Category Archives: big whoop dee do

Massey Mine Accident Could Have Been Prevented – But not by Blankenship

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It’s jam band friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_ciiCyxOJA&playnext_from=TL&videos=Oix0MvcQ62o&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh%2Bdiv-1r-2-HM

He was too busy buying judges and worse yet funding Climate change deniers and Cap and Trade deniers. And I am not the only one to think so:

http://www.grist.org/article/don-blankenship-seventh-scariest-person-in-america/

Don Blankenship: Seventh scariest person in America

Massey Energy CEO is a really bad dude

avatar for David Roberts

by David Roberts

24 Oct 2006 4:40 PM

The venerable print magazine Old Trout was recently relaunched with a splashy issue on “The Thirteen Scariest Americans.” I was asked to write up the scariest American from an environmental point of view.

The choice was not difficult. The scariest polluter in the U.S. is Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy. The guy is evil, and I don’t use that word lightly.

The issue is out now. (Look for it on a newsstand near you!) The folks at Old Trout have given me permission to publish an expanded version of the piece after a suitable period of exclusivity. So watch for that at the beginning of December.

In the meantime, check out three things.

First, there’s this longish New York Times piece on Blankenship from Sunday. In the usual style of mainstream reportage, it is studiously neutral in tone, woefully downplaying the environmental destruction Massey does and the thuggish tactics Blankenship has imposed. But you can get a pretty accurate general picture of the guy.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcHNZVrxEts&feature=related )

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This is actually a repost:

http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/09/rolling-stone-climate-killers-polluters-and-science-deniers-rupert-murdoch-warren-buffett-john-mccain/

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/

The Coal Baron
Don Blankenship
CEO, Massey Energy

In an age when most CEOs are canny enough to at least pay lip service to the realities of climate change, Blankenship stands apart as corporate America’s most unabashed denier. Global warming, he insists, is nothing but “a hoax and a Ponzi scheme.” His fortune depends on such lies: Massey Energy, the nation’s fourth-largest coal-mining operation, unearths more than 40 million tons of the fossil fuel each year — often by blowing the tops off of Appalachian mountains.

The country’s highest-paid coal executive, Blankenship is a villain ripped straight from the comic books: a jowly, mustache-sporting, union-busting coal baron who uses his fortune to bend politics to his will. He recently financed a $3.5 million campaign to oust a state Supreme Court justice who frequently ruled against his company, and he hung out on the French Riviera with another judge who was weighing an appeal by Massey. “Don Blankenship would actually be less powerful if he were in elected office,” Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia once observed. “He would be twice as accountable and half as feared.”

On the national level, Blankenship enjoys a position of influence on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has led the fight to kill climate legislation. He enjoys inveighing against the “greeniacs” — including Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Al Gore — who are “taking over the world.” And he has even taken to tweeting about climate change: “We must demand that more coal be burned to save the Earth from global cooling.”

In more unguarded moments, however, Blankenship confesses that his over-the-top rhetoric is strategic. “If it weren’t for guys like me,” he says, “the middle would be further to the left.” He also admits that his efforts to block climate legislation are ultimately self-serving: “It would probably cut our business in half”.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsS811o21-k&feature=related )

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yah that kind of guy…

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3nCI_9uQfI&feature=related )

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Where was I on Friday – and this Australian thing

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I was volunteering for a very important local ecological group here in central Illinois and by the time I got home I was too exhausted to post. The place was Starhill Forest Aboretum run by Edie and Guy Sternberg:

http://www.starhillforest.com/

And I must say, WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH THE AUSSIES

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100405/ts_nm/us_australia_ship

This is Australia’s third such recent disaster, he said, following two last year, another oil spill off the Queensland coast and a major oil well blowout in the Timor Sea.

It should be clearer within the next few days what the likely scale of this disaster may be, Smyth said. In a worst case scenario, the spilled oil could reach protected areas on the Australian mainland, he said.

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dot dot dot

Stranded ship “time bomb” to Great Barrier Reef

Mon Apr 5, 3:56 am ET

SYDNEY (Reuters) – A stranded Chinese coal ship leaking oil onto Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is an environmental time bomb with the potential to devastate large protected areas of the reef, activists said on Monday.

The ship was a “ticking environmental time bomb,” Gilly Llewellyn, director of conservation for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Australia, told Reuters.

She said this was the third major international incident involving its owners in four years.

Australian government officials say the stricken Shen Neng I belongs to the Shenzhen Energy Group, a subsidiary of China’s state-owned China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company, better known by its acronym COSCO.

In 2007, COSCO was linked to a major oil spill in San Francisco bay, while last year it was tied to another in Norway, both of which damaged environmentally sensitive areas.

“We are seeing a concerning pattern potentially associated with this company,” Llewellyn told Reuters.

COSCO officials in Australia could not be contacted for comment on Monday.

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Global Warming’s Impact On Illinois – Slightly warmer wetter Springs,

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Slightly cooler wetter Summers, and slightly warmer and wetter Falls with earlier first frosts. Oh that sounds so scary. But if you think about it, it is. I have said all along that the biggest early effect of Global Warming is the disruption in farming. Farmers won’t know when to plant. They will have replant and they may not be able to harvest…This will mean that we can feed ourselves but we can’t feed the world. Food riots have already happened 2 years ago, thought governments were better prepared last year.

Don’t believe me? Let’s ask the experts.

http://www.isws.illinois.edu/atmos/statecli/ElNino/elnino.htm

El Niño and La Niña in Illinois

El Niño and La Niña refer to periods when sea-surface temperatures along the equator in the Pacific Ocean are either unusually warm (El Niño) or cold (La Niña). These events typically begin in the spring or summer and fade by the following spring. A more complete description of El Niño and La Niña can be found under Other Resources below.

The NOAA Climate Prediction Center has identified a weak El Niño event in the Pacific Ocean. This event is expected to strengthen and last through this winter (2009-2010). Here is a series of maps on the historical impacts of El Niño on monthly temperature and precipitation (pdf). In general, they produced warmer-than-normal temperatures in September and during December-March. In contrast, cooler-than-normal temperatures prevailed in August and April-May. The impact on monthly precipitation was both weaker and less consistent. Somewhat wetter conditions prevailed in August, October, and December while drier conditions were found in September.  [posted September 22, 2009]

Summary of Impacts of El Niño

El Niño events vary in size, intensity, and duration. As a result, the impacts can vary from one event to the next. In addition, there may be other factors that influence our weather during these events.

  • Summers tend to be slightly cooler and wetter than average
  • Falls tend to be wetter and cooler than average
  • Winters tend to be warmer and drier
  • Springs tend to be drier than average
  • Snowfall tends to be 70 to 90 percent of average
  • Heating degree days tend to be 80 to 90 percent of average. Lower heating degree days mean lower heating bills.
  • Tends to reduce tornado activity in the High Plains and Midwest and increases it in the Sout

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He wants to blame it on El Nino, but notice later he says they have been getting weaker and weaker…What happens when they do not come?

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http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/news/stories/news4422.html

Farmers Who Plant – Or Replant – After June 20 May See Yields Shrink By Half

Published: Jun. 10, 2008

Source: Emerson Nafziger, 217-333-4424, ednaf@illinois.edu

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A costly deadline looms for many growers in the Midwest, as every day of waiting for the weather to cooperate to plant corn and soybeans reduces potential yields. Research indicates that Illinois growers who plant corn or soybeans near the end of June can expect a 50 percent reduction in crop yield, according to a University of Illinois agriculture expert.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that corn and soybean growers in several Midwestern states are behind schedule on their planting. A cooler and wetter-than-average spring has left Illinois and Indiana furthest behind on planted corn and soybeans. Several other states are lagging behind their normal planting schedules, but by a lesser margin.

In Illinois, 95 percent of the corn is planted and 88 percent has emerged, but less than half of that is reported to be in good or excellent condition. Fully 14 percent of the acres planted are in poor or very poor condition, with another 38 percent reported as fair. Those acres in poor or very poor condition may have to be replanted.

In Illinois, the corn was 7 inches high as of June 9, compared to an average of 17 inches by this time in recent years. Illinois crop sciences professor Emerson Nafziger says cool temperatures and the third wettest January-April since 1895 in Illinois have led to delays that are undercutting potential yields.

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http://www.agpowermag.com/articles/articles.php?articleid=408

Think Twice Before Tilling Corn Ground This Spring

May, 1998

Thinking of taking a disk or field cultivator to last year’s no-till field? Agronomists warn that just one tillage pass is enough to negate many of the long-term benefits of no-till farming.

“After two to five years of continuous no-till farming, we see significant improvements in soil structure and organic matter levels,” says Jerry Hatfield, a researcher with the USDA-ARS Soil Tilth Lab in Ames, Iowa. No-till ground also resists crusting and has a higher cation exchange capacity, which is the soil’s ability to hold onto nutrients. Tillage — even just one pass – diminishes those benefits.

Once you revert back to tillage, you’re also giving up more immediate benefits like time, labor, and fuel savings, points out Mike Plumer, natural resources educator with the University of Illinois.

Despite these benefits, no-till corn acreage has leveled off nationally and declined in some eastern Corn Belt states, according to the Conservation Technology Information Center. Many blame unseasonably cool and/or wet spring weather. In Iowa, for example, last April was the coldest April since 1983 and the 16th coldest in 125 years of state record keeping. Last May was

the seventh coldest May in 125 years.

Under these conditions, no-till soils start out cooler and can take longer to warm up. That can put a strain on corn emergence and early growth.

If El Nino brings warm, dry weather to the Corn Belt this spring, no-till corn acreage could rebound, says Wayne Pedersen, plant pathologist with the University of Illinois. “No-till systems always do well in dry years,” Pedersen says. “No-till soils hold onto moisture better than tilled soils. As a result, no-till corn can tolerate a lack of rainfall — without yield loss — for a much longer period than conventional till corn.”

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I know that is 2008 analysis and comment. but like I said what if it doesn’t go away? hmmmmmm

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http://web.extension.illinois.edu/stephenson/news/news17285.html

Spring Forage Seeding Considerations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 15, 2010

Mother Nature did not allow many graziers to frost seed red clover in late February-­early March. Wet conditions have prompted several forage producers to ask about seeding. In the recent Iowa State University Integrated Crop Management News newsletter, Steve Barnhart, Extension forage specialist addressed the topic of “wet spring forage planting considerations”. With some minor modifications for Illinois, the article follows.

Can spring forage stands still successfully be plant? The short answer is – yes, into the first ten days to two weeks of May (late-summer seedings are more successful in southern Illinois). The end of the spring forage planting season is limited by seedling development and growth into the summer months. Most forage seedlings are emerging and growing root systems

into the top one to three inches of the seedbed during the three to four weeks following germination.
The increasingly dry and hot soil surfaces in late May and June increase the risk that the small forage seedlings do not establish. So, the risk depends on rainfall and soil temperatures

from here on. If conditions turn normal or hotter and dryer than normal, the risk of late planted forage seeding failures increases. If late May and early June conditions remain cooler and wetter than normal, then later-than-desired spring forage seedings may survive very well.
Planting later than desired, adds to vulnerability to erosion and weed competition. Keep

cereal companion crop planting rates to half of a full seeding rate or less, and mow or clip new

seedings several times during the early seedling development months to allow sunlight to reach small developing legume and grass seedlings. Also scout for and manage potato leafhoppers in new alfalfa seedings.

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More tomorrow…

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David Gergen Supports Alternative Energy And The Green Economy

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Well this brings this blog and blogger right to the environmental focus we had hoped for. I saw this Sunday in the Parade Magazine. I knew I had to post it.

http://www.parade.com/news/2010/03/14-back-page-how-america-can-create-new-jobs.html

Back Page

How America Can Create New Jobs

by David Gergen
published: 03/14/2010
Technicians install a solar panel in Malibu, Calif.

‘Our company is like many other big ones in this country,” a CEO told me recently. “We expect to create plenty of jobs in coming years, but guess what: They won’t be in the U.S.”Welcome to the “new normal.” For more than five straight decades after World War II, the Great American Job Machine cranked out jobs at a phenomenal pace—22 million in the 1990s alone. But since December 1999, there has been zero net job creation—nada, zippo. Coming out of recession, one in six Americans is now unemployed or can’t find full-time work. Worse still, some economists say we won’t be back to pre-recession levels until 2016!

What can be done? Sadly, not much in the short term. Washington can and should pass bipartisan programs that create infrastructure jobs, ease the pain of unemployment, and hasten lending for small business. But progress will be painfully slow for millions of families.

The bigger challenge is whether we rally and renew for the long run. We are facing the toughest international competition in our lifetimes, and we are no longer winning. The signs are all around us. Who can believe that the first 20 floors of the new World Trade Center will be wrapped in glass made in China? Or that the new 28-foot statue of Martin Luther King Jr. will be coming to the Mall in Washington from Chinese workshops? These should be made-in-America jobs.

It is easy to get mad; great nations get even. We shouldn’t erect trade barriers—those helped to spark the Great Depression. We have to remember what made us the most dynamic nation in the world and can do so again: education and innovation.

In their new book, Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz point to the fundamental truth that the U.S. became the world’s richest nation at the beginning of the 20th century because we educated  more of our kids than anyone else. Generation after generation, children finished about two more years of schooling than their parents. We created the top research universities. But then we slowed down and others sped up. In the 1960s, the U.S. had the top high school graduation rate in the world; by the early 2000s, we were 19th. Our college graduation rates of young people have fallen into 12th place. To reignite job creation, Goldin and Katz say, we must once again be the best at educating our kids.

Fortunately, we’re finally firing up on education reform. Cities like New York, Chicago, Houston, and, yes, New Orleans are pushing reforms. Arne Duncan is a first-class Secretary of Education. More than 40,000 college seniors applied this year to Teach for America, the volunteer teaching corp. Even unions are getting the message. We are far, far from where we should be—but at last there is fresh hope.

The second fundamental truth is that scientific and technological research is key to job creation. MIT president Susan Hockfield notes that investment after World War II created waves of new industries and jobs in electronics, nuclear power, aerospace, communications, and computing. Yet again, we’ve slowed relative to other hungry nations. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman points out, we have only a tiny handful of the top 10 global companies in emerging green industries.

Relentless global competition is here to stay. We shouldn’t be scared nor discouraged. That’s not who we are as Americans. As my favorite preacher, Peter Gomes, says about how one should handle adversity in life, “Get used to it, get over it, and get on with it.”

David Gergen is a professor of public service at Harvard and a senior political analyst at CNN. He serves on the board of Teach for America and has advised four Presidents.

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More next time.

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Sorry My Internet Is Out – 02/22/10

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I am at the Riverton public library and I could post but Cass Communication or Greene County Cable who are my service providers said they will get it up and running this afternoon. So I am taking them at their word. If they don’t live up to it by tomorrow you will hear a whole lot more about it from me. Bet on it. The library is actually a nice place and I have posted from here before but they shut down from 2-4 and it is almost 2 now…so I think I will just go home and get lunch. I need to start a meatloaf too so maybe by the time I do all that I will be up and running at CES’ headquarters. Thanks for the patience ;+]

Joe Barton – Not only a climate killer but an energy profiteer

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I was going to go back to the residential market today or maybe do another post on green cars. But I saw this in the Dallas Morning Star and I just had to say that these folks are so brazen and shameless that there is no stopping them short of jail. Which leads me to ask what ever happened to Tom Delay?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6848980.html

Barton bought stake in gas wells from lobbyist

© 2010 The Associated Press

Feb. 3, 2010, 11:50AM

DALLAS — U.S. Rep. Joe Barton has earned nearly $100,000 from an interest in natural gas wells purchased from a campaign donor who advised the congressman on energy policy, according to interviews and records.

The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday that land records show the Republican from Arlington bought his interest from Walter G. Mize, a Cleburne businessman who donated more than $30,000 to Barton’s campaigns.

Barton said at a hearing last month of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that he was “a small, small partner in a natural gas well in Johnson County in the Barnett Shale.” He later told a reporter that he couldn’t remember exactly how he obtained the interest.

Mize, who died in 2008, had urged Barton to create a federal oil and gas research program that was included in a 2005 energy law Barton wrote when he chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Mize doesn’t appear to have ever directly benefited from the program’s funding.

An expert says lawmakers aren’t prohibited from going into business with campaign donors, but Barton’s interest could become controversial at a time when Congress is considering energy legislation that would boost the demand for natural gas.

Barton, a longtime proponent of domestic oil and natural gas production, said his investment is legal and was publicly reported in accordance with federal law and ethics rules. Barton, who remains the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s top Republican, told the newspaper his investment doesn’t conflict with his legislative responsibilities.

“I don’t think my position on any pending issue is going to be affected by me investing in an oil and gas opportunity as long as it’s done straight up and reported with my own money at risk,” Barton said.

Congressional experts say such deals raise ethical questions for lawmakers, who are expected by the public to separate their personal finances and official duties.

“If you are elected as a public servant to try to do what is right for the public generally and then you use that position to help bring in material wealth, I think it’s unethical,” said James Thurber, a distinguished professor of government at American University.

Barton said he paid a fair price for his interest in the wells, but his exact costs aren’t documented by a 2008 House financial disclosure report. On that form, he listed that he purchased his interest from gas producer EOG Resources Inc.

His office issued a statement saying Barton “bought in at the same rate and assumed the same amount of risk as every other partner in the well” before drilling began. According to his disclosure report, Barton said he paid between $15,000 and $50,000 for his interest in the wells. The report only requires that lawmakers report a range of values.

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We are doomed.

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The Koch Bros – Doing business in the oil hood and damn climate change

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What more can you say about a couple of spoiled rich kids whose daddy helped form the John Birch Society and was in the KKK. You can send em to school, dress em up and make em smell pretty. You can not make them smart or socially responsible. They pay Walter Williams and George Mason (alleged) University a loto money to be their best black man however.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries

The Koch brothers also operate the Koch Family Foundations, a major source of funding for conservative and libertarian political causes in the United States, including think tanks such as the Cato Institute. Their father helped found the John Birch Society, though neither brother is a member or supporter of the organization. David’s political activism also included running as the vice presidential nominee of the United States Libertarian Party in 1980, when he and running mate Ed Clark finished fourth with 921,299 votes.

In April 2006, the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation announced it had contributed $1 million to help preserve the tallgrass prairies of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Chase County, Kansas. The donation made to the Kansas Prairie Legacy Campaign is reportedly the single largest private donation in the State’s history.[citation needed] Currently Liz Koch is the president of the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation and has been reported as saying that the Flint Hills of Kansas were a special place for both Fred and Mary Koch.

Koch Industries also founded Americans for Prosperity, formed as a successor to Citizens for a Sound Economy. Koch Industries and its subsidiaries spent more than $20 million on lobbying in 2008 and $5.6 million in 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. [10][11]

Rich Fink, a Koch executive vice president, is a member of the board of directors of Americans for Prosperity. Previously he served as president of Citizens for a Sound Economy. He also founded the Mercatus Center.

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BURN BURN BURN that’s all they want to do.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/16

The Tea Partiers
Charles and David Koch
CEO and Executive Vice President, Koch Industries

The multibillionaire brothers not only run the nation’s largest private energy company, they rival Exxon in funding the front groups that spread disinformation about the dangers of climate change. Over the years, the Kochs and their foundations have lavished millions on climate deniers at the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute, which Charles founded in 1977. Cato, in turn, supports the work of Patrick Michaels, a leading climate denier who attempts to discredit the international scientific consensus on global warming while accepting money from coal companies. As author Thomas Frank observes in What’s the Matter With Kansas?, “Koch money subsidizes the mass production of bad ideas.”

One major recipient of Koch cash is Americans for Prosperity, where David chairs the foundation’s board. In addition to fomenting last summer’s town-hall brawls over health care reform, AFP sponsored a “Hot Air Tour” on climate change, deploying a manned balloon at 75 events for the purpose of “Exposing the Ballooning Costs of Global Warming Hysteria.” At the events, the group’s president, Tim Phillips, grossly exaggerated the costs of climate legislation, calling it a trillion-dollar tax on American families.

Last October, at an AFP summit attended by David Koch, the assembled Tea Partiers screened a climate-denial film that accused advocates like Al Gore of wanting to take civilization “back to the Dark Ages and the Black Plague.” Such events, Koch proclaimed, “bring to reality the vision” of “fighting for the economic freedoms that made our nation the most prosperous society in history.” Last year, seeking to defend its own prosperity against a carbon-capped future, Koch Industries spent more than $8.5 million on lobbying.

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There is a place that they can burn in and I Hades I believe is the place for it:

http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Go-Hi/Hades.html

In Greek mythology, Hades was the god of the underworld, the kingdom of the dead. (The Romans called him Pluto.) Although the name Hades is often used to indicate the underworld itself, it rightfully belongs only to the god, whose kingdom was known as the land of Hades or house of Hades.

Hades was the son of Cronus* and Rhea, two of the Titans who once ruled the universe. The Titans had other children, the gods Zeus* and Poseidon* and the goddesses Demeter*, Hera*, and Hestia. When Hades was born, Cronus swallowed him as he had swallowed his other children at birth. However, Zeus escaped this fate, and he tricked Cronus into taking a potion that made him vomit up Hades and his siblings.

Together these gods and goddesses rebelled against the Titans and seized power from them. After gaining control of the universe, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus drew lots to divide it among themselves. Zeus gained control of the sky, Poseidon took the sea, and Hades received the underworld.

The Underworld Kingdom. The kingdom of the dead was divided into two regions. At the very bottom lay Tartarus, a land of terrible blackness where the wicked suffered eternal torments.
Read more:

Hades – Myth Encyclopedia – mythology, Greek, god, names, ancient, people, children, evil, fire http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Go-Hi/Hades.html#ixzz0eUsHq0ie

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More tomorrow

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Rep. Joe Barton – You can’t regulate God

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But you CAN regulate the airlines, the world’s Air Forces, the Coal companies, and the water born freight business. You can regulate the Navy and you can regulate the 500 largest point of source polluters. But trying to regulate Al Gore proved difficult:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqUHM2gf5g4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Barton

Barton was born in Waco, Texas to Bess Wynell Buice and Larry Linus Barton.[1] He graduated from Waco High School. He attended Texas A&M University in College Station on a Gifford-Hill Opportunity Award scholarship[2] and received a B.S. in industrial engineering in 1972. An M.Sc. in industrial administration from Purdue University followed in 1973. Following college Barton entered private industry until 1981 when he became a White House Fellow and served under Secretary of Energy James B. Edwards. Later, he began consulting for Atlantic Richfield Oil and Gas Co. before being elected to Congress in 1984.[3]

Barton was elected to represent Texas’s 6th congressional district in his first attempt, defeating Democratic opponent Dan Kubiak with 56% of the vote in a contest to succeed Phil Gramm, who left his seat to run for the United States Senate that year. He was one of six freshmen Republican congressmen elected from Texas in 1984 known as the Texas Six Pack. He received 88% of the vote in 2000, 71% of the vote in 2002 against Democratic challenger Felix Alvarado, and 66% of the vote in 2004 against Democratic challenger Morris Meyer.[citation needed]

In 1993, Barton ran in the special election for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the resignation of Lloyd Bentsen, who became Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration. Barton finished third in the contest and missed a runoff slot.[citation needed]

Congressman Barton is the Ranking Minority Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee.[

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Rep. Barton has been regarded as a climate change denier[5] and his opposition to addressing global warming has been consistent and long-term. As a chairman with primary responsibility over the energy sector, Barton has consistently acted over the years to prevent congressional action on global warming.[11] In 2001, Barton declared, “as long as I am chairman, [regulating global warming pollution] is off the table indefinitely. I don’t want there to be any uncertainty about that.”[12] Barton led opposition to amendments that would have recognized global warming during consideration of the Energy Advancement and Conservation Act in 2001, opposing an amendment to require the President to develop and implement a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels as called for by the non-binding United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which the U.S. is a party to.[13] In 2003, Barton again opposed amendments that would have recognized global warming during consideration of the National Energy Policy Act of 2003, opposing a nonbinding amendment that would have put Congress on record as saying that the U.S. should “demonstrate international leadership and responsibility in reducing the health, environmental, and economic risks posed by climate change.”[14] In July 2003, Barton offered an amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act to remove language that both recognized global warming and called on President Bush to reengage with the international community to find solutions.[15] In addition, Barton has consistently opposed proposals to reduce the nation’s dependence on oil.[16][17][18]

In 2005, prompted by a February 2005 Wall Street Journal article,[19] Rep. Barton has launched an investigation into two climate change studies from 1998 and 1999.[5] In his letters to the authors of the studies, he requested not just details on the studies themselves but significant information about their entire lives and previous studies. This has been widely regarded as an attempted attack on the scientists rather than a serious attempt to understand the science,[20] although some view it as a normal exercise of the committee’s responsibility and an effort to make possible scientific debate on a subject within its jurisdiction.[21][22] The Washington Post condemned Barton’s investigation as a “witch-hunt“.[23] Environmental Science & Technology, an obscure policy journal often cited by politicians, including Barton, reported what it said was scientific proof that global warming science is wrong.[24] See also Barton’s own response to this controversy in The Dallas Morning News.[25] The dispute expanded with Sherwood Boehlert‘s House Science Committee taking a strong interest.[26]

In 2006, Barton earned two “environmental harm demerits” from the conservative watchdog group Republicans for Environmental Protection, the first “for derailing floor passage of a sense of the House resolution … acknowledging climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”; the second, “for holding hearings, in his role as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, designed to intimidate climate scientists and raise doubt about the impacts and causes of climate change.”[27] The hearings were held by Barton’s committee on July 19, 2006, chaired by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), Chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations; there, several skeptics testified regarding the hockey stick graph.

During Former Vice President Al Gore‘s testimony to the Energy and Commerce Committee in March, 2007, Barton asserted to Gore that “You’re not just off a little, you’re totally wrong,”[28] thus reinforcing his denial that carbon dioxide emissions contribute to global climate change.

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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/15

The Inquisitor
Rep. Joe Barton
Republican, Texas

As ranking Republican on the House energy committee, Barton is a mini version of Sen. James Inhofe. In his view, the climate is changing for “natural variation reasons,” and humans should just “get shade” and learn to adapt. “For us to try to step in and say we have got to do all these global things to prevent the Earth from getting any warmer is absolute nonsense,” he insists. “You can’t regulate God.”

During the Bush era, Barton bottled up all climate legislation and pushed to open up public lands for drilling by private interests. He also targeted leading climate scientists, demanding that they provide Congress with detailed documentation of their financial interests. (Barton himself has received $1.4 million from oil and gas donors, plus $1.3 million from electric utilities.) The inquisition drew sharp rebukes, even from Barton’s fellow Republicans. Your “purpose seems to be to intimidate scientists rather than to learn from them,” then-Rep. Sherwood Boehlert told Barton. The effort “to have Congress put its thumbs on the scales of a scientific debate” is “truly chilling.”

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With liars like this can the republic survive?

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John McCain Wanted To Be President – Now he wants to be a climate killer

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It’s Election Day tomorrow in Illinois so I must be brief. First the Kings of Leone won best album so I should put them up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuQiBrBD2JE

John McCain is mad at the country because we picked a socialist over him. Actually Barack ran as a moderate Republican so he got beat by his own party, but that is another story. Here is the case:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/14

The Climate Killers

Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming

TIM DICKINSON

The Flip Flopper
Sen. John McCain
Republican, Arizona

McCain has been one of the Senate’s biggest climate champions since 2003, when he introduced a bill with Joe Lieberman to create a “cap and trade” system similar to the one currently being debated. But since losing the presidency to Barack Obama, McCain is taking his pique out on the planet. He’s now threatening to roadblock the very measure he once introduced, lying about its cost and distorting its goals. “What the Obama administration has proposed is not cap-and-trade,” McCain says. “It’s cap-and-tax.” He’s even trash-talking a bipartisan alternative by GOP colleague Lindsey Graham, calling it “horrendous.”

Although McCain frames his newfound stance as opposition to what he portrays as a $630 billion tax on corporate America, the measure as revised by the House actually provides the energy industry with more than $690 billion in pollution subsidies.

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Go vote…Go vote … Go vote….

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