Category Archives: smoke

City Water Light And Power – Energy Efficiency in Springfield Illinois

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I forget to give them the credit they deserve. We have a local utility that has invested in wind power and early Energy Conservation Programs. And it was created by a socialist.

http://www.cwlp.com/

Welcome to the home page of City Water, Light & Power (CWLP), the municipal electric and water utility for Springfield, Illinois. CWLP also owns and manages Lake Springfield, the primary source of drinking water for Springfield and one of Central Illinois’ premier recreational resources.

City Water, Light & Power’s general offices are located on the fourth floor of Municipal Center East, 800 East Monroe, Springfield, IL 62757. Contact information for the General Office and other utility offices can be found on the Contact Information page in the About CWLP section.

For more information about the utility or its various divisions, select one of the main topics or subtopics in the left-hand column of this page.

Top l CWLP Home l CWLP Contact Info l Search l City of Springfield

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These guys are the best.

http://www.cwlp.com/energy_services/energy_services.htm

The CWLP Energy Services Office offers a variety of services designed to help our residential and commercial customers increase personal comfort and convenience while reducing energy and water costs. The office is staffed by a team of  Energy Experts who work diligently to keep abreast of the latest developments in energy-related technologies. They share their knowledge with CWLP’s residential and business customers via several avenues, including advertising; free publications produced specifically with our customers’ needs in mind; bill inserts; informational videos; home energy audits; and Low-Cost/No-Cost Efficiency Workshops and other community involvement programs. The Energy Services Office also administers CWLP’s efficiency rebate programs.

The  Energy Services Office is in downtown Springfield on the northwest corner of Monroe and S. 6th Streets. We invite customers to stop in and visit us, view our energy-efficient lighting displays and water conservation exhibit, pick up free efficiency literature, or talk with the Energy Experts. We also welcome questions or requests for information that come through the mail, by phone or FAX, or via email.

Reach us at: 2nd Floor
231 S. 6th St.
Springfield, IL 62701
Phone: (217) 789-2070
FAX: (217) 789-2210
email: nrgxprts@cwlp.com

For more information about CWLP’s Energy Services Office or about how you can make your home or business more energy efficient, select any of the topics or subtopics listed in the left-hand column of this page.

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See you at jam band friday…

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3rd Street Corridor In Springfield IL – I haven’t done local stuff lately

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But since I picked on St. John’s yesterday today we bring you the Rail Road Companies. In particular the community investing and protecting Union Pacific.

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I posted page one here. You can call or email them if you want the whole thing. If you click on the image it will get a little bigger. My choices for posting were not great. Reeeal Big so that only part of it fit on the page or mid range which looks like the above.

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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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Global Warming Is Not A Crisis – According to the New York Times

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I keep wanting to make the point that medicine is one of our biggest energy wasters but the world keeps yanking my chain like this:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/on-the-energy-gap-and-climate-crisis/

The one I’d choose is much like the one stated by  Richard Somerville of the University of California, San Diego, during a climate debate several years ago over the proposition that “ Global Warming is Not a Crisis.”

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But then little things like this pop up the same day:

http://www.ecanadanow.com/science/2010/04/08/global-warming-is-still-an-issue-two-glaciers-disappear/

Global Warming is Still an Issue, Two Glaciers Disappear

Posted by Staff on Apr 8th, 2010 /

Two more glaciers have disappeared from Glacier National Park. There are 25 glaciers left and scientists believe they will be gone by the end of the decade. This brings the problem of Global Warming back into the news after the recent email scandals, that implied that many in the Global Warming movement were manipulating statistics.

The loss of the glaciers in the northwestern Montana park is attributed to warmer temperatures. These 2 glaciers fell below the measure used by scientists to determine if they can be called glaciers. This number is 25 acres. When the glacier falls below this number, it is no longer considered a glacier. The largest glacier in the park, called the “Harrison Glacier” covers 465 acres.

The decrease of glaciers means there is less water in the rivers of the area. Less water also contributes to an increase in fires and a decrease in fish. It is not certain what is causing the rise in temperatures causing the shrinking of the glaciers. 90% of glaciers worldwide are now said to be shrinking. Alaska, the Alps and the Andes are leading the world in the loss of glaciers. Scientist have toyed with the idea of covering glaciers in plastic sheeting to keep them cooler.

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Isn’t life pathetic sometimes…

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Large Sequoias point to the death of the Anastasi and other North American Tribes

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No trees were sacrificed to complete this study.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36083323/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Earth’s biggest tree rings tell fiery tales

Fallen giant sequoias reveal a 3,000-year-old history of fire and drought

Image: Tree
Hemera/ThinkStock
The tree rings of 52 fallen giant sequoias, Earth’s biggest trees, have revealed a 3,000-year-old history of droughts and fires.
By Larry O’Hanlon

Using huge chainsaws and strong backs, the largest trees in the world are finally giving up their 3,000-year record of fires and droughts. No trees, however, were harmed in the making of this fire history.

“We only used dead trees,” emphasized tree ring researcher Thomas Swetnam of the University of Arizona. Swetnam led the study that was reported in a recent issue of the journal Fire Ecology. “We spent multiple years collecting the wood and hauling it back to Tucson.”

The giant sequoias in California’s Sequoia National Park are far too thick to be cored for the extraction of the pencil-thin cores typically used by tree ring researchers. So the authors of a new report on tree ring evidence of past droughts and fires used all sorts of other tools to slice and dice 52 giant dead and fallen sequoias, lug the pieces back to roads by hand. Then they spent years piecing together the valuable history in their laboratories.

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This raises the question, “what if you are good to the Earth and it burns you anyway”?

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Cap And Trade This Year – I know this seems like a little off topic

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We will get back to energy use and Healthcare tomorrow. This is such an obvious linkage that I thought I would put it up.

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259898/obama-healthcare-victory-clears

Obama’s healthcare victory clears path for climate change bill

As Democrats secure historic healthcare reforms, fresh details emerge of proposed climate change bill
James Murray, BusinessGreen, 22 Mar 2010
President Obama

The chances of US climate change legislation passing this year received a major boost after President Obama secured victory in his historic battle to pass healthcare reforms late last night.

The successful House vote on the legislation following over a year of intense and fraught negotiations will clear a path for the administration to turn to its next large piece of administrative business: climate change.

Some senior Democrat Senators have suggested that following such a long battle to pass healthcare legislation the Senate will have “no appetite” to deal with a climate change bill that is likely to prove equally contentious.

However, both the administration and Democrat leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives remain adamant that they want to pursue a vote this year and with the party still behind in the polls ahead of November’s mid-term elections the race is now on to move the legislation forward as quickly as possible.

The key healthcare vote comes just days after the compromise version of the climate change bill being prepared by the bi-partisan trio of Senators Democrat John Kerry, Republican Lindsey Graham, and independent Joe Lieberman, received a further boost when both environmental and industrial groups signaled their support for the proposed legislation.

In a surprise move, Bruce Josten, the top lobbyist at the US Chamber of Commerce, told reporters last week that the work being done by the three senators was “largely in synch” with the business group’s views.

Josten stopped short of fully endorsing the bill, but following a meeting with the Senator’s last Wednesday he struck a markedly different tone to the outright opposition to previous versions of the bill that the Chamber adopted last year.

“The fairest comment would be, directionally speaking, the way they are trying to conform and shape this bill I would suggest is largely in sync with what most people in American industry think is the direction you are going to have to go if you are going to have a successful program,” he told reporters.

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State Journal Register Refuses To Publish My Letter On Toxic Waste In Coal

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I hardly ever use this blog as a personal soapbox but the State Journal Register has taken to publishing OP/ED pieces and long letters from one James Monk “President” of the Illinois Energy Association extolling the virtues of coal and opposing proposed Cap and Trade Policies. So here is a letter they did not run:

Editor

State Journal Register

One Copley Plaza

Springfield, IL 62701

Emailed – 12/31/09

Dear Editor:

How ironic it must be to work at the SJ-R these days. First, on a single day, you run an OP/Ed piece by Ann Coulter that claims global warming is “all made up”.  On the back page of that same section you run an AP article about the many changes we humans will have to make to “adjust” to global warming. Are the facts overwhelming the “opinions” yet?

But it got worse on December 29th. On that day you ran a long letter to the editors by the appropriately named James Monk, President of Illinois Energy Association arguing that regulation of coal fired powerplant byproducts as hazardous waste will harm the economy of the nation. While on page 6, on the back of page 5, is a long article with the headline: MERCURY POLLUTION UP IN ILLINOIS. This was blamed on coal fired powerplants. Constiuent components of the coal byproducts can contain arsenic, beryllium, boron, cadmium, chromium, chromium VI, cobalt, lead, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, selenium, strontium, thallium, and vanadium, along with dioxins and PAH compounds. This sounds very toxic to me.

After the 200 million gallon spill in Tennessee, this 130 million lb. yearly ticking time bomb needs to be declared toxic and cleaned up. I don’t think that coal is as cheap to burn as some people claim. You SJ-R guys are only a page away from getting the facts (or truth) on the same page as the OP/Ed page, congratulations.

Doug Nicodemus

948 e. adams st.

riverton, IL  62561

629-7031

dougnic55@yahoo.com

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Doing Your Own Energy Audit – Try some incense

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So far our doityourself audit has consisted of  listing your major energy users, checking their condition and cleaning their filters, checking the ductwork for leaks (at least the ductwork you can get at) and spending some time cleaning out the coils on your refrigerator and freezer. Now we are going to check the house for air leaks. The first and easiest thing to do is walk around the house and simply look for obvious leaks. These would be where any outside service enters the house. Examples would be where your water pipes, electrical wires, phone wires and cable wires enter the house. They should all be sealed tight. If not buy a caulk gun and some caulk and seal them up.

http://www.essortment.com/home/caulkingtipsdo_seay.htm

If you do not know how to caulk, starting outside is easier because you do not have worry so much about the mess and you can wipe your hands on the grass. Also check around all of your windows and doors and vents to make sure they are sealed. If they are not sealed, do not seal those right away. Next we go buy some incense and go back indoors.

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

Congratulations by the way. You have joined the green economy. Now we are going to conduct a house purification ritual from the ancient religion of conservatorium. The reason why I did not have you seal your windows and doors on the outside is because it makes it easier to find the leaks on the inside if they are not plugged. Also it is best that you do this next step when it is pretty windy and preferably cold or hot. So light your incense stick and let it get smokey. Walk around the room very slowly holding the incense stick very close to the wall and chat “I save money” over and over again”. Stop every couple of feet and watch the smoke. If it moves anywhere but up you have a potential leak. Stick a Postit Note next to it and move on (or mark it with a pen or a pencil that is easily removed).

http://homerepair.about.com/od/exteriorhomerepair/ss/winterize_7.htm

Infiltration of cold air from air leaks around doors and windows is as significant a contributor to your heating bill as is poor insulation in the walls and ceiling. An easy way to reduce you heating bill is to reduce these drafts with simple weatherstripping.

Windows

  • On a day when it’s windy outside, close your windows and feel for air leaks. You can use an incense stick for this too if you don’t mind the smell. Watch the smoke trail and if it becomes anything other than vertical, you have an air leak. Typically air leaks will be at the edges where the window is hinged, slides or meets another unit, such as between the two panels of a double hung window.
  • Although you can tape plastic over the windows to seal them, this can be expensive and look bad. It can also reduce much needed light in the winter unless you use the shrink-wrap type of plastic seal. So a better and easier solution is to use inexpensive rope caulk.
  • Press the rope caulk into all the joints where air is leaking.

Doors

The easiest fix here is to check for weatherstripping on the side and bottoms of the doors. Install weatherstripping on any leaking doors.

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http://buildipedia.com/channels/at-home/item/892-winterizing-your-home

  • Walls
    • Inspect for air leakage on the inside of the home.  A candle or incense stick can be used to help locate the air leaks.  Flame or smoke will be noticeably directed away from the location where air leaks are occurring.  If necessary, insulate or seal air leaks around doors, windows, outlets, and other penetrations where air leaks are occurring.

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http://www.valuhomecenters.com/winterize.asp

Winterizing Your Home Tip #4: Weatherstrip Doors and Windows

On a day when it’s windy outside, close your windows and feel for air leaks. You can use an incense stick for this too if you don’t mind the smell. Watch the smoke trail and if it becomes anything other than vertical, you have an air leak. Typically air leaks will be at the edges where the window is hinged, slides or meets another unit, such as between the two panels of a double hung window. The easiest fix here is to check for weatherstripping on the side and bottoms of the doors. Install weatherstripping on any leaking doors.

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Go ahead and caulk the air leaks that you find that can be handled using that material. This would be typically around windows and doors, along floors and baseboards and around some ceiling fixtures. We will talk about windows, doors and outlets tomorrow.

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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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