Mike Roddy test

Mike Roddy test

Mike Roddy: Solar Sabotage in the Mojave Desert

by Mike Roddy, Energy Future, April-June 2014

Anthony Watts can't seem to man up and admit his mistakes and immoral behavior

Anthony Watts needs to get out of the kitchen because he can't take the heat, especially when what he says is wrong and what others say is true:


More from Climate Progress, March 29, 2011:  

http://climateprogress.org/2011/03/29/wattsupwiththat-attack-fabrication/#more-45565

1. Anthony Watts says:

   March 29, 2011 at 6:10 pm

   
   Since Joe has not seen fit to provide a link to the post in question, along with the errata I published, I will do so, here it is: [snip]
   
   [JR: That is another falsehood. There is a link to the post in question in my post here. I am tired of you publishing your nonsense here. And I'm certainly not going to give you another link -- particularly to an error riddled post that contains a variety of false attacks on me.]
   
   BEST has seen the correction and has thanked me for it. I was not aware of the issue until Dr. Muller communicated with me.
   
   [JR: That is also an outrageous falsehood. One of your commenters pointed out on March 23 (!) your mistake "It seems to me that using weather stations only in Japan doesn’t seem like a random process, yet the BEST team says the stations mimic the Global Data and were randomly chosen." Instead of correcting your post last week, you wrote, "Ah I see you are immediately back to wasting everyone’s time here, so I’ll waste some of yours with some sarcasm. I’m not going to give you any additional information, as you’ve proven yourself to be a hostile commenter who will just run over to the Rommulans...." ]
   
   Thanks for taking out Mr. Roddy’s ugly bestiality insinuation, it was hardly humorous by any stretch.
   
   As for being cock-sure about information in blog posts, here’s the problem in reverse where Mr. Romm made a very large error and also had to correct a blog post.
   
   [JR: Uh, the difference was that (1) I was quoting someone else and (2) the minute the error was pointed out I fixed it, whereas you refused to fix your post for 6 full days after it was pointed out. If I hadn't written this post, who knows if you ever would have fixed that falsehood.]
   [snip -- I'm not giving you more links back to another error-riddled post.]
   
   Blogging by its nature, gets peer review post facto.
   
   Thanks again, Anhtony
   
   [JR: Uhh, only for those who care about accuracy, as opposed to those who push disinformation, like you.]
   
2. climate undergrad says:

   March 29, 2011 at 6:16 pm

   
   None of this explains why Dr. Muller is consulting with a discredited-denier-former-TV-weatherman.
   
   There have got to be at least 1,000,000 people more qualified, possibly a lot more.
   
   Hell, I’m one of them with a B.S. in engineering science and a focus in energy and the environment.
   
   Funny how Watts didn’t mention whether or not he will concede on the “settled facts”(NAS) or “unequivocal”(IPCC) evidence that the earth is in fact warming.
   
3. Jeffrey Davis says:

   March 29, 2011 at 6:19 pm

   
   Accusing someone on consorting with a goat is a time-honored intenet mock. Always prefaced with the libel-defeating boilerplate, “I’ve heard that …”
   
   I can’t believe that Watts is so thin-skinned, humorless, and self-important as to object — in print! — to the accusation of goat consorting. It’s like running to mommy.
   
4. Mark says:

   March 29, 2011 at 7:05 pm

   
   Anything he says has one goal:
   
   Make the discussion sound like particularly nasty divorce proceeding.
   
   That’s all he has to do – integrity be damned – and he wins.
   
   At least, until the climate itself forces Watts to crawl into a hole in shame….. which it will.
   Meanwhile, does the man get a dime of federal funds? Then lets subpoena all his email! I especially want to know if he’s investing in real estate in Churchill Manitoba, water distribution technology, and so on. I mean, does he expect to leverage his current profits earned by smearing climate scientists, planning to really cash in big peddling things to desperate people in the future? Integrity be damned. But at least it would be consistent.
   
5. Wit's End says:

   March 29, 2011 at 7:13 pm

   
   Not Shakespeare, but apropos -
   
   Oh what a tangled web we weave
   When first we practice to deceive.
   - Sir Walter Scott (Marmion, 1808)
   
   And don’t be knocking my buddy, Mike Roddy, neither! We were on the teevee too!
   (okay, for five seconds)…
   
   http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/ 2011/ 03/ koch-kills-on-ed-show.html
   
6. HP ClimateHawk says:

   March 29, 2011 at 7:15 pm

   
   Mr. Watts. Your story about Hansen’s “little known” 1988 prediction is false. You never bothered to compare the Salon.com report with Bob Reiss’s book. Search for “west side highway” on http://www.skepticalscience.com for more info.
   
   Pull that false story down, Watts.
   
7. Richard Brenne says:

   March 29, 2011 at 7:17 pm

   
   Mike has withdrawn the goat comment, but no word from the goat itself. . .
   
   [JR: Remember, Watts has never apologized for the smears against NOAA or NASA scientists -- or the headline "When Warmistas Attack" or the attacks on the patriotism of Tamino and Rabbett or.....]
   
8. Mike Roddy says:

   March 29, 2011 at 7:27 pm

   
   Dear Anthony,
   
   I wrote almost all the text for the original Alternet 5 Awards for Most Heinous Climate Villains, and bestiality was never mentioned in the original or subsequent versions posted on that site:
   http://www.alternet.org/ environment/ 149120/5_awards_for_the_world%27s_most_heinous_climate_villains?page=4
   
   Ian Murphy, my coauthor who mostly did the illustrations, added the bestiality part in the Buffalo Beast version. Ian writes a lot of dark humorous pieces, which suits my taste. My name is also on the Beast version, but I don’t really care.
   
   We were having fun, Anthony, including with the aftermath. Now, however, I am wondering. And my advice to you, dear Anthony, is to remember what Lyndon Johnson said to his campaign manager in a 1948 run for Congress:
   
   LBJ: “I want you to accuse my opponent of having sex with every animal in the barnyard”.
   campaign manager: “But that’s not true!”.
   
   LBJ: “Yes, but I want him to deny it!”.
   
   We can’t help but laugh at you, Anthony, sorry. How could anyone possibly take your opinions about climate science and everything else seriously?
   
   And thanks to my friends for sticking up for me here.
   
   [JR: If you want to know the kind of comments Watts routinely allows, read this.
   
9. Neal J. King says:

   March 29, 2011 at 7:50 pm

   
   Joe,
   
   I don’t agree with your strategy:
   
   “So the question is, will Anthony Watts keep his word and concede, finally, that there has been substantial warming in recent decades and that the results given by CRU and GISS are largely correct?”
   
   I think it is more important that Watts & family stop pushing nonsense about “no global warming” than that he eat crow in public about getting it wrong. By trying to force the issue, you may just ensure that he does neither – thus sustaining the lifespan of this stalling point.
   
   There is a quote attributed to Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”: “Never cut off your enemy’s retreat.” I think this point has application in this situation.
   
10. Neal J. King says:

    March 29, 2011 at 7:57 pm

    
    climate undergrad @13:
    
    You ask, “None of this explains why Dr. Muller is consulting with a discredited-denier-former-TV-weatherman.
    
    There have got to be at least 1,000,000 people more qualified, possibly a lot more.”
    
    There is a very good reason for consulting with Watts: He has one of the most popular climate websites on the WWW, and he’s skeptical about global warming. If the BEST study takes into account his input and concerns, and still gets the conventional results (and that is what looks like happening), Watts & family will have no fallback and no cover.
    
    It would be worthwhile to get beyond this stage of argument. Let’s let that happen.
    
11. Steve L says:

    March 29, 2011 at 8:06 pm

    
    Hey Anthony Watts. Congratulations on being able to admit you were wrong. Seriously, I actually respect that. It seems very rare over there.
    
    But you better get used to it, because you guys are wrong about so very much. And it doesn’t matter how much you “shout them down in the comments” — you guys need to look in the mirror and figure out what is the honorable way to react when your shouting certainty is no longer convincing to anyone with a speck of decent intellect.
    
12. Rob C. says:

    March 29, 2011 at 8:15 pm

    
    Anthony Watts: you are committing acts that are morally and ethically on par with selling meth to gradeschoolers. At long last, have you no shame?
    
    Never mind, its a rhetorical question, and the answer is abundantly clear.
    
    
    

    LP says:

    March 29, 2011 at 8:27 pm

    ***
    A message to Anthony Watts:
    ***
    Please save the bullsh!t and playing the victim card for your own blog where it fits right in.
    Everyone who reads this website knows how entirely, calculatingly, unapologetically, full of $%&# you are. You can blame your “misunderstanding” on bad hearing or the mean ole internets as much as you want, but just remember this:
    
    Your blatant dishonesty and distortion is completely transparent to CP commenters like me and the rest of us – i.e. those who actually understand the science of AGW as well as the underhanded politics people like you peddle to deny it.
    
    Now think about what happens when time, reality, and hindsight catch up to those flocks of sheeple you choose to lead astray. Unless you’ve brainwashed yourself as badly as you have your own readers, I think you know just as well as the rest of us what’s really coming down the pipe.
    
    So please enjoy your 15 minutes of disingenuous fame, your absurd “science blog” awards, and whatever kickbacks you’re getting from the Heartland Institute and the Koch brothers for all your pollutocrat propaganda.
    …
    Because here’re the REAL accolades you will ultimately be remembered for:
    
    When your 15 minutes are up, when the harsh reality of AGW will be too much for even your own Dunning-Krugerite army to ignore, when the consequences are too dire and any possible mitigation too little too late – people will eagerly look back for whoever they can blame.
    
    The next generation and those beyond will ask with incredulous outrage how we chose to twiddle our thumbs on this issue when our best scientists warned us about it for decades.
    And although you may not be around to face the torches and pitchforks by that point – just remember every word you write on that joke of a website, every speech you give spreading your disinfo to the disinformed, will find its way into permanent history.
    
    So when people look back FOR THE REST OF HISTORY with disdain and ask how our generation could be so lazy, so selfish, and so utterly stupid to let this all happen – they’ll have the exact same perspective on you that we already do.
    
    I hope that level of permanent infamy is worth whatever cheap kicks you’re getting out of all this in the meantime.
    
    Just who’s going to be around 100 years from now to blame all your DELIBERATE dishonesty on “bad hearing”?
    
    Good luck with that.
    

The power of the truth and zero money against billions of dollars wins!!! Mike Roddy and Gail Zawacki go viral with "Koch Kills" banner at Rancho Las Palmas Hotel and the meeting of Koch and co. in their umpteenth attempt to destroy democracy in America

KOCH KILLS

Posted by Murphy On February - 14 - 2011

Billionaire Bashing in Rancho Mirage, CA

by Mike Roddy, Daily Beast, Buffalo Beast, February 14, 2011

We came dressed for battle at Rancho Las Palmas Hotel. Gail Zawacki and I had matching tuxedo shirts, top hats, ghoul masks, and the best sign ever: KOCH KILLS, on an eight by two foot banner, painted in dripping red by Gail. We’d been planning it for weeks, and came from New Jersey and Seattle, respectively, for this important event.
***
And we’re not talking about whatever the gathering inside the hotel met for—no mystery there: “How can we evade paying taxes? When can we destroy Social Security? Those pesky pollution and climate change rules are cutting into our bottom lines; who should we bribe?”
***
Still smarting from Jane Mayer’s exposé in The New Yorker and increased scrutiny from Web sites like Think Progress, Alternet andthe eXiled, the Koch brothers—organizers of the billionaire gathering—made sure that the guest list was private. Regular tourists at Rancho De Las Palmas were kicked out to make room for the really giant bankrolls from the Far Right, and their hate-mongering water-carriers like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Gail had been talking with the local government for weeks, and we knew that they couldn’t get the cops to drag us off the sidewalk without violating the First Amendment.

Koch-blockers gather outside the Rancho Las Palmas Hotel

***
Our reason for being there was to call attention to the fact that the Koch brothers have spent at least $48 million on front groups trying to persuade the American public that global warming is a hoax. If this obstruction succeeds for a while longer, they will surpass Gates and Buffett as the country’s richest polluters, which is really all they want. If the planet turns into Venus, a likely occurrence if we burn all the coal and tar sands the Kochs are invested in, well, that’s someone else’s problem. Rather than get into their heads to try to understand how their minds work, it’s better to just say that Charles and David Koch are two of the biggest assholes in the world, and someone had to call them on it.

“Hey, Chris, be honest: Does this beating-stick make my fascism look fat?”

******We missed the speeches on Sunday morning, but didn’t care, since it had become a political protest, and we were there for what the Kochs are doing to the atmosphere and climate. All of us who showed up in the street seemed to get along, and even most of the cars on Bob Hope Drive honked their horns in approval, and gave us the thumbs up. In Rancho Mirage! That was a good sign.
**Common Cause wants to awaken Americans to things like the Koch’s wining & dining of Thomas and Scalia—underscoring why the corrupt SCOTUS ruling on Citizens United needs to be set aside. True, but good luck. If Obama can extend tax cuts to the rich, escalate the war in Afghanistan, and keep his torture, assassination, and rendition options open, there’s not much chance of that happening.
***Two of the Common Cause workers even tried to stop us from walking onto the streets with our sign, muttering something about “Tucson” or some shit. We of course told them to take a hike, and walked past them proudly:

Roddy gets hassled by liberal pussies, for his accurate signage

***Then, David Koch found a spot among his three sharpshooters up on the hotel parapet, looking down at us disapprovingly with his daughterwife Julia:

David Koch and his child bride survey the disappointingly civil mob

***

We had lots of allies on our side: Code Pink (a fun bunch of ladies), The Ruckus Society, Common Cause, Greenpeace, and many more.

***There were agents provocateur in the crowd from Andrew Breitbart’s slime-factory BigGovernment.com. They found (or planted) a couple of racist idiots and asked them about Clarence Thomas. “String him up,” said one moronic woman after prodding. The billionaire-friendly WSJposted the exchange which was probably staged all the way, making liberal protesters look like KKK members. Since progressives at this rally were in the tradition of the Freedom Riders—when white civil rights workers were murdered in the South—this was a particularly evil and dirty trick.  It’s ingenious, really—like Alexander the Great at Guagemela, they disorient the opposition by attacking him where he’s strongest.
***Also dropping by our banner was a nasty looking character who stuck a mic in my face and tried to get me to say that I advocated murder (our sign read “Koch Kills” not “Kill Kochs”!), and a different guy did the same to Gail.  Eventually, Breitbart—the ultimate Koch whore—emerged from the hotel on goddamn roller skates. A crowd of reporters surrounded the lying freak, lapping up his incoherent right-wing logorrhea. Like George Will’s bow ties, Breitbart’s skates were a stage prop—worn to impersonate an actual human being. But I wasn’t buying it, and tuned out his mad rant.

***After over two hours of marching, the group decided it was time to get arrested, so they moved into the police line blocking the hotel:

The Koch brothers’ closest friends

***Many people I respect think that you are making an important statement by trespassing or laying on asphalt, going to jail, and proving your commitment. It’s a kabuki I saw many times as a student at Berkeley in the ’60s, and cedes too much power to the cops and their bosses. When confronted with humanoid horror shows like the Kochs, it is incorrect to assume the position of doggy submission. Better to stick out your chest and raise your voice, announcing to the world that David Koch and his brother Charles are the ones who belong in prison, for theft, fraud, negligent homicide, and bribery. Not us.
***Besides prosecuting the Kochs, the other proposal in my handout was to boycott all products made by Koch Industries, including fluffy toilet paper from old growth Canadian forests (delicate American asses apparently crave these products), formaldehyde laden wood products, and toxic chemicals for the home. I asked for boycott support and listed the products in e-mails to some environmental groups, but didn’t bother wasting time with Big Green groups. They sold out a long time ago.

***
Protests used to be a more spontaneous up-swell of rugged individuals bound together by a common goal. They’ve evolved into highly-coordinated onslaughts with color-coded t-shirts and public relations strategies. Each group has their marching orders, their talking points, and their corporate mission. In some ways, modern forms of direct action have vastly more potential to affect change—especially with the organizing power of the Internet. Just look at Mubarak’s ouster in Egypt. But we also lost something from the past that the Egyptians retained—that organic and essential human outrage. Outrage that appropriately drives a movement toward justice. Outrage that is the truly reasonable response to despots and demagogues. Outrage that’s unhindered by a feeble adherence to public relations, framing, spin, optics, branding and the other media buzzwords that plague the American sensibility.

***Some of the environmental groups I e-mailed got back to me with weaselly words and noncommittal hedging, and the anemic reaction to our KOCH KILLS sign defines the environmental left’s lack of backbone. Koch Industries is quite possibly the most malevolent company in history, and environmental organizations who claim to be progressive take a big gulp and shit themselves before deciding to throw one little punch. What are they afraid of? Pissing off a donor? God forbid they appear uncivil while confronting men who are literally threatening our civilization. Not to mention our democracy.

***Like the peace and environmental movements of the ’60s and ’70s, and the direct action in Egypt, whatever we accomplish will have to come from the ground up—lest we become co-opted by those we deride and imprisoned by the language and behavior of the polite. Polite people worry about donor relations. Polite people worry about ruffling feathers. Polite people never get anything done.

People in Rancho Mirage kept asking me “Who are you with?” And I was proud to reply, “It’s just me and Gail.”***[Hey, Mike and Gail, good friends, some of us were there with you in spirit (especially me, sending a constant stream of emails from Brazil to Mike's Blackberry, hoping he was not going to arrested by Koch thugs).]

_________

Mike Roddy owns and operates a small hotel energy management company, with offices in Seattle, Napa, and Yucca Valley, California. He can be reached at mike.greenframe@gmail.com.. All photos courtesy  of Gail Zawacki at Wit’s End.

http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=4630

Mike Roddy: 5 Awards For the World's Most Heinous Climate Villains

5 Awards For the World's Most Heinous Climate Villains

As the world heats up and extreme weather increases there are a bunch of high-profile people who just don't get it, are handsomely rewarded not to get it, or both.

December 11, 2010  |  

Illustration by Ian Murphy

This was the hottest decade on record and 2010 has been the hottest year on record. Extreme weather and starvation are increasing on every continent, as beetles devour our forests and jellyfish begin to rule the sea. MIT and the Met Office Hadley Centre predict a business-as-usual 6 °C surface warming by 2100, and more than that over land. Climatologists call this being "screwed." Response from the oil and coal people? Bend over. What follows is a list of people who just don't get it, are handsomely rewarded not to get it, or both.

1. Evil Twin Awards

David and Charles Koch

Misdeeds: Even more evil than their father Fred who founded the John Birch Society and railed against communist plots while profiting from the oil refineries he built for Stalin. Koch business operations include coal mining, stealing oil from Indian reservations, pipelines and refineries for Canadian Tar Sands oil, and formaldehyde-soaked wood from clearcuts. Wherever there's filth and destruction the boys are on it, like hound dogs rolling in bear shit. Between '05 and '08 alone, the Kochs spent $25 million spreading the ludicrous message that our best scientists are ideological fear mongers, who would use "climate change" to usher in World Government.

Corporate Teat: Koch Industries, with $100 billion annual income. Want some stock? Not for sale -- it's all theirs, baby!

Most Egregious Lie: "Since we can't control Mother Nature, let's figure out how to get along with her changes." -- a company newsletter.

Comeuppance: Locked in an underwater exhibit as part of a display at the Smithsonian's $15 million David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, which whitewashes the dangers of climate change, to demonstrate how people will evolve to live in the rising oceans.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet

Misdeeds: Pretend to be friends while engaged in a vicious competition to see who ends up with the most expensive coffin. Flew together to inspect the Alberta Tar Sands and ponder investments, looking to add to Buffet's $34 billion Burlington Northern Santa Fe coal-hauling railroad purchase and the Gates Foundation Nigerian oil portfolio. Gates is dumping cash into geo-engineering as a way to "hack" the climate, instead of getting off oil and coal. The duo insist that the government should be responsible for clean energy development, but that we need to tax our citizens to pay for it. They can't be bothered, since they're too busy banking on sure things like fossil fuels.

Corporate Teat: They're the tits, not the pups. Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway, much of it tax sheltered by the Gates Foundation.

Most Egregious Lie: "We need an energy miracle." Gates' time frame for converting to clean energy is 40 years, giving him and Buffet plenty of years of income from their dirty investments.

Comeuppance: Sent to actually work in an African village health care clinic for one full year.

Harold Lewis and Freeman Dyson

Misdeeds: Back in the 1950's, these two were respected physicists. Now, in the modern age, they've been inexplicably gripped by Satan and/or senility and defected to the anti-science camp. Dyson finally showed his worth to the oil boys by posing as a wise elder, warning about "alarmist" climate science for the New York Times magazine in '08, leading to 4 star hotel rooms and fine meals while addressing denier conferences.

Not to be out-denied, Lewis emerged from 25 years of hiding among Santa Barbara Republicans to mouth off about "Climategate." The media didn't notice that they weren't climate scientists and hadn't published any scientific papers for decades.

Corporate Teats: The attention has been good enough, along with upcoming free junkets to denier fests hosted by Far Right "think tanks" like CEI, Cato, and Heartland.

ost Egregious Lie: Lewis: "Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life."

Comeuppance: Sentenced to 30 days in the public stocks outside Sather Gate in Berkeley. No diapers allowed.

2. Brain-Fried '60s Icon Award

Ted Nugent

Misdeeds: Went from heading a psychedelic band in the '60s to touring in militia fatigues and howling "suck my machine gun, Obama." Hangs out with Sean Hannity and Massey Coal's Don Blankenship, and played guitar at Don's '09 "Friends of America" mountaintop removal celebration. Said our problems in Iraq are caused by the fact that we decided "not to Nagasaki them." As an inspiration to today's obtuse libertarians, he purports to despise all "Big Government" regulation and handouts, yet as the national spokesman for DARE, Ted receives federal funds to help local law enforcement regulate drug use.

Corporate Teats: Massey Coal, National Rifle Association, Republican Party, old people with terrible taste in music.

Most Egregious Lie: "Global warming is a fraud. Watch Glenn Beck."

Comeuppance: Cat scratch syphilis

Stewart Brand

Misdeeds: Wrecked any remaining cred from his stint as a Merry Prankster and '60s tepee and patchouli oil Whole Earth Catalog by hitching his wagon to corporate America. Tours the country with a Power Point presentation, trying to persuade people that nuclear power is going to save us from global warming. Missed the memo that nuclear costs at least $7 million a megawatt, and insurance beyond the federal guarantee is not available. Constantly cites bad data, bullshits about nuclear waste disposal technology and now, he's even for "clean coal" (read: coal).

Corporate Teat: Global Business Network, a corporate consulting firm co-founded by Brand, which counts among its clients next-gen nuclear developers GE, Bechtel, Duke Power and Westinghouse.

Most Egregious Lie: To scare environmentalists into embracing nuclear: "I would like to see an environmental movement that's comfortable noticing when it's wrong ..." because "...DDT was banned worldwide, and malaria took off in Africa." (DDT was never banned for disease prevention.)

Comeuppance: Uranium bong hits.

3. Credentials in the Wrong Field Award

Anthony Watts

Misdeeds: Overnight, went from local TV weatherman to a climate "expert," constantly attacking scientific reports for groupthink, grant-seeking greed, and phony data. Sent his minions to photograph those US temperature stations which he claimed were too close to heat sinks, skewing temperature readings.

NOAA decided to take him up on his claim and analyzed the station data from all 1223 sites, and found no evidence of bias or distortion. Anthony instantly dropped the project with no mention of his error and simply began shouting, "Climategate!" -- the oil company e-burglary and nontroversy, which ultimately offered no evidence of scientific wrongdoing.

Corporate Teats: People contribute to the "cookie jar" on his loony blog, but oil and coal companies support him through former pro-smoking "researchers" at the Heartland Institute.

Most Egregious Lie: "The Hockey Stick is Broken!" Really? The hockey stick has been duplicated in over 20 charts from climate scientists, and vindicated in an exhaustive study by the National Academy of Sciences.

Comeuppance: Cross checked by Al Roker.

Edward Wegman

Misdeeds: Statistician from George Mason University in Virginia (which receives financial support from Koch and other dirty companies), who in '06 was enlisted by congressional denier "Smokey" Joe Barton (R-Texas) to disprove anthropogenic global warming. "The Wegman Report," billed as an "independent" analysis, was actually based on source material provided by a Barton staffer. Despite the affront to scientific rigor, the work attained iconic status on wacky denier blogs.

The Wegman Report has been thoroughly deconstructed by John Mashey atDeep Climate, who found it to be full of plagiarized sections, distorted data and unwarranted conclusions. This was too much even for George Mason, so Wegman is currently under formal investigated by his own university.

Corporate Teats: Far Right think tank money, originating from Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Peabody Coal.

Most Egregious Lie: "Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus 'independent studies' may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface."

Comeuppance: Fired from George Mason for fraud, gets an assignment from the Heartland Institute to produce a report on the volume, consistency and taste of Michael Mann's stool.

Glenn Beck, Professional Histrionic

Misdeeds: Has no expertise on any subject whatsoever, yet manages to have opinions about everything, including evolution, Islam and global warming. Instinctively distrusts anything that has been proven by empirical evidence. Whips crowds into a frenzy about taxes and socialism, and solemnly warns about the ethics of academic climate scientists. Is the heir apparent to Joe McCarthy in exemplifying the Death of the American Dream, through ignorance, paranoia, and megalomania. Repeats every lie about global warming that Fox and the oil companies feed him, then holds a summer rally at the Lincoln Memorial about "restoring honor."

Corporate Teats: Fox Broadcasting, and advertisers such as Exxon, Peabody and Georgia Pacific (a Koch company).

Most Egregious Lie: "Global warming is a hoax."

Comeuppance: Turned into an actual puppet by George Soros, made to perform a nightly rendition of "Fame" outside Jackpot, Nevada.

4. Slimy Politician Award
 

Ken Cuccinelli, Attorney General of Virginia 

Misdeeds: Unstoppable diarrhea of the mouth. Will swim across a river of dog shit if there's a camera on the opposite bank. In addition to suing the federal government over healthcare reform, being a rampant homophobe and prudishlycovering the breast of Vitus on the Virginia state seal, this Tea Party favorite unsuccessfully tried to prosecute climate scientist Michael Mann for "fraud." Wants to criminalize climate science itself, and tried to subpoena 10 years of 39 scientists' private emails with Mann in an effort to prove wrongdoing. Parrots bullshit from Koch-supported nutter sites, such as the claim that climate scientists lie about global warming in order to secure grant money.

Corporate Teats: Obvious errand boy for the energy companies who helped elect him with dough funneled through the US Chamber of Commerce to the Republican Attorneys General Association. Nakedly ambitious, he's basically already running for governor, so he can really cash in.

Most Egregious Lie: "The authors (Mann et al) knew, or should have known, that their claims contained false information, misleading and unsubstantiated claims, and/or were otherwise misleading."

Comeuppance: Sentenced to one year of community service legal work by representing one of two competing drug cartels in Michoacán, Mexico.

Mitch McConnell, Senator from Kentucky and Senate Minority Leader

Misdeeds: Possibly the phoniest, most corrupt and physically repulsive lawmaker in 100 years. Makes Richard Nixon look like Abraham Lincoln. Grovels for "campaign contributions" from banking, oil and coal companies, in spite of not having been in a close election for 20 years. Charms desperate and out of work Kentuckians with smarmy warmth.

Performed the incredible feat of gaining a 100 percent Senate voting rating from the US Chamber of Commerce, a zero percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters, and then completed the trifecta by making CREW's annualMost Corrupt Senators list. Canes Senators like Graham and McCain into submission if they threaten a vote that Exxon or Peabody don't approve of.

Corporate Teats: Dozens-including Peabody Coal, News Corp (Fox), Blue Cross, and Citibank.

Most Egregious Lie: "I am the Godfather of Green."

Comeuppance: Assigned to a Kentucky County Hospital for a year to work as a nurse's aide for terminal black lung and emphysema victims.

Joe Barton, Congress-critter from Texas

Misdeeds: Started out as an oil and gas company consultant. As former Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he tapped Wegman to produce the aforementioned report, feeding the statistician spurious source material. Responsible for many of the provisions in the '05 House Energy Policy Act, a huge giveaway to the nuclear and oil industries. Apologized to BP's Tony Hayward for the White House's "$20 billion shakedown" of the criminally negligent oil giant. A global warming "skeptic," Barton has called for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, helped nix Kyoto, and expressed his concern over wind power because he thinks wind is a finite resource. Seriously.

Corporate Teats: Received more from the coal industry in campaign contributions than nearly anyone in Congress, and is close to the top collectors of oil company contributions. Exelon Corp., a nuclear energy producer, just happened to donate $25 K to the Barton Family Foundation at the same time Joe introduced legislation assisting companies with the recycling of spent nuclear fuel.

Most Egregious Lie: "Wind is God's way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it's hotter to areas where it's cooler. That's what wind is. Wouldn't it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up?"

Comeuppance: Cochlear implant, which plays Justin Bieber songs for the rest of his very long life.

5. Most Evil Performance as a Chief Executive

Gregory Boyce, Peabody Coal CEO

Misdeeds: Along with his Board and shareholders, surely one of the most malignant men of the 21st century. Boyce's mission in life is to see that the world burns as much coal as possible, in spite of scientists' warnings that this path is already heating the planet and destroying life. Pays lobbyists to fight regulation of coal plants' emissions of cancer-causing mercury, sulfur dioxide, and nitrous oxide.

Claims that the vast amount of CO2 emissions from coal plants can somehow be sequestered and stored. Hedges against eventual regulation of US coal plants by developing export markets to Third World countries, then pretends that he's doing it to help the poor. Believes that the interests of Peabody stockholders and executives are far more important than starvation, death, and species extinction. Boyce is Lucifer in a $5000 suit.

Corporate Teats: In addition to running Peabody, Boyce helps to coordinate efforts by coal trade groups, utilities, and the Chamber of Commerce to help them continue to poison the atmosphere.

Most Egregious Lie: "Only once we have a growing, vibrant, global economy providing energy access and an improved human condition for billions of the energy impoverished can we accelerate progress on environmental issues such as a reduction in greenhouse gases."

Comeuppance: Sentenced to perform community service while living next to and downwind from an Arizona coal plant in a non air-conditioned trailer.

Tony Hayward, former BP CEO

Misdeeds: Prior to the Deepwater Horizon explosion, he presided over furious maintenance and safety cost cutting efforts, leading to higher profits, despite internal warnings. "Managed" the expanding oil plumes by claiming that only 1,000 barrels a day were escaping, later modified to 5,000 barrels a day. Hayward was perfectly aware that the actual figure was closer to 50,000 barrels.

In another unconscionable act of public relations, BP ordered the use of the toxic dispersant Corexit-banned in Britain -- while failing to equip cleanup crews with respirators. As BP was busy shutting out journalists, and death washed onto Gulf shores, Tony was playing the "demonized and vilified" yacht enthusiast, saying that he just "wanted his life back."

Corporate Teats: Began as a geologist for BP, but worked his way up to CEO by cutting costs, earning the devotion of BP shareholders even as spills and accidents increased.

Most Egregious Lie: "I think BP's response to this tragedy has been a model of good social corporate responsibility."

Comeuppance: Orifices shot full of rubber scraps, mud and golf balls.

David Lesar, Halliburton CEO

Misdeeds: Oversees a company whose missions are to bribe politicians, screw taxpayers, and subcontract work to the lowest, most incompetent bidder. Faulty work by subsidiary KBR in Iraq led to the electrocution of US soldiers while they were taking showers. Charged $45 a case for Coca Cola in Iraq and $100 for a load of laundry. Halliburton knowingly used faulty cement on the Deepwater Horizon, which was a major cause of the explosion, but such is their juice in DC that even Obama is still handing them no bid contracts, even though they moved their headquarters to Dubai.

Corporate Teats: Halliburton's main teat is the Defense Department (the largest consumer of fossil fuels in the world), so the Gulf explosion was part of the company's secondary operations. Killing and environmental mayhem are their main business interests.

Most Egregious Lie: "Will things go wrong? Sure they will; it's a war zone. But when they do, we'll fix it. We always have...We're serving our troops because of what we know, not who we know." -- from an '06 Halliburton PR video

Comeuppance: Encased up to his neck in Halliburton "foam" cement, and ordered to fix faulty shower wiring with his teeth.

Michael Roddy graduated with honors from Berkeley, and has written numerous magazine articles and Congressional testimonies on environmental and construction issues. He currently owns and operates a small hotel energy management company, with offices in Seattle, Napa, and Yucca Valley, California. Mike can be reached at mike.greenframe@gmail.com. Ian Murphy did these here doodles, and he's the editor of The BEAST.

Link:  http://www.alternet.org/environment/149120/5_awards_for_the_world's_most_heinous_climate_villains/?page=entire

Things Go Badder With Koch -- boycott all Georgia-Pacific products says Mike Roddy

From Lee Fang's Think Progress post on:

Koch-funded book argues against mine safety laws in West Virginia

mike roddy says:

September 28, 2010 at 9:59 am

I can’t think of a single thing the Koch Brothers would not do for money. As for the miners, they begrudge both regulations and salaries, and hope that the current downturn could lead to chain gang or slave labor.
A couple of weeks ago, I proposed a boycott of Georgia Pacific, a key Koch Industries company. The Kochs paid $21 billion for GP a few years ago, largely because of established brands such as Brawny, Lycra, and Stainmaster.

The Kochs’ fossil fuel businesses specialize in the dirtiest fuels available, such as tar sands oil and mountaintop removal coal. GP has also carved out a niche by combining the worst forest liquidation practices with toxic chemical use. A GP house contains wood from forest liquidation and vast amounts of formaldehyde, a known carcinogen and major contributor to building sickness. Homes built from GP products are toxic, fragile, and cheap, and the owners fill them in with horrible products such as Brawny and Stainmaster.

We need to go after Koch by boycotting Georgia Pacific consumer products, since the supply chains for their coal, oil, and gas products are too dispersed. Included in the parking lot information tables would be fact sheets about their toxic and rapacious products, and the sordid history of Koch Enterprises, including climate denial and greenwashing campaigns. I’ve run this by a few Big Green groups and drawn a blank. It appears that Big Green is intimidated by the power of Koch. Instead, the word needs to get out, maybe with this motto: Things Go Badder With Koch.

There will be a big counterreaction, including intimidation and possible arrests. That’s OK, too, because when rats get light shed on them, they start to make mistakes.

Some friends of mine and I will do this on our own if necessary. If you’d like to join us for a few pilot big box store boycotts, please send an email to mike.greenframe@gmail.com.

This would actually have an impact, because the main value of GP products is brand recognition, which is why the Kochs ponied up the $21 billion. GP has even bought brands with a decent reputation (such as Northern toilet paper) and exploited it while returning them to forest liquidation origins.

CP readers, please let me know if you would like to join me on this and make it happen. If the Green groups are too timid to go along, maybe that’s better, since it would be a true grassroots, ground up operation.

http://climateprogress.org/2010/09/27/koch-funded-book-argues-against-mine-safety-laws-in-west-virginia/#comments

Mike Roddy on Climate Progress: What about China and India?

What about China and India?

by guest Mike Roddy, Climate Progress, June 10, 2010


Guest blogger Mike Roddy is a long-time CP commenter.  A UC Berkeley graduate, he has pursued many careers, including solar manufacturing, writing and research, and managing social housing projects on four continents.

Of all of the troubling developments concerning global warming in the last few years, accelerated emissions from China and India may be the most difficult to address. Consider:

• The China Ministry of industry and information technology reported that coal- fired electricity and oil sales each climbed 24 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to 2009.
• About 96% of global emissions growth from 2006 to 2030 is expected to come from non OECD countries, mostly China and India. Wealthy countries’ emissions are projected as stable or rising slightly.
• Jairam Ramesh, India’s Environment Minister, told Hillary Clinton in 2009 that India would never take legally binding commitments to cut down on emissions.
• India has 200 GW of coal plants planned in the next decade, the largest absolute growth in the world.
• China, while talking about emissions goals, refuses both monitoring and enforcement

The furious projected pace of coal plant construction in Asia would lock in major emissions for decades to come.  Given the accelerating pace of climate related impacts, project cancellations and retrofitting of existing plants will become likely.  For practical and environmental reasons, it is much better to address this likely future now.

Meanwhile, all of the news about current effects of global warming is bad. The Arctic is melting decades ahead of schedule.  Methane is shooting out of the Arctic Ocean.  Global temperatures are marching upward at an accelerating pace, and global CO2 concentration was recently measured at 392 ppm.

It is clear that efforts to reduce emissions enough to make a habitable climate likely post-2050 are meaningless unless emissions growth in Asia is slowed, and quickly.  No Western country has addressed this political issue in any meaningful way.

The Right in the United States appears to believe that China’s coal plant construction policies are correct, and that this is what America should also be doing, combined with natural gas and nuclear power.  Some people on the other end of the political spectrum appear to believe that countries such as China and India should not restrict CO2 emissions, due to their low historical emissions contributions and their pressing need to “lift themselves our of poverty”.   This of course beggars the issues of blocking technical advances, environmental and health destruction caused by the mining and burning of coal, and power production infrastructure remaining wedded to a sunset industry. The same problems that coal has in the US, in other words.  Giving developing countries a pass also trivializes the enormous dangers that the world could face if the earth warms at the pace predicted by emissions increases on this scale.

Most climate scientists believe that the world has to stop burning coal for electricity if we are going to slow runaway global warming, and not just continue to talk about it.  This is not open to discussion in India or China, which continue major long term construction programs for coal fired electricity.

I emailed questions to my brother Steve Roddy to help me understand the political dynamics in China. Steve is a professor of Asian Studies at the University of San Francisco, and did postgraduate work at the University of Beijing. Steve’s comments:

“Think of the Chinese coal industry the same way you would about Massey Energy, an interest group that has strong backing in the political establishment.  There are other factors at play, too- coal is mined in the more remote interior regions, where jobs are scarcer. The main coal region is important to the CCP genealogy, since it’s near the cradle of the communist movement of the 30’s and 40’s. It’s not a very efficient industry, but it employs a lot of people, and jobs are a sensitive issue right now.  Countering this are NGO’s in China similar to our own, as well as the disastrous recent weather- drought in northern China, and flooding and typhoons in the south.

“Fundamentally, though, the Chinese attitude was most on display when they sent a low level diplomat to the session that Obama chaired in Copenhagen. With the US in particular so niggardly in its concessions to the developing world, why should the Chinese make sacrifices? There is also the matter of the West’s responsibility for over 75% of the excess CO2 currently in the atmosphere.  The issue of justice is real to them. This means that the West, particularly the United States, should lead in reducing emissions.”

China can actually move much faster than the US if circumstances so indicate. In 2000, the Chinese central government completed a logging ban in 18 provinces, something almost unprecedented in Asia.  Flooding on the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers from deforestation had been inundating towns and damaging agriculture. 

When similar events occur in the US, Congress does not dare to stand up to the logging and homebuilding industries, but the authoritarian government in China can rapidly reverse course in an emergency climate situation.

My own experience is in India, where I worked in the late 1990’s as a social housing consultant to industry sectors and regional government agencies.  We were negotiating a contract to build 50,000 houses in the Province of Delhi, when the price of onions suddenly went from 8 rupees a kilo to 50 rupees a kilo. This event, devastating for the urban poor, resulted in the calling of a special election.  Our ally, Prime Minister Singh of the BJP Party in Delhi, was ousted, and Congress Party returned to power.

The lesson is that resources are too scarce in India to allow people to choose more costly alternatives for reasons related to future events, such as a warming climate. Effects of this thinking may well be catastrophic, since the monsoon and Himalayan glaciers are projected to change for the worse.

There is also the simple matter of heat: I was in Delhi in 1998 during their summer season, when temperatures reached 45 °C, or 113 °F, with high humidity. This was the hottest climate I have ever experienced, and Indians slept on sidewalks and rooftops at night to keep from being overwhelmed by houses that had turned into ovens.  In May 2010, northern India experienced historically high temperatures in the 50 °C range, resulting in hundreds of deaths.  Average temperatures a few degrees higher could make much of India uninhabitable, with few emigration routes available and starvation likely.

There are five potentially productive action alternatives:

1. The US must lead, and not merely for reasons of justice based on historical emissions. We remain one of the highest per capita emitters on earth, in spite of access to quality technology and adequate funding.  If we wait for China and India to make serious changes before we do anything -- and the current climate bill before the Senate can only be called a baby first step -- the world will remain on a path to potentially devastating effects for our descendants.
2. The leaders of China and India, while very concerned about global warming, do not appear to fully grasp the extent of the dangers that they face, or they wouldn’t be signing 20-year, multibillion-dollar, coal-importing contracts with Australia. Future climate perturbations will be far greater in Asia, where population pressures on scarce resources exacerbate microclimate and hydrologic alterations. We need to send a delegation of our best climate scientists, including people such as James Hansen, Ken Caldeira, and Gavin Schmidt, on diplomatic missions, not merely scientific ones, in order to communicate the gravity of the situation. Key to this effort will be the presence of climate scientists who can document that both China and India are jeopardizing their food security by burning coal. Until recently, it was thought that more CO2 would increase crop yields: climate deniers like to cite an outdated study about increased rice production in China due to warmer weather and more CO2. Most scientists now believe the opposite, as evidenced by extreme flooding and drought in China, so agricultural climate specialists should be key members of this delegation. The scientists should be prepared to express the probabilities of global environmental collapse as a result of climate change. Recent data projects this scenario becoming more likely as emissions increases and feedbacks (such as loss of Arctic albedo) continue to exceed expectations.
3. Once the US embarks on a path of serious action- including steps that are more substantive than what we have done or even planned so far- make it clear to China and India and countries on similar paths that their planned actions in increasing GHG production are endangering all of us. If they remain intransigent in these plans, there will be economic consequences, to include steep tariffs based on products’ carbon intensity.  This policy would apply to all highly carbon intensive exporters, including Canada and Russia, with no exemptions based on political considerations.  Deforestation would be addressed by instituting steep tariffs against products that come from forest liquidation, a major problem in North America.  Policy papers should be prepared for all manufacturing and trade that endangers global climate, and preliminary agreements negotiated  among  the G20 countries.
4. Remove or weaken patent or licensing restrictions for energy breakthroughs that are potentially transformative. This could include ultralight CSP or wind turbines, cheap thin film solar modules, etc. This would in effect be a wealth transfer, which China and India have requested.  Develop plans to retrofit coal plant turbines and boilers for CSP, and to scrap or recycle remaining components of coal plants with accelerated retirement schedules. This would include coal and other fossil fuel plants in the US.
5. Instruct the World Bank, IMF, and IFC to stop funding huge CO2 sources such as the recent $3.75 billion coal plant in South Africa and the equally large Tata Ultra Mega coal plant in India.  Impose a 2% interest surcharge on private sector coal plant funding, and set the money aside to support clean energy projects.

It’s not enough to continue to talk about “bridge fuels” such as natural gas, or to plan for renewables at an indefinite date in the future.  Most countries are guilty of this thinking, since it’s easy to make vague plans for the future.  It’s a pitch that’s been around for decades, and has the effect of delaying major investment and regulatory decisions. The science indicates very clearly that the time for action is now.

Link:   http://climateprogress.org/2010/06/10/china-india-global-warming-greenhouse-gas-carbon-dioxide-emissions/