by Lowell F., on 6/30/11 10:43 AM
1 min. readby Lowell F., on 6/13/11 7:21 PM
1 min. readFrom today's Wall Street Journal opinion page, more shilling for the dirty energy industry:
by Mike Casey, on 6/13/11 6:38 PM
3 min. readCross posted from The Great Energy Challenge.
Just as the traditional news media began its current freefall of layoffs, staff cuts, closures, and substitution of ideology for journalism, The New York Times, thank goodness, decided to double down on good (albeit not perfect) journalism.
That's why it’s baffling to see a dirty energy front group operative, Robert Bryce, getting a seat last week next to Thomas Friedman and Nicholas Kristof on the Times’ opinion page, with a piece of pro-dirty energy propaganda, without having to say if he’s paid by dirty energy.
I remember from journalism school that opinion pages are run separately from the news pages. But is it really that hard for someone on the Times’ opinion page staff to ask Bryce where his host organization, the Manhattan Institute, gets its money? Don’t Times readers deserve to know that the Manhattan Institute gets a significant amount of money from dirty energy?
I’m not even expecting that the Times actually demand a factual grounding for the opinion pieces it runs. That seems to have gone out of style a while ago. The Washington Post demonstrated this new normal with its tortured sidestepping of questions about why it let columnist George Will demonstrably lie about the wide and deep scientific consensus around global climate disruption. Basically, it seems that you can lie without consequence on the nation’s most influential opinion pages.
But Bryce got away with something much more preventable: pretending he’s some sort of intellectually honest thinker when his organization has ties to dirty energy money that no one bothered to note.
The ease with which intellectual burglars like Bryce can break into the major media’s house of standards is why dirty energy underwrites dozens of PR firms masquerading as think tanks. And they have done so for decades, going back to the call to start farming these groups in the 1971 Powell Manifesto. The result is what can be described as a Front Group Industrial Complex for polluting industries, a network including the Manhattan Institute, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, and the Institute for Energy Research.
by Lowell F., on 6/13/11 7:44 AM
1 min. readThis LA Times article is an interesting take on Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, who seems to have foresaken his roots as a common-sense southwest Michigan representative and become yet another representative from Koch Industries.
by Lowell F., on 6/9/11 6:14 AM
2 min. readFor several years now, Robert Bryce has established himself as a leading shillfor dirty energy, relentlessly spreading disinformation about clean energy. The titles of his books and articles -- Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future, "Let's Get Real About Renewable Energy", and "James Hansen's war on coal" -- can save you from having to wade through them. In addition, Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a front group that receives its funding from, among others, the Koch Industries Family Foundation.
by Lowell F., on 6/4/11 11:27 AM
2 min. readWe thought we'd pass on the following press release from the good folks at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network:
Hundreds Gather at First Grassroots Offshore Wind Energy Conference in Virginia; Call on Dominion & Governor McDonnell to Bring Offshore Wind Energy to the Commonwealth
Participants include business leaders, environmentalists and political leaders
RICHMOND – Nearly two hundred notable leaders and grassroots activists from across Virginia gathered in Richmond Saturday to promote new jobs and clean energy at the commonwealth’s first citizens’ conference on offshore wind power—Energize Virginia. Political leaders and environmentalists sat next to investment partners with Google Inc. to make the case for offshore wind energy, ending with a colorful march to the steps of the State Capitol.
“In a stalled economy, few industries have the potential to bring more jobs to the commonwealth than the renewable offshore wind industry,” said Terry McAuliffe, clean energy advocate and Chairman of GreenTech Automotive Corp. “Offshore wind relies on American ingenuity and innovation to provide the clean, domestically-produced energy we need, while offering an opportunity to provide thousands of quality jobs for Virginians.”
by Lowell F., on 6/2/11 3:20 PM
1 min. readA new study by Arizona State University researchers on the attitudes of Arizona residential utility customers towards future energy resource alternatives is particularly interesting because it demonstrates that the more people know, the more they like clean energy. According to the "APS Informed Perception Project Report," after "exposure to an educational energy booklet (Energy Briefing Book) and participation in the one-day Energy Forum event held December 4, 2010, several primary findings emerged." These included:
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