Monday, October 26, 2015
Profits vs The Environment:
Bill McKibben: Exxon Knew Everything There Was to Know About Climate Change by the Mid-1980s—and Denied It
"...on the eve of the next global gathering in Paris this December, there’s a new scandal. But this one doesn’t come from an anonymous hacker taking a few sentences out of context. This one comes from months of careful reporting by two separate teams, one at the Pulitzer Prize–winning website Inside Climate News, and the other at the Los Angeles Times (with an assist from the Columbia Journalism School). Following separate lines of evidence and document trails, they’ve reached the same bombshell conclusion: ExxonMobil, the world’s largest and most powerful oil company, knew everything there was to know about climate change by the mid-1980s, and then spent the next few decades systematically funding climate denial and lying about the state of the science.
This scandal—traveling under the hashtag #exxonknew—is just beginning to build. The Inside Climate News series of six pieces is set to conclude this week and be published as a book, but the LA Times apparently has far more reporting waiting to be released. Already members of Congress—Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier of California—and presidential candidates Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders have called on the Department of Justice to investigate, comparing it to the predations of the tobacco industry.
Should the DOJ muster its courage to go after this most profitable and connected of companies, the roadmap is already well laid out by the two investigations.
ICN has demonstrated that as early as the late 1970s, Exxon scientists were briefing top executives that climate change was real, dangerous, and caused by their product. By the early 1980s, their own climate models were predicting—with great accuracy—the track the global temperature has taken ever since..."
Bill McKibben: Exxon Knew Everything There Was to Know About Climate Change by the Mid-1980s—and Denied It
"...on the eve of the next global gathering in Paris this December, there’s a new scandal. But this one doesn’t come from an anonymous hacker taking a few sentences out of context. This one comes from months of careful reporting by two separate teams, one at the Pulitzer Prize–winning website Inside Climate News, and the other at the Los Angeles Times (with an assist from the Columbia Journalism School). Following separate lines of evidence and document trails, they’ve reached the same bombshell conclusion: ExxonMobil, the world’s largest and most powerful oil company, knew everything there was to know about climate change by the mid-1980s, and then spent the next few decades systematically funding climate denial and lying about the state of the science.
This scandal—traveling under the hashtag #exxonknew—is just beginning to build. The Inside Climate News series of six pieces is set to conclude this week and be published as a book, but the LA Times apparently has far more reporting waiting to be released. Already members of Congress—Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier of California—and presidential candidates Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders have called on the Department of Justice to investigate, comparing it to the predations of the tobacco industry.
Should the DOJ muster its courage to go after this most profitable and connected of companies, the roadmap is already well laid out by the two investigations.
ICN has demonstrated that as early as the late 1970s, Exxon scientists were briefing top executives that climate change was real, dangerous, and caused by their product. By the early 1980s, their own climate models were predicting—with great accuracy—the track the global temperature has taken ever since..."
Saturday, October 10, 2015
'Sin' Taxes:
The Cherry Creek News: Colorado Generates More Tax Revenue From Pot Than Alcohol
"Colorado raised nearly $70 million from marijuana-specific taxes in FY 2014-2015, compared to just under $42 million from alcohol-specific taxes For the first time in history, a state has generated more annual revenue from taxes imposed on marijuana than from taxes imposed on alcohol. According to the Colorado Department of Revenue, the state collected nearly $70 million in marijuana-specific taxes and just under $42 million in alcohol-specific taxes from July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2015. 'Marijuana taxes have been incredibly productive over the past year, so this tax holiday is a much-deserved day off,' said Mason Tvert, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project... ...'It’s crazy how much revenue our state used to flush down the drain by forcing marijuana sales into the underground market,' Tvert said. 'It’s even crazier that so many states are still doing it. Tax revenue is just one of many good reasons to replace marijuana prohibition with a system of regulation,'..."
Wasted Taxpayer Trillions:
Daily Kos: On the 13th anniversary of Rep. Pete Stark's Iraq resolution speech
"Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution. I am deeply troubled that lives may be lost without a meaningful attempt to bring Iraq into compliance with UN resolutions through careful and cautious diplomacy. The bottom line is I don’t trust this President and his advisors. Make no mistake, we are voting on a resolution that grants total authority to the President who wants to invade a sovereign nation without any specific act of provocation. This would authorize the United States to act as the aggressor for the first time in our history. It sets a precedent for our nation - or any nation - to exercise brute force anywhere in the world without regard to international law or international consensus. Congress must not walk in lockstep behind a President who has been so callous to proceed without reservation, as if war was of no real consequence. You know, three years ago in December, Molly Ivins, an observer of Texas politics, wrote: "For an upper-class white boy, Bush comes on way too hard. At a guess, to make up for being an upper-class white boy.” "Somebody," she said, "should be worrying about how all this could affect his handling of future encounters with some Saddam Hussein." How prophetic, Ms. Ivins." Let us not forget that our President - our Commander in Chief – has no experience with, or knowledge of, war. In fact, he admits that he was at best ambivalent about the Vietnam War. He skirted his own military service and then failed to serve out his time in the National Guard. And, he reported years later that at the height of that conflict in 1968 he didn’t notice "any heavy stuff going on." So we have a President who thinks foreign territory is the opponent’s dugout and Kashmir is a sweater. What is most unconscionable is that there is not a shred of evidence to justify the certain loss of life. Do the generalized threats and half-truths of this Administration give any one of us in Congress the confidence to tell a mother or father or family that the loss of their child or loved one was in the name of a just cause? Is the President’s need for revenge for the threat once posed to his father enough to justify the death of any American? I submit the answer to these questions is no. Aside from the wisdom of going to war as Bush wants, I am troubled by who pays for his capricious adventure into world domination. The Administration admits to a cost of around $200 billion! Now, wealthy individuals won’t pay. They’ve got big tax cuts already. Corporations won’t pay. They’ll cook the books and move overseas and then send their contributions to the Republicans. Rich kids won’t pay. Their daddies will get them deferments as Big George did for George W. Well then, who will pay?
School kids will pay. There’ll be no money to keep them from being left behind - way behind. Seniors will pay. They’ll pay big time as the Republicans privatize Social Security and rob the Trust Fund to pay for the capricious war. Medicare will be curtailed and drugs will be more unaffordable. And there won’t be any money for a drug benefit because Bush will spend it all on the war. Working folks will pay through loss of job security and bargaining rights. Our grandchildren will pay through the degradation of our air and water quality. And the entire nation will pay as Bush continues to destroy civil rights, women’s rights and religious freedom in a rush to phony patriotism and to courting the messianic Pharisees of the religious right. The questions before the members of this House and to all Americans are immense, but there are clear answers. America is not currently confronted by a genuine, proven, imminent threat from Iraq. The call for war is wrong. And what greatly saddens me at this point in our history is my fear that this entire spectacle has not been planned for the well being of the world, but for the short-term political interest of our President. Now, I am also greatly disturbed that many Democratic leaders have also put political calculation ahead of the President’s accountability to truth and reason by supporting this resolution. But, I conclude that the only answer is to vote no on the resolution before us."
The Cherry Creek News: Colorado Generates More Tax Revenue From Pot Than Alcohol
"Colorado raised nearly $70 million from marijuana-specific taxes in FY 2014-2015, compared to just under $42 million from alcohol-specific taxes For the first time in history, a state has generated more annual revenue from taxes imposed on marijuana than from taxes imposed on alcohol. According to the Colorado Department of Revenue, the state collected nearly $70 million in marijuana-specific taxes and just under $42 million in alcohol-specific taxes from July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2015. 'Marijuana taxes have been incredibly productive over the past year, so this tax holiday is a much-deserved day off,' said Mason Tvert, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project... ...'It’s crazy how much revenue our state used to flush down the drain by forcing marijuana sales into the underground market,' Tvert said. 'It’s even crazier that so many states are still doing it. Tax revenue is just one of many good reasons to replace marijuana prohibition with a system of regulation,'..."
Wasted Taxpayer Trillions:
Daily Kos: On the 13th anniversary of Rep. Pete Stark's Iraq resolution speech
"Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution. I am deeply troubled that lives may be lost without a meaningful attempt to bring Iraq into compliance with UN resolutions through careful and cautious diplomacy. The bottom line is I don’t trust this President and his advisors. Make no mistake, we are voting on a resolution that grants total authority to the President who wants to invade a sovereign nation without any specific act of provocation. This would authorize the United States to act as the aggressor for the first time in our history. It sets a precedent for our nation - or any nation - to exercise brute force anywhere in the world without regard to international law or international consensus. Congress must not walk in lockstep behind a President who has been so callous to proceed without reservation, as if war was of no real consequence. You know, three years ago in December, Molly Ivins, an observer of Texas politics, wrote: "For an upper-class white boy, Bush comes on way too hard. At a guess, to make up for being an upper-class white boy.” "Somebody," she said, "should be worrying about how all this could affect his handling of future encounters with some Saddam Hussein." How prophetic, Ms. Ivins." Let us not forget that our President - our Commander in Chief – has no experience with, or knowledge of, war. In fact, he admits that he was at best ambivalent about the Vietnam War. He skirted his own military service and then failed to serve out his time in the National Guard. And, he reported years later that at the height of that conflict in 1968 he didn’t notice "any heavy stuff going on." So we have a President who thinks foreign territory is the opponent’s dugout and Kashmir is a sweater. What is most unconscionable is that there is not a shred of evidence to justify the certain loss of life. Do the generalized threats and half-truths of this Administration give any one of us in Congress the confidence to tell a mother or father or family that the loss of their child or loved one was in the name of a just cause? Is the President’s need for revenge for the threat once posed to his father enough to justify the death of any American? I submit the answer to these questions is no. Aside from the wisdom of going to war as Bush wants, I am troubled by who pays for his capricious adventure into world domination. The Administration admits to a cost of around $200 billion! Now, wealthy individuals won’t pay. They’ve got big tax cuts already. Corporations won’t pay. They’ll cook the books and move overseas and then send their contributions to the Republicans. Rich kids won’t pay. Their daddies will get them deferments as Big George did for George W. Well then, who will pay?
School kids will pay. There’ll be no money to keep them from being left behind - way behind. Seniors will pay. They’ll pay big time as the Republicans privatize Social Security and rob the Trust Fund to pay for the capricious war. Medicare will be curtailed and drugs will be more unaffordable. And there won’t be any money for a drug benefit because Bush will spend it all on the war. Working folks will pay through loss of job security and bargaining rights. Our grandchildren will pay through the degradation of our air and water quality. And the entire nation will pay as Bush continues to destroy civil rights, women’s rights and religious freedom in a rush to phony patriotism and to courting the messianic Pharisees of the religious right. The questions before the members of this House and to all Americans are immense, but there are clear answers. America is not currently confronted by a genuine, proven, imminent threat from Iraq. The call for war is wrong. And what greatly saddens me at this point in our history is my fear that this entire spectacle has not been planned for the well being of the world, but for the short-term political interest of our President. Now, I am also greatly disturbed that many Democratic leaders have also put political calculation ahead of the President’s accountability to truth and reason by supporting this resolution. But, I conclude that the only answer is to vote no on the resolution before us."
