the battery on their Tesla Model Y, after the vehicle wouldn’t turn on after driving through heavy rain.
The owners told Edinburgh Live they left home to enjoy dinner in Edinburgh on October 7 and arrived at the restaurant with no issue, but say their electric car wouldn’t start once they returned to the vehicle around 10pm.
The couple allege it took nearly five hours for Tesla’s roadside assistance to tow the car to an Edinburgh dealership.
After the car was inspected, the couple was told the battery was damaged “due to water ingress”, and a replacement would cost £17,374 (~A$33,000) – more than a third the price of the SUV. That’s despite the couple denying having driven it through “any huge puddles or anything like that”, let alone submerging it underwater.
“After finally getting to speak to a manager, he told me [the battery] had water in it due to the fact the weather in Scotland has been so bad. That was the issue. They said it’s not necessarily my fault but it’s not Tesla’s to pay under warranty. He reminded me there was a yellow weather warning in some parts of Scotland,” one of the owners told Edinburgh Live.
The news outlet reports as of October 15 the couple still hadn’t had their car returned.
“If I had known the customer service would be so bad I’m not sure I would have bothered buying the car. Do they know that we’re in Scotland? That weather was not abnormal for living here.
**********************************************
Without Crude Oil, there can be no Electricity
Over the last 200 years, after the discovery of crude oil, the world populated from 1 to 8 billion. Today, all the electricity generation options available, such as wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear, hydro, coal, and natural gas, are all dependent on the products and components manufactured from crude oil to be able to generate electricity.
Looking back, the history of the petroleum industry illustrated that crude oil was virtually useless, unless it could be manufactured (refineries) into oil derivatives that are now the basis of chemical products, such as plastics, solvents, and medications, that are essential for supporting modern lifestyles. The more than 6,000 products being used for humanity needs and the generation of electricity did not exist a few short centuries ago.
Today, we have more than 50,000 merchant ships, more than 20,000 commercial aircraft and more than 50,000 military aircraft that use the fuels manufactured from crude oil. The fuels to move the heavy-weight and long-range needs of jets moving people and products, and the merchant ships for global trade flows, and the military and space programs, are also dependent on what can be manufactured from crude oil.
For the aircraft and ships, just like that for the various options for the generation of electricity, they all utilize parts and components made from the oil derivatives manufactured from raw crude oil.
Mankind in the pre-1800’s set the stage for the fantastic growth after the mankind’s discovery of crude oil:
Life longevity was around forty years of age and people seldom travelled more than one hundred miles from where they were born.
A world population of about one billion people.
No electricity, as all generation of electricity is only possible with the parts made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil for wind turbines, solar panels, and the coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro power plants.
The following infrastructures were not around a few short centuries ago, because they all need components and parts that were NOT available in the pre-1800’s.
Transportation
Hospitals
Medical equipment
Appliances
Electronics
Telecommunications
Communications systems
Space programs
Heating and ventilating
Military
Today, a few centuries after the discovery of crude oil:
Everything that needs electricity, and every infrastructure, is made from oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil, from the light bulb to the iPhone, defibrillator, and all the parts of EV’s, toilets, and spacecraft.
Weather related fatalities have virtually disappeared with all the products and medications available today that were not available a few centuries ago.
Globally, as most of the world leaders in the few wealthy countries continue to focus on ceasing oil production and shuttering the refining of crude oil, the future does not bode well as 20 percent of the almost 700 worldwide refineries are expected to close in the next 5 years, i.e., 140 closures. Further inflation and shortages in perpetuity are guaranteed, as those refineries are manufacturing the oil derivatives for all the products in society, and the fuels for the jets moving people and products, and the merchant ships for global trade flows and the military and space programs.
While the few wealthy countries are pursuing the elimination of crude oil, China has no intentions of abandoning its economic, military, or strategic ambitions – all of which rely on crude oil. Asia is the region with the greatest number of future petroleum refineries. As of 2021, there were 88 new facilities in planning or under construction in Asia.
Policymakers in the few wealthy countries are not cognizant enough to understand that there has yet to be identified a replacement for crude oil that now provides the products and fuels that are being manufactured from crude oil during the last few centuries, that are the basis on every infrastructure segment supporting the 8 billion on this planet!
The elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss is that crude oil is the foundation of our materialistic society, as it is the basis of all products and fuels demanded by the 8 billion on this planet.
Ridding the world of raw crude oil before we have a replacement to produce the oil derivatives currently manufactured from crude oil, we’re back to the 1800’s.
The greatest threat to the world’s populations could be the future for billions to exist and prosper without those oil derivatives that are currently supporting more than 6,000 products for society.
Shockingly, very few parents, teachers, students, politicians, and those in the media, have any clues or understanding about the basis of the products in our daily lives from crude oil! Energy Literacy at its best!!!
https://www.cfact.org/2023/10/17/without-crude-oil-there-can-be-no-electricity/
**********************************************Australia: Two "Teals" have just self-destructed
"Teals" are allegedly middle-of-the-roaders, Green but not too Green. Similar to Britain's Liberal party. Two of them have however shown themselves as extremists. They are so far out of line with the country that they will go down in a heap next election.
Scamps was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and has qualified as a doctor. Tink is a PR guru and has been prominent in leading charity organizations
Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel has added her voice to growing condemnation of teal MPs Kylea Tink and Sophie Scamps, saying she disagrees “emphatically” with her teal parliamentary colleague’s support of the Greens.
Ms Daniel suggested the Greens amendment to Labor's motion on Israel – which sought to accuse the Jewish homeland of war crimes – inappropriately sought to remove support for Israel's right to self-defence.
“I disagree emphatically with those who supported the amendment,” Ms Daniel told The Australian. “I was elected by the Goldstein community to represent their interests and in doing so I unreservedly voted for the bipartisan resolution and spoke in its favour unconditionally.
“Among other things, the effect of the amendment would have been to remove support for Israel’s right to self defence.
“As I said in the chamber yesterday Israel has a right to self defence in line with the rules of war, which would include protection of civilians in Gaza, reiterating what I have said publicly, repeatedly and emphatically.”
***************************************
My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*****************************************
Jim Hansen and his twin
No comments:
Post a Comment