Rep. Roy Blunt has been taking it on the chin lately about the contributions he’s accepted. USA Today has a chart showing that he has raised more money from lobbyists than any other single legislator. So far this year, he’s taken in more than $310,000. We all know what we all think about a legislator heavily beholden to–yechh–lobbyists. The other media piece tarnishing him is an ad that a group of liberal organizations (The League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, MoveOn, and Americans United for Change) are airing that show the “stain” on his record. He’s taken in a million bucks from Big Oil over the years, so the ad shows his hand dripping oil all over constituents when he shakes a woman’s hand or pats a man’s shoulder or hugs a child.

Under the circumstances, Blunt deserves a certain amount of respect for his response in a televised interview about the ad. He can tap dance with the best of them. Oh, you may think it’s funny that, when asked if he’s taken a million dollars from Big Oil, he basically responds: I don’t know, but Robin Carnahan’s taken $20,000. Laugh if you want, but there’s some merit to his “We’re both whores, but I’m a higher priced one” argument. Oh, oops, he didn’t put it that way. He said that IF there’s anything wrong with taking such money–and there’s not, because he votes according to his conscience, and businesses give him money because they approve of his principles, not because they could ever, heaven forfend, influence his vote–but IF there’s anything wrong with taking money from Big Oil, then Carnahan is guilty as well as he. And besides, his million came in  over fifteen years. It’s not as awful as it sounds. (That works out, by the way, to something  under $67,000 a year, every year for fifteen years or so, which means, to return to the whoring metaphor, that he’s three times as good at it as Carnahan, and has been for a long time.)

Anyway, he adds, the ad is the dirty work of SEIU, ACORN, and the League of Conservation Voters. (Subtext: we all know–even though they had zilch to do with the ad–that you can’t trust the thugs at SEIU or the fraudsters at ACORN. But you can trust me.)

See what I mean? It was a minor masterpiece of sidestepping the question. He was less skillful, though, when interviewed about the USA Today article that revealed his contributions from lobbyists, because he left himself open to the word “lie”. Not that Dave Catanese of KY3 used that word.

When Catanese asked him about the article that said he’d received more lobbyist money than any other candidate, Blunt corrected him. “No, no, they said PAC money.” And he went on at some condescending length about the difference between PAC and lobbyist contributions. In fact, though, the USA Today article was about “lobbyist money.” The word “PAC” was nowhere in there. Catanese took the correction, by the way, mentioning only near the end of his blog about the interview that Blunt “misspoke.”

So he sorta got away with that misrepresentation. Give him credit. Roy Blunt is a skillful talker, especially when interviewers let him steamroll them. In the first video above, he reeled off the Republican talking points about how much cap-and-trade legislation (and he was above calling it “cap-and-tax” as Todd Akin does) would cost Americans. He dwelt on the job loss–and there may well be some–that could result from switching to alternative energy. But job loss and job creation will more or less even out. Only someone who believes, as Blunt does, that “there isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth”, would argue that just because China is building coal plants it’s okay for us to continue down that path. If this planet fries, those coal and oil jobs Blunt is so enamored of will go up in smoke with it. And if it fries, it will partly be the fault of willfully ignorant politicians like him convincing gullible Americans that there is no solid evidence of global warming. Only 57 percent of our citizens currently believe that global warming is incontrovertibly real. Last year, 71 percent believed it and three years ago, 87 percent did.

So this business of taking a million bucks from those global warming deniers at Big Oil matters, Roy. Whoring after campaign money is a sin. Whoring after Big Oil money is a mortal sin.

There’s a movement going on. It’s a movement made of people who care and people who see and people who concern themselves with the affairs of more than just their own.

What they see – what we see – is that the issue of environmental stewardship is an issue that concerns us all. Everyone. It’s global, local and personal.

The simple fact is the exponential growth of the human enterprise now impacts and dictates to the future of every living being we share this planet with.

How will America, the leader of industrial might, metabolize this responsibility?

We need to make a choice – and do what’s right.

Our nation, has been at the crossroads of choice before, and it hasn’t always been easy: abolishing slavery, getting women the right to vote – but we have yet to establish a sane energy policy as this goal has been thwarted time and again.

All the way back to the 1930s – hybrid fuels and cars built to run on ethanol were blocked by Big Oil.

Those same forces bought up and systematically dismantled more than 100 electric mass transit systems in 45 cities across America – including our city of St. Louis.

After World War II, there was desire to reduce our dependency on foreign sources of energy, so alternative and synthetic fuels were developed right here in Louisiana Missouri. But in the 50s an Oil Glut stopped that and blocked the diversification of our energy portfolio.

In the 70s, following the Middle East oil embargo and energy crisis we knew the way. Jimmy Carter over 30 years ago signed into law comprehensive energy reform including renewable and alternative energy sources. He put solar panels on the White House.

Well, in the 80s, an Oil Glut stopped that – and the next President took those panels down. Reagan tore down that symbol of American energy independence.

Now that we’re facing the irrefutable science of global climate change and global warming, all of a sudden we are struck with an economic crisis not seen since the likes of the Great Depression – and accusations of any economic recovery that we’ve entertained so far as being “jobless”…

A “jobless-recovery” ? What’s that?

The way I see it, it’s an opportunity. And it all centers on how we power our society.

There is an emerging industry before us – an industry that hasn’t existed before.

Green energy – renewable energy – energy efficiency.

The benefits are legion. And many of these new jobs can’t be outsourced because they happen right here at home. Its win, win, win.

Take energy efficiency for example, 95% of all existing homes and construction can be audited and assessed and fixed to a higher standard of efficiency, saving folks on energy costs, creating new jobs, avoiding the construction of polluting power plants.

Residential buildings generate over 20 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from non-renewable fuel consumption in the United States.

One solution is the Missouri Association of Accredited Energy Professionals, or “MAAEP”, representing certified energy assessors – a new profession – greening the American economic landscape one home at a time – bringing our carbon levels back down to what leading scientists say is sustainable: 350! 350 parts per million.

In this climate of economic recession, any project that promises great job creating prospects should be our number one focus. We stand at the Gateway to a New Economy and thousands of Missourians and millions of Americans are leading the way. Organizations, non-profits, businesses are coming together to capitalize on this Copernican shift for not just America, but the world. Join us and cross over this threshold to a cleaner and safer future for all.

Thank you!

END

(Speech prepared for 350.org International Day of Climate Action Oct. 24th, Action at the Arch, St. Louis)

When I fume, I just sputter. WillyK spouts sense. Of course, it helps that she has a firm grasp of facts on a wide variety of topics.

At the end of the showing of “Not Evil Just Wrong” Wednesday night, a docufictionary pretending that there’s solid reason to doubt that humans are causing global warming, the three Republican state reps who sponsored the evening–Sue Allen, Andrew Koenig, and Cole McNary, all from West County in St. Louis–took questions. Willy, after listening to a few audience members make remarks indicating they trusted the film’s nonsense, raised her hand and succinctly skewered the movie’s–well, to be charitable–inaccuracies.

The filmmakers had painted a grim picture of job loss because of precipitate switches from good ole dependable coal to such will o’ the wisp energy sources as solar and wind. Indeed, Representative Allen remarked afterward that those sources would not work in Missouri because we do not have enough sun or wind.

Willy responded that part of the point of the new energy legislation (ACES) is to construct a nationwide, standardized grid so that energy could easily, efficiently be moved from, say, sunny Arizona to Missouri when we need it or from windy Wyoming to our state. What’s more, strides are being made at storing such energy for future use.

Willy felt that the film’s misrepresentation of the intent in the cap-and trade legislation echoed its misrepresentation of climate and environmental concerns in the film, one of the most egregious examples being the claim that DDT had been banned for  purposes of malaria eradication.  In the U.S. legislation banning the use of DDT and in the later Stockholm convention, DDT was banned only for agricultural uses but its use was permitted for “medical vector” purposes,  and indeed its use has continued outside the U.S and Europe where other factors had made use of DDT unnecessary.  One of the reasons that DDT is not used more widely at present is that because of its overuse, mosquitoes are becoming resistant.

Willy suggested that if the elected officials conducting the discussion really wanted to discuss cap-and-trade in a fair way, rather than mislead in the same way that the film misled about global warming and DDT use, they  should have  also mentioned that the cap-and-trade provisions will take place slowly in order to allow people to transition to alternative energies. Furthermore, the legislation offers subsidies to help states with high coal use adapt to other kinds of energy.

Rep. McNary accepted her remarks graciously, urging her to send him links by e-mail to verify her claims. Later, though, when she made a second, briefer comment, he ran out of patience and suggested that perhaps she should rent a hall and arrange to hold her own event. Oops. He was finding  her facts inconvenient. The liberal bias of reality can be annoying.

Despite that and other minor tensions between us and the organizers, Willy and I spoke to Representative Allen at the end of the Q & A, and Willy expressed her concern at seeing Rep. Allen associating herself with a film so riddled with inaccuracies. It’s a fair admonition, but I don’t hold much hope that she and the other two representatives will shun such bad company.

Wednesday night, State Reps. Sue  Allen (R-92), Andrew Koenig (R-88), and Cole McNary (R-86) presided over a gathering of about 50 mostly true believers at a presentation of the film Not Evil Just  Wrong. The showing, at Maryville University in West County, was clearly meant to set the stage for an attack on the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) now pending in Congress.

Cole McNary effectively established the evening’s tenor, declaring in his opening remarks there is no need to be misled by claims of a scientific consensus that confirms anthropogenic global warming, because, after all,  the scientific method is not consensus, but the process of verification and duplication of results.  (He also, shades of Todd Akin, offered  up the rather obvious fact that he is no scientist – though he has studied science – which leaves one wondering how he thinks all those scientists reach a consensus.)

Not Evil Just Wrong was, as one might expect, just more of the same, although somewhat more sophisticated in its presentation.  In an interview on Fox with Neil Cavuto, one of the film’s creators, Irish filmmaker Phelim McAleer, speaks of the movie as the emergence of  “the cinematic wing of the tea party movement,” so you would be correct if you expected lots of high dudgeon and little substance.  A fuller account of its contents and methods can be found here.

The real evil that this film does, though, was only fully on display when the three state lawmakers lined up at the conclusion and attempted to use the misrepresentations and fuzzy equivalencies presented by the filmmakers to trash ACES.  The gist:  cap-and-trade (which Koenig seemed to think equivalent to a carbon tax), will hurt working families, result in lost jobs, higher taxes, all to no purpose, and alternative energy sources, with the possible exception of nuclear, are non-starters.

Of course none of these contentions can be accepted at face value – although most of those present seemed prepared to do just that. Comments ranged from references to the Heritage Foundation’s flawed analysis of ACES costs, to libertarian contentions that, while anthropogenic global warming may or may not be real, it is not proper for the government to play a role in mitigating its effects. Doubtless, many of those present will respond to the request to phone and write their congresspersons to express their opposition ACES.

Too bad that the audience did not get to hear their representatives discuss the actual content of ACES, explain to them that the cap-and-trade provisions are designed take effect gradually, that there are provisions for alternative energy research and development, and funds to soften the transition to clean energy for coal-dependent states like Missouri.  

Too bad that their representatives, who are so concerned about the hypothetical evils of environmental extremism, don’t see fit to inform themselves and their constituents about those third world citizens who actually will suffer if global warming continues on its current trajectory. Why weren’t our lawmakers, on whom we rely for intelligent policy, talking about the effect of global warming on the Maldives, for instance? Or, to really bring it home, why no discussion of Missouri’s future in a warmer world? Why was there no mention of the security implications of global warming that our military have identified?

Perhaps it is because they were too busy trying to help energy industries paint a false picture of what is entailed in clean energy policy? Can we perhaps agree that such irresponsibility is both wrong and just pure evil?

As I reported in a related post, State Reps. Sue  Allen (R-92), Andrew Koenig (R-88), and Cole McNary (R-86) did their little bit for Missouri’s coal and electric industry Wednesday night by trying to make a case against the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) with a showing of the film Not Evil Just  Wrong.

The film, created by Irish filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, who describe it as the advent of “the cinematic wing of the tea party movement,” is so full of factual errors that it would be impossible to catalog them all. Take a look at the trailer in the video above if you want an idea of the atmospherics.  

As you might expect, the film pulls out the tried, if not so true, arguments of climate change skeptics: the earth is actually cooling; the analysis of the data supporting global warming is flawed; Greenland was once warm, which is how we know global warming is part of an inevitable, natural cycle that we might just as well sit back and enjoy.

However, the real aim is to trivialize the claims of those who worry about the effects of anthropogenic global warming and present them as dangerous to the well-being of the poor and down-trodden. Although not quite as hyperbolic, the argument is akin to Glenn Beck’s claim that progressives are equivalent to “slave owners.”

To present the global warming “scare” as overblown, the film suggests that worries about climate change are similar to the sensational media hype surrounding the Y2K problem, and the British mad-cow disease (BSE) epidemic of the mid-80s.  The film ignores the fact that these were legitimate issues, and that their impact was lessened by government action – which is why BSE resulted in few deaths and Y2K caused only minor snafus. Of course, to bring up that fact would be to admit that global warming disasters might be averted by appropriate action as well.

It is in their presentation of the old, right-wing DDT fiction, however, that the filmmakers pull out all the stops.  DDT regulation is meant to be understood as parallel to that of carbon emission regulation. To make sure we don’t miss the point, we are bombarded with images of dying, malarial children, disconsolate mothers and miserable, third-world living conditions that, it is implied, might be ameliorated if only DDT could be used. Juxtaposed are carefully selected and edited clips of fatuous-seeming, first-world environmentalists.  

On one side you have an American “environmentalist”(?) living in comfortable circumstances in fertile, warm Uganda, who applauds the DDT ban, comparing the potential destruction of Uganda’s birds to “Elton John without his piano.” On the other, an Ugandan mother exclaims, “You’d rather save the birds and lose the people.”

Cute filmmaking, but unfortunately the premise is false.  DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1972 for agricultural use only, and in 2004 it was banned worldwide for agricultural use only.  Although controversial, its use has never been banned for disease vector control and its overuse has resulted in DDT resistant mosquitoes.

False though it may be, this bit of film chicanery is important since it sets the tone for the gist of the movie: Al Gore, and by extension, the entire green energy community are elites promulgating bad science at the least and a cruel hoax at the worst (cue images of Hollywood actors, mansions, and poor Gore’s well-fed face). Their callous, environmental extremism, we are told, will have immediate negative, consequences for working Americans who depend on coal energy for their livelihoods (cue images of small town main street, children playing with kittens and running to catch a school bus, poor but honest and loving parents).

Enough to bring a tear to the eye if any of it were true. Perhaps those who wish to piggyback on this film to make the corporate case against ACES should familiarize themselves with the validity of its claims as well as the actual content of ACES first.  

The P-D headline Sunday morning read “‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ on global warming?” I chuckled, thinking that the Scopes trial is the perfect analogy for the “I’ll believe whatever I want; logic and science be damned” school of … thought? But the chuckle was premature, for starters because the headline was misleading. The proposed trial is not about showing that we are causing catastrophic climate change and that anyone who denies it is as ignorant as the creationists in 1925. Rather, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wants the EPA to hold public hearings on the evidence of man-made climate change, in hopes of stalling clean energy legislation. The Chamber, apparently as ill informed about history as it is about science, pointed out, without a trace of irony, that such hearings would be “‘the Scopes Monkey Trial of the 21st century.'”

Um, dear Chamber people: the creationists may have won on a technicality at the Scopes trial, but everybody knew that science was the real winner. Not only is it disingenuous of you to pretend that you have sufficient data to refute the overwhelming scientific consensus, but, more important, it is deceitful of you to act as if such hearings would have diddly to do with reason or science. They would be nothing more than town halls with screaming mobs writ large–much like the evangelical hoopla that engulfed Dayton, Tennessee during the Scopes trial. The EPA knows that and is having none of it.

The Teabaggers would have frothed at the mouth during any such hearings. Now they will pop their veins at not getting the hearings. Dana Loesch’s passionate tirade about Tea Partyers being ignored comes to mind:

“They’re tired of calling their representative and ‘leaving a message.’ They’re tired of going to their representative’s website and pouring their hearts into an e-mail form, only, several days later, to get a form canned response back.”

So? It’s not as if, when I call Lacy Clay’s office, his staff calls him off the floor of the House to speak to me or even tells him to call me back. And when I e-mail him, I do not receive in return an engraved invitation to a … tea party. Look, we on the left all fumed through the Bush years without threatening–much less a mere nine months into it–the second American Revolution.

So why do these clowns think they have a right? It’s more than just having had those blissful years of total Republican control under Bush and then losing it. They are not so much facing the consequences of a lost election as they are facing a new world order:

But if you listen [to the ruckuses at town halls] as though deciphering pig Latin and realize that this demographic is speaking from a well-managed, near-hypnotic looking-glass world where every word from the mouth of a Democrat (or a liberal, or a Latina, or a Canadian) is a lie, a betrayal… then it all makes sense. Their world truly has been turned inside out, by the election, by the economy, by the precarious conditions that threaten us all. But for those whose sense of identity has been premised on a raced, masculinist, conservative Christian hierarchy of American power, the world must seem even more emotionally terrifying than any actual facts would indicate.

(….)

All of [our current problems are] complicated but surely, with a bit of listening, comprehensible to the average citizen. So how do we connect the reality of our dismal life-expectancy and health-cost statistics to the hysterical sobbing of people who come to town-hall meetings furious that “the insurance companies won’t be able to make a profit”? Much of the epic woe is not about healthcare or public options. It’s about roiling resentments that need to be dressed up as something else, the coded mummery of Halloween monsters hybridized into new chimeras of hate. It’s about fear that precious resources are being transferred to “alien” others. Fear that the gains of others are ill-gotten, leaving the lonely patriot survivalist as victim, “thrown away,” trash. In these fiery monologues, even our president is figured as conspiratorially alien-birthed, from a galaxy far, far away, who’s just pretending to be one of “us.”

This morning I saw a picture of President Obama dressed as Hitler, complete with little mustache, tacked high on a tree trunk. At first it seemed jaw-droppingly ridiculous, sociopathically paranoid. But if the rule of reversal is what’s encoded in that image, all people of good will must worry that what’s really at stake for some of our gun-toting, demagogic fellow citizens is nothing less than America’s very own Weimar moment.

(h/t DW)

Rep. Jeanette Mott-Oxford, in a newsletter, reminds us of the Native American proverb:  The Earth does not belong to us. We borrow it from our children.  With that and global warming in mind, she offered these tips about not wasting energy in the winter:

Here are some tips that I gathered from the Earth 911 website:

– In the winter, turn your thermostats down to 68 degrees or lower. Reduce the setting to 55 degrees before going to sleep or when leaving for the
day. (For each one degree you turn down the thermostat in the winter, you’ll save up to five % on your heating costs.)

– Turn off and un-plug non-essential lights and appliances. The electricity generated by fossil fuels for a single home puts more carbon dioxide into the air than two average automobiles!

– Buy ENERGY STAR appliances, products and lights. ENERGY STAR® is a program of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designed to help consumers identify
energy-efficient appliances and products.

– Clean or replace filters on furnaces once a month or as recommended for the model you are using.

– Clean warm-air registers, baseboard heaters, and radiators as needed; make sure furniture, carpeting, or drapes do not block them.

– Bleed trapped air from hot-water radiators once or twice a season; if in doubt about how to perform this task, call a professional.

– Place heat-resistant radiator reflectors between exterior walls and the radiators.

– Use kitchen, bath, and other ventilating fans wisely; in just one hour, these fans can pull out a houseful of warmed (or cooled) air. Turn fans
off as soon as they have done the job.

– During the heating season, keep the draperies and shades on your south-facing windows open during the day to allow sunlight to enter your
home and closed at night to reduce the chill from cold windows.

– Finally, in winter close an unoccupied room that is isolated from the rest of the house, and turn down the thermostat or turn off the heating
for that room or zone. However, do not turn the heating off if it adversely affects the rest of your system. For example, if you heat your house with a heat pump, do not close the vents – closing the vents could harm the heat pump.