This is a story of greed and cupidity. And its a bit of an experiment. Most of this story takes place off-site, so to speak. I direct your attention to the following:http://thinkprogress.org/. (You’ll have to scrolls down as updates, etc. arrive on a fluid site, look for the Votive Candles of Moloch (smokestacks rampant))
(Warning! Those of you who, despite gentle guidance, still trod the paths of political error, be advised that Think Progress is a decidedly lefty site. Proceed “Shields Up” and at your own risk.)
As it is, it is a collection of links around a theme of corporate subversion of the scientific and political debate as to global warming (the number 2 threat to the Republic!). The participant must (probably) play linky hop-scotch to connect the dots. And the discussion is likely to follow several tracks. I’m basing these comments on the presumption that the story is true in general and probably true in specifics, but welcome any opinions.
Secondly would be the question as to what the fuck these people can be thinking? Do they seriously operate from the premise that their corporate health is more important than…than…everything!?? What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world if all you can do is move to the Himalayas or tread water!
I mean, if it would benefit your company to convince people that copper bracelets would cure flatulence and you started looking for some science to give your claims some weight… And you had a hard time finding somebody reputable? Wouldn’t that cause you to rethink your position?
As well as offering a good homestyle pittin’ to this Pat Michaels guy, who we won’t officially designate a Slide Rule Ho until someone arises to defend him, or none do.
Enough for starters, see what develops. Freak freely!
The vast right wing conspiracy logs my IP as I browse. I’m under probation because apparently I’ve had impure OOWWWW! (damn implant) I mean doublebad thoughts and am now being monitor- OWWWW! (shit,) err reeducated.
May I have the executive summary?
Company realizes that governmental changes based on new scientific data might hamper their business. Decides to do what they can to delay/eliminate this threat to their profit rather than deciding to immediately pack it in and build wind farms.
In other news, Pope Catholic, bear shits in woods.
Look, I think global warming actually IS a problem, and I’m unimpressed by this Dreadful Breakthrough. Isn’t this expected behavior?
So, I’m a little unclear, luci. This Number 2 Threat To the Republic you mention; is it Global Warming itself, or the scientific and political debate as to Global Warming?
Or does it depend on who’s asking and who’s answering?
You bring up one of several interesting aspects to this: the use and abuse of science in an issue like GW. Shit on this scale (i.e., global, life-and-death) demands informed review. What responsibility does a corporation have when it comes to such?
I guess I also half-expected some questions as to fact. Perhaps this is a fraud, it could be seen as being a bit “pat”. I looked at the memo in question (.pdf) and have some doubts. Hard to tell, but that doesn’t look like baby harp seal skin, so maybe its not authentic.
Then there’s the whole theme of corporate Lysenkoism, funding science not for information but in support of a predetermined outcome.
Tell you what, though, next time I go to the Piggly Wiggly, I’m sure not buying any of their coal!
elucidator, it’s a lot of fun to drive around picking out good walls against which to line up all the pork-fed tools of capitalism who bathe in the sweat and blood of the noble proletariat, but I think you’ve caught a very small fish engaged in a very small sin. Intermountain Rural Electric doesn’t mine coal, or even burn it, though they buy electricity from those who do, and distribute and resell it to their customers. They don’t even have shareholders – they’re a co-op, for heaven’s sake. In the world of fossil fuel exploitation industries, these guys are the hippy-dippy tye-dyed frisbee-and-free-love freaks in the orange VW van.
Yes, the memo grasps at straws to explain away their role in global warming and to play up the costs associated with greenhouse gas emission control. But they aren’t inventing any of this stuff. They’re mostly wrong, but they’re defending not just their livelihood but their very souls. If I were suddenly confronted by the accusation that I’d been devoting my professional life to an endeavor that made genocide look like a misdemeanor by comparison – hell, just drop the ‘n’ and call it geocide, the murder of a planet – I’d be thumped pretty hard by the cognitive dissonance fairy too. As for their support of a loon like Michaels, sure, he is to global warming what Dr. James P. Grigson was to the death penalty in Texas, but he’s not working out of his mother’s basement and his credentials aren’t fake. There’s nothing dishonest about funding the research of a scientist whose conclusions up to now have been in your favor. Look at it this way: it’s $100,000 they won’t have to bribe congressmen – in fact, they explicitly say they’re going to leave the lobbying to others.
And…“secret” memo? My guess is that about a hundred thousand copies were run off and sent out in the mail.
Personally, I find more to laugh at than to be angry about here. This is a tiny electric co-op, scared out of their wits, reduced to hoping that a Russian scientist named Absudamatov (man it’s hard not to put an ‘r’ in there), who thinks the sun is about to start fading, is right. Because better a flickering sun than high electric prices.
Thanks luci, and thanks Mini Oxford for being so close at hand, we nearly had an embarrassing case of "wa ha ha ha looka dat typo wa ha ha snerk…oh… :smack: "
First (STUPID DIGRESSION ALERT), elucidator, I must confess to a long-standing urge, felt acutely whenever I see your username, to break the rules and create another board persona, name it obfuscator, and wander into threads to pointlessly but persistently contradict anything you say, doing my best to muddle issues as you try to clarify them. Just for the symmetry of it, you see – it would be the next best thing to having, say, Goofus and Gallant as members, bickering their way through threads.
Second, having seen much of Dr. Michaels’ prior climatological musings, I’m having a lot of fun imagining how this researcher will spend his hundred grand – it’s not as if he’s going to waste his time going to Antarctica and drilling into the ice shelf. I’m guessing either a paper designed to prove that degrees and radians are interchangeable because you use degrees to measure radiant heat, and isn’t that what we’re talking about? or, a survey of the nation’s florists which will discredit the greenhouse gas effect by proving that greenhouses emit no gases, or, in the most up-to-date study yet, absolute proof that northern hemisphere temperatures in absolute terms show a sharp decline – expect the results, covering six months worth of hard data, to be published in February.