Obviously this email was not exactly vetted by AEP's public relations wing. But it's more revealing than a thousand press releases that Hinton doesn't even bother to make any sort of factual argument and goes right to the personal attack, 2011's preferred climate science denier strategy.
AEP lists $50 billion in assets, has spent more than $30 million on lobbying in the last four years alone, and gives millions to candidates for office (mostly Republicans) like Rep. Robert Hurt (R-VA). Yet this little blog is so powerful that one of its employees feels the need to send me threatening emails?
AEP's entire business model depends on Americans turning a blind eye to the fact that its profits depend on socializing the impact of its pollution while privatizing the profits. AEP is America's biggest carbon polluter and was ranked 40th in the Political Economy Research Institute's Toxic 100 list of America's biggest polluters. Information is AEP's enemy - the more Americans know about how companies like AEP get rich off treating our skies like an open sewer, the more likely they are to support proper pollution regulations.
No wonder America's corporate elite finds the Occupy Wall Street movement so menacing.
UPDATE: Hinton's employer & fan pages have suddenly disappeared from his public profile & he's blocked me. Here's how the message looks now:
It's not just lobbying. What Jim Hinton engaged in was the oil industry's well worn tactics of bullying and harassment. The industry does it to landowners, the poor, and Indian tribes every day. #nokxl
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, AEP was in favor of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade legislation.
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