(Revised March 8, 2012)
Donna Laframboise asks the key question about Fakegate: “Where do Gleick Apologists Draw the Line?”
In a recent post on her Web site, No Frakking Consensus, she provides excerpts from scientists, ethicists, and activists who excuse or even lionize Peter Gleick for stealing Heartland Institute budget documents, impersonating a Heartland board member, misrepresenting himself to bloggers as an anonymous “Heartland insider,” and palming off as genuine — maybe also authoring — a fake climate strategy document in which Koch supposedly funds Heartland to keep opposing voices out of Forbes magazine, sell doubt as their product, and dissuade teachers from teaching science.
Laframboise comments: “Climate change is a strange beast. When it enters the room, even ethicists lose the ability to think straight.”
At the end of her post, she asks Gleick’s apologists what other unlawful actions they believe would be justified if necessary to advance their cause:
I get it. Lying and stealing and misleading are OK so long as they help advance a good cause. What else is acceptable? Old fashioned burglary? Arson? Car bombs?
Where is the line? [click to continue…]
The title of an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal claims: “A Flex-Fuel Mandate Is Pro-Market.” The ethanol industry has made this argument time and time again, that somehow forcing private corporations to adjust their products in a way that will pad the wallets of certain energy sectors is somehow pro-market. Unsurprisingly, his argument relies on the notion that OPEC controls significant portions of oil output, so thus, the U.S. government ought to intervene to level the playing field:
The price of oil is set by a foreign cartel. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) owns almost 80% of global oil reserves yet produces only 36% of daily global supply. This dominant position enables OPEC to raise or lower their production to maintain the global supply-demand relationship that suits their interest. If U.S. oil companies produce more, OPEC will produce less.
…
Let’s open our market to good old American competition. Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman stressed that the foremost economic duty of government is to eliminate cartel pricing. Bills are now pending in both houses of the Congress (HR 1687 and S1603) that seek to do exactly that by requiring car makers to enable fuel competition in their own product lines—adding flex-fuel, all electric, hybrid electric, or any other way auto makers choose to implement the law. [click to continue…]
An ongoing theme of this blog is that green energy spending in the Stimulus was a gigantic waste of money. This is for one of two reasons: Invariably, either (1) a Members of Congress tried to influence Stimulus spending as a constituent service or (2) the Obama administration steered investments to friends and campaign contribution bundlers. Whether it’s parochial politics or crony capitalism, the results are the same—bad bets and taxpayer losses.
It takes a while to spend scores of billions of dollars, so the returns of the Stimulus are only now coming in…And they are terrible for proponents of venture socialism. Nary has a week gone by without another green Stimulus beneficiary hitting the skids. In previous posts, I’ve addressed these failures in real time, as they’ve happened. I’ve compared this depressing litany of bankruptcies, layoffs, and production cutbacks to a green albatross burdening President Barack Obama‘s 2012 electoral prospects.
Last week, for example, we learned that engineers at Tesla Motors, which makes Brad Pitt’s favorite green car and also received Stimulus largesse, overlooked a fatal design flaw that easily renders the engine a “brick,” and therefore useless. This is what happens when the Energy Department operates an investment bank.
Yesterday, another government-picked “winner” announced it is “losing.” Reports Paul Chesser of the National Legal & Policy Center,
Yet another solar company that received loan guarantees from the Department of Energy has dismissed factory workers, lopping off 70 percent of its U.S. employees. Loveland, Colo.-based Abound Solar announced Tuesday it would lay off 280 workers at its production plant near Longmont, leaving 120 still employed. The start-up (2009) company attributed the cutbacks to the need for upgrades at the plant to manufacture more efficient solar panels, with plans to restore production levels and rehire most employees within six to nine months.
Mr. President, are you still sure that you want to “double down” on green energy?
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