NASA-Backed Study: Polluter Tyranny May Destroy Civilization

A new study backed by NASA warns that, much like the Romans and Mayans before us, our elite power brokers may be driving us towards a cliff as the 1% vacuums up wealth and natural resources:

The NASA-funded HANDY model offers a highly credible wake-up call to governments, corporations and business - and consumers - to recognise that 'business as usual' cannot be sustained, and that policy and structural changes are required immediately.

Although the study is largely theoretical, a number of other more empirically-focused studies - by KPMG and the UK Government Office of Science for instance - have warned that the convergence of food, water and energy crises could create a 'perfect storm' within about fifteen years. But these 'business as usual' forecasts could be very conservative.

Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed details how past empires kept driving towards the cliff, even when the edge was in sight. It happens in part because the people at the top & in charge are wealthy enough to insulate themselves from the crisis until collapse is almost complete.

This study warns we're repeating history as our leaders keep us burning our entire supply of fossil fuels that took hundreds of millions of years to accumulate - coal, oil and natural gas - in the span of just a few generations. Even as the cost becomes apparent and both the climate crisis and global inequality accelerate, for those polluting oligarchs, the answer isn't to change course, it's to double down - see the Koch brothers pouring their vast polluting fortune into the 2014 elections or Vladimir Putin seizing natural gas facilities in Ukraine.

But who'll call them on it? Democrats and environmental organizations are heavily dependent on the wealthy elite for funding, so Democrats rarely talk about inequality and environmental organizations talk about the effects - global warming, polluted water, disappearing wildlife - not the causes.

It's a reminder that climate science denial isn't at all about science - it's a cover story for the true campaign by wealthy polluters like the Koch brothers to scare the rest of us away from solar and wind energy, which build wealth not at the top but at the household and community levels.

Billionaire Polluting Kochs Think Disclosure Is For The Little People

Billionaire polluting energy kingpins the Koch brothers have taken to personally attacking journalists who report on their shady dealings, according to the Washington Post's Paul Farhi. But as the Better Future Project pointed out this week, the Kochs think full public disclosure is only for the little people - Oxbow Carbon baron and Cape Wind opponent William Koch not only thinks he should be able to hide behind a front group, he thinks he should get a tax break for his trouble:

New England climate movement leader Craig Altemose and several other concerned citizens have co-signed a letter to the Internal Revenue Service urging it to investigate the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound after its repeated failures to properly document its donations and expenses.

They point out that the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound has forwarded $394,000 to the Town of Barnstable to pay for its litigation against the Cape Wind project, America’s first offshore wind farm, and has failed to properly account for these grants as required in its recent Form 990 filings.

It's part of an admitted strategy by the Kochs - invest in the political process to maximize their own interests and profits. But they know that billionaire polluting energy kingpins are the least-persuasive public spokesmen possible, so they fund a series of front groups and puppet spokespeople to make their case for them. And on top of that, the politicians they fund constantly fight for laws to help hide that funding and its connections.

All that stands in stark contrast to clean energy and its supporters. Cape Wind's conservation, public health and labor allies are so transparent they put all their names on one website.

Show your support for Cape Wind by asking federal regulators to speed the development of clean, affordable offshore wind energy.

See What Happens When Local Tea Party Group Thinks For Itself

The Georgia Tea Party supports diversifying the state's energy sources to take advantage of the Peach State's abundant solar energy, saying consumers have the right to choose where their electricity comes from. Right now, Georgia utilities provide only gas-fired, coal-fired, and nuclear power, with only tiny amounts of hydro-electric and other renewable energy mixed in.

But Koch Industries founded the Tea Party to fight limits on corporate pollution, not promote solar power. So the Koch collective is now sending piles of cash to put down the pro-solar insurrection, as Kiley Kroh reports at Climate Progress.

The moment anyone bucks the pro-polluter party line, those Tea Party muskets of freedom turn into a firing squad.

Climate Scientists Just Want to Steal David Koch's PRECIOUSSS

Quick reaction to Mitt Romney's now-infamous remarks that the 47 percent of Americans too old, sick or poor to pay income taxes are lazy mooches who want the government to steal more money from rich people so they can get more free goodies.

The war on climate scientists funded by billionaires like the Koch brothers, Richard Mellon Scaife and Philip Anschutz makes much more sense when you look at it through this prism. If you already look out the window and see literally half of your fellow Americans as thieves trying to steal from you, well OF COURSE climate scientists are greedy cheaters manipulating the data to back their phony lying hoax so they can get their grubby little stealing hands on more research grants.

It's a cynical, destructive way to view the world (and life), but I understand it. What I don't understand is why anyone would take them and the organizations they fund seriously as a source for climate science, as the PBS NewsHour apparently did last night.

The New Forbes 400 is Out! Guess Who's #4?

It's the Koch Brothers! They rank 4th in the newest Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans, up from 5th last year. In fact, the fortune of Charles and David shot up 14% just from March to September 2011.

What's most interesting - despite the Koch brothers' war on President Obama and crazily overheated rhetoric against him, the Koch brothers' fortune has grown wildly during President Obama's first term. It's up 79%, from $14 each billion in March 2009 to $25 billion each in September 2011.

Wait ... you don't think the Kochs' opposition to Obama is about an extremist political crusade and not sound economic policy, do you? Nahhh.

Netroots vs. Astroturf: Standing Up For Clean Air & Water

One of the most moving aspects of Netroots Nation for me is the sheer amount of personal capital in the convention hall. People leave their families, draw down their precious few vacation days, and invest hundreds of dollars to make the trip. That 2,200 people are here in Minneapolis is a testament to the passion of the progressive movement.

But in the battle of Progressives vs. Polluters, all that personal capital is up against massive amounts of polluter capital. AFP, founded & funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers, invested some of that capital this week in bankrolling RightOnline, which shadows Netroots each year. Check out AFP's email to supporters offering subsidized trips, which begins like a used car ad - "We have a great deal for YOU":

From: Americans for Prosperity Foundation
Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2011 11:02 AM
Subject: Get on the Bus to RightOnline, Only $49

Dear XXXXXX,

We have a great deal for YOU and our shared Conservative Values.

You can attend the RightOnline conference in Minneapolis, MN– and WE WILL DRIVE YOU THERE!

Our RightOnline conference will be held at the same time and in the same city as the left-wing NetRoots Nation convention.

We want to show them who truly represents America’s values – and to teach people like you the most effective online advocacy practices around.

We have buses lined up in Wisconsin to bring activists like you to Minneapolis June 17-18. Overnight packages including transportation and lodging and start at just $49 per person by using the code "doublebus" and "quadbus." Click Here to Register.

Buses are picking up from:
Eau Claire, Green Bay, Kenosha, Milwaukee, Rancine, Waukesha, and Wausau!

Governor Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Malkin, Andrew Breitbart, Senator Mike Lee, Reps. Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn, John Kline and Thad McCotter, businessman Herman Cain, and many more will be there.

JOIN US JUNE 17-18 – AND LET US DO THE DRIVING

RSVP - AFP - Right-Online

Doesn't seem like many people took AFP up on their offer - Right-Online is notoriously poorly attended & a "Right Meets Left" happy hour inviting both NN & RO folks was at least 90% progressives.

But polluters have a long history of flooding groups like AFP with cash (annual budget: $40 million) to fund phony grassroots tactics, from busing in oil workers at rallies to forging letters from veterans groups. How do progressives combat that kind of buying power?

On Saturday at 1:30pm at Netroots Nation, I'll be moderating a panel talking about the best ways to fight back against just one angle of what I just heard Rep. Keith Ellison calls the GOP's attempted "dismantling of the social compact." How do progressives defend against a seemingly endless wave of attacks on the Clean Air Act & Clean Water Act?

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Green for All CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins & Grist's David Roberts will take on the topic. And with Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) voting the wrong way, we won't spare Democrats, either.

Vote: Worst Thing Koch Brothers Have Done to America?

Watch this video, then vote here.

Climate Science Deniers Get Desperate

Remember the New Yorker's devastating expose on Koch Industries funding climate science denial? Apparently polluters & their allies have given up on trying to refute the article's premise. They're now desperately searching for ways to personally attack its author.

Tea Partiers Only Trust Elites Who Make Money Off Them

The NYTimes today reports on how the Tea Party is being spoon-fed climate denial by big polluters like Koch Industries, conveniently laundered by conservative media mouthpieces:

“It’s a flat-out lie,” Mr. Dennison said in an interview after the debate, adding that he had based his view on the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the teaching of Scripture. “I read my Bible,” Mr. Dennison said. “He made this earth for us to utilize.” 

Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party movement, here in Indiana and across the country. For some, it is a matter of religious conviction; for others, it is driven by distrust of those they call the elites.

Distrust of elites? Rush Limbaugh made $285 million from 2001 through 2008, then signed a contract with salary & bonuses totaling $400 million from 2009 through 2016! Telling Tea Partiers whatever they want to hear so they'll keep listening has been great for business.

But let's say you're a climate scientist like Michael Mann (science denier Ken Cuccinelli's favorite target) at Penn State University. Using the estimates at indeed.com, a scientist like Mann would have to work 588 years to make what Limbaugh does in one year. Who's the real "elite"?

Finally, I don't recall the part of the Bible where the Lord instructed man to take his creation and act like we're holding the Miami University Pi Beta Phi spring formal. But Genesis 2:15 does say, "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."

The Kochtopus Extends Its Tentacles in California

From the LA Times: "A company owned by oil billionaires Charles and David Koch has contributed $1 million to Proposition 23, a November ballot initiative to suspend California’s groundbreaking 2006 global-warming law."

Is the Smithsonian Selling Science to a Climate Denier?

Read much more at ClimateProgress.org: