Policy & Legislation
Fatalistic Friday: Storms, heat, drought and double-dealing
Published August 21, 2009 @ 08:14PM PT
Another week's end brings us to another concentrated, hurts-less-this-way burst of the worst of the week's global warming news:
Storm Fells Hundreds of Trees in NY's Central Park: Hundreds of trees in Central Park were damaged and destroyed by severe thunderstorm winds as high as 80 mph. "I've never seen a wind of that velocity in New York City," Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said. "It looks like pictures that I've seen of war zones where artillery shells have shredded trees." (The New York Times)
In hot water: World sets ocean temperature record: The ocean is 72 degrees F in Maine, 88 in Ocean City, Maryland. And all around the world, July was the hottest the world's oceans have been in almost 130 years of keeping records. "The average water temperature worldwide was 62.6 degrees, according to the National Climatic Data Center, the branch of the U.S. government that keeps world weather records. That was 1.1 degree higher than the 20th century average." (Associated Press)
Mexico Hit By Lowest Rainfall In 68 Years: It's killing cattle, threatening millions of tons of crops, and reducing the supply of water to Mexico City. (Reuters)
ConocoPhillips works to undermine climate bill, despite pledge to support climate action: Despite being a member of the pro-business US Climate Action Partnership, ConocoPhillips is now putting its weight behind opposition to climate change legislation. (Grist)
Questions for American Petroleum Institute's @janevanryan #ACES #ec09
Published August 21, 2009 @ 11:33AM PT
UPDATE, Tues., Aug 25: I've posted Jane Van Ryan's answers.
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UPDATE, 20:48 ET: Jane Van Ryan has responded, via Twitter, that she'll look over my questions and post answers online. Thank you, Jane. Stay tuned, readers...
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August 21, 2009
Jane Van Ryan
New Media Advisor
American Petroleum Institute
Dear Ms. Van Ryan,
I noticed you using Twitter, today, from an energy industry-backed political rally in Lima, Ohio. (I see you're blogging about these rallies, too.)
API's members have such a huge role in the nation's energy and climate policies. The oil and gas industry has already spent $55 million lobbing Congress, According to CNNMoney. It's on track to beat 2008's record-setting $83 million in lobbying expenditures.
Given how much influence this kind of money can buy, I'm encouraged to see you out in the social media scrum, where you can take questions directly from the public and the press.
Since you were tweeting from your mobile phone in Lima, however, it's very possible that you missed my messages. So the salient bits of our not-exchange are reposted below.
I hope you can look them over and get back to me soon with answers.
Best regards,
Emily Gertz
Journalist and Editor
twitter.com/ejgertz
Yes Ryan Sager, There Is Political Astroturf
Published August 19, 2009 @ 08:03PM PT
When is political organizing not a genuine expression of citizen opinion? Not grassroots, but astroturf?
It's about where the funding is coming from, and why.
Author Ryan Sager didn't see it that way on today's opinion page in The New York Times.
His take: If people show up and believe what they're saying, then it's real citizen opinion and activism. "One reason the [health care] town hall protesters are called Astroturf," he writes, "is that they have ties to groups with corporate financing like FreedomWorks, run by Dick Armey, the former House majority leader." But getting people out is "basic politics," no matter who paid for it. In fact, "the Obama administration has been doing its own stage managing," writes Sager,
"At a town hall in Virginia last month, the president took questions from members of organizations with close ties to the administration, including the Service Employees International Union and Organizing for America, which is a part of the Democratic National Committee. The Web site of another liberal group, Health Care for America Now, instructs counter-protesters to "bring enough people to drown" out the Tea Partiers."
If you try to fault these corporate-funded campaigns on their methods, which are classic community organizing tactics no matter who uses them, then you are indeed taking a weak position.
The inconvenient truth that Sager is dodging here is that large corporations have the monetary and manpower resources to drown out political speech by public interest groups and citizen groups, which are typically much less abundantly funded. But corporate political speech is given equal protection with individual political speech.
If this sounds wrong to you, keep in mind that it cuts both ways on the political spectrum. If it's a cause you agree with, but a corporate-funded entity is paying to generate support for it while hiding its participation, it's astroturf.
Let's compare:
- The US Climate Action Partnership is transparently an alliance between corporations and advocacy groups; the list of members is right at the top of the home page.
- To grasp that the powerful oil industry PR group American Petroleum Institute is behind Energy Citizens, you'd have to recognize the modest acronym "API" on the group's list of participants, Then, you'd have to intuit that an organization that includes many of the world's biggest oil companies as members is likely to be calling more shots than, say, online retailer Gourmet Seed International.
Sagers also makes a category error to equate corporate-funded organizing with political parties and unions turning out people to influence policy. People organize into parties and unions specifically to represent their best interests in the political and economic arenas, where they might otherwise be ignored, and to get more influence over the matters that directly affect their lives.
People found corporations, and corporations pour money into lobbying and PR, to deliver a steady profit to their owners.
Firms like the conservative PR agency FreedomWorks endure for a reason; they're extremely canny operators that know how to tap into two rich veins: one of corporate money, and one of fear of change.
They also know exactly where to hit the traditional news media's reporting blind spot, which (speaking broadly) is that it hates to baldly confront liars with their lies.
I'd wager that they also grasp that the inherent nature of progressives ito suffer sometimes extreme differences of opinion within a single political coalition. This can create a time lag in reacting effectively to reactionary anti-reform campaigns -- whether genuine grassroots or astroturf.
Meanwhile, it's easier to harness the energies of the average reactionary right-winger, who loves to be ordered around, into expressing a disciplined set of messages.
The astroturf effort against health care reform is becoming more and more indistinguishable from real grassroots activism -- or to put it differently, it seems to be converging with non-corporate political efforts.
Time should tell soon if the "Energy Citizen" astroturf effort gains similar ground -- although judging from a report from today's corporate-sponsored rally in Houston, by Sarah McDonald of Texas Public Citizen, they're blowing it.
Kicked out of the rally proper by a security guard because she didn't work for an energy company, McDonald talked with people outside the event:
[S]peaking to other individuals who had been denied access was even more enlightening than listening to Big Oil preach their sermon.
This was such a fake, Astroturf event that they didn't know how to handle legitimate grassroots support. A couple of women who had been to some of the teabagger events and townhalls came down, armed with American flags and excited to protest "crap and tax" -- but even THEY weren't allowed in. Several others who had heard about the rally through Freedom Works, on right wing radio, or in the paper were also locked out.
Video: Rachel Maddow dissects the anatomy of astroturf; You can, too.
Published August 19, 2009 @ 04:48AM PT
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Rachel Maddow dissects the particulars of astroturf campaigns: Public relations campaigns designed to influence public policy. They're funded by corporations, but made to look like the work of "average citizens."
She ends with a look at Energy Citizen, the corporate funded fake grassroots effort to undermine climate change policy, which I've been covering here at Stop Global Warming.
Update, 12:04 pm: As Maddow notes, anyone can do it! When you encounter one of these web sites purporting to be a grassroots campaign against enactment of a reform policy, go to the bottom of the screen and click on the "about us" link (or its nearest equivalent). Then find the names of the entities and/or persons sponsoring the site, and begin digging back until you figure out exactly where the money's coming from and who's created the astroturf.
Some good resources to aid your efforts include:
SourceWatch: A collaborative wiki-based guide to the people, organizations, and companies behind the news, particularly public relations firms and professionals "engaged in managing and manipulating public perception, opinion and policy." A project of the non-partisan Center for Media and Democracy, which also publishes PR Watch.
LittleSis, another collaborative wiki documenting the "key relationships of politicians, corporate executives, lobbyists, financiers, and their affiliated organizations. (Why "Little Sis"? Because she's a watchful eye on "Big Brother.")
Astroturf Update: House investigation discovers more forged letters
Published August 18, 2009 @ 05:41PM PT
A congressional investigation has yielded five more fraudulent letters sent to Congress in opposition to the House energy and climate bill that passed narrowly in June. This brings the total to 13 so far, with dozens more letters left to verify or debunk.
The letters were made to look as if they were written by legitimate grassroots community groups and associations -- nine in all -- and sent to three House members: Kathy Dahlkemper (D-Pa.), Christopher Carney (D-Pa.), and Tom Perriello (D-Va.). "All three Members represent conservative, Republican-leaning districts and could be vulnerable in the 2010 elections," writes Anna Palmer at Roll Call.
The letters were actually created by the campaign-organizing firm Bonner & Associates, which was hired by the corporate PR firm Hawthorn Group, which in turn was engaged by the industry group American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy (ACCCE) to generate opposition to the bill.
Bonner and Associates has claimed that the letters were the work of a temporary employee gone roguewho's since been fired. The firm, which has a long history of working to promote anti-reform political agendas, has used that excuse before when it's been caught in corrupt activities.
Bonner worked in the late 1990s to avert U.S. ratification of the Kyoto Treaty to cap and lower greenhouse gas pollution. Then as now, the firm played upon fears of higher energy rates, without regard for their basis in reality. "But a former Bonner and Associates employee who spoke to TPMmuckraker" when this story broke at the end of July "significantly complicated that picture, portraying Bonner and Associates as a place where ethical missteps were far from rare. 'They just got caught this time,' he said."
As the three representatives received 58 letters in all, the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is continuing to investigate the fraud. The committee, headed by energy bill co-sponsor Edward Markey (D-Mass.), has the power to subpoena witnesses to testify before Congress.
The astroturf letters released today were written to look as if they were coming from groups advocating for senior citizens -- grandma and grandpa, who would have to forego food and prescription medications if their heating and cooling bills went up due to a cap-and-trade system for cutting carbon emissions.
"Dahlkemper received a letter claiming to be from the Erie Center on Health and Aging that warned of higher electric bills should the climate bill pass," reports Jim Snyder on TheHill.com:
“We ask you to use your very important position to help protect seniors and other consumers in Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional district from higher electricity bills,” the letter states.
Carney, meanwhile, received a letter from the Dunmore Senior Citizens that included phrases similar to those in the letter to Dahlkemper.
“Many of our seniors, as you know, are on low fixed incomes. The cost to heat and cool our homes, run hot water and use other appliances is very important to those on a budget,” both letters state.
[[According to a non-partisan analysis, the bill as passed by the House would raise energy bills by an average of only $175 a year per household, less than $0.50 a day, by 2020 -- with the poorest Americans actually getting some money back.]]
Astroturf letters released earlier by the Select Committee faked the authorship of grassroots minority groups -- NAACP and Creciendo Juntos -- as well as other real-grassroots organizations. (The links go to the actual astroturf anti-cap-and-trade letters, at the Talking Points Memo's documents collection).
A Window (Literally) on Energy Efficiency
Published August 17, 2009 @ 11:42AM PT
Thanks to federal tax credits included in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and extended by President Obama in February when he signed the economic stimulus bill, there's been an uptick in business for makers and installers of energy-conserving windows.
Check out these federal tax credits -- 2009 and 2010 might be your year for putting in energy-smart windows, doors, and skylights; roofing and insulation; water heaters and air conditioning, and biomass stoves.
According to a new report from McKinsey and Company, straightforward changes like these could cut US energy use 23 percent by 2020, save the economy $1.2 trillion and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.1 gigatons a year.
It sounds simple enough -- until they show up and rip your walls open.
Today, my apartment, including the home office, is the kick-off location for the installation of new windows across my entire three-building co-op.
Not to gripe, really. They're going to be a lovely upgrade to our standard of living, especially given the near-century age of the buildings: Solarban 60 Low-E Glass, which blocks solar heat gain in the summer, insulates better in the winter, and reduces the UV entering the space while transmitting a high percentage of visible light.
(This last helps stop the sun from fading your furnishings, which gets to be a pretty expensive and waste-causing problem if you would rather not have unintentionally two-toned rugs and furniture).
The installers are working hard and doing a great job, especially given the wood rot they've encountered underneath our old window frames. (Par for the course in a pre-war NYC apartment building that has not always been lovingly maintained.)
But it's 90 degrees F worth of hot, dusty and disrupted around here -- and once the crew's finished I'll need to mop the floors, vacuum the rugs, push all the furniture back into place, and soothe the nerves of my cats, who are justly outraged at having spent most of the day imprisoned in their carriers.
So my blog posting may be light for the rest of today. But in the energy-efficient window spirit, here's a selection of energy efficiency and emissions-reducing news:
Clotheslines for Sale: Plethora of Drying Options Online (Treehugger)
New England Frito-Lay Plant Goes 'Off the Grid' (Greener Buildings)
Scotland eyes carbon-capture for North Sea (Financial Times)
China study urges greenhouse gas caps, peak in 2030 (Reuters)
Energy Frontiers: Space Solar, Hot Lots (Dot Earth blog - The New York Times)
Astroturf Energy Campaign Plan Fractures Oil Industry
Published August 15, 2009 @ 01:15PM PT
Related posts:
- Join the real grassroots movement to get action on climate change
- Bill McKibben: 'There finally is climate change activism' and anyone can join
- Conservatives Point Astroturf Campaign at Climate-Energy Reform
- Coal Lobby Group Faked Grassroots Opposition to Climate Bill
The leak of an American Petroleum Institute memo that details plans to turn out thousands at supposed "Energy Citizens" rallies in coming weeks -- in reality, energy industry-sponsored rallies designed to derail energy policy reform -- is apparently exposing fissures within the powerful oil lobby group's own membership.
According to Jim Pickard and Kate Mackenzie in the Financial Times, while "core members" of API, like fossil energy giant ExxonMobil, support the plan, it's being rejected by those who are members of the US Climate Action Partnership, a business-environmental group coalition that supports many of President Obama's climate and energy policies.
API member Shell backs USCAP's position and is refusing to join the astroturf effort, reports FT, because the company believes solving global warming is "the pro-growth strategy." Other overlapping USCAP/API members include General Electric, Siemens, BP America and Conoco-Phillips. “The truth is that the API is all over the place on this issue, there is nowhere near a unanimous view,” a source inside the oil industry told FT's reporters.
The smoking gun memo is signed by API president and CEO Jack Gerard. In it, he asks all API members to organize and turn out their employees at least two events during the Congressional recess, aimed at swing vote or vulnerable senators in "11 states with a significant industry presence and 10 other states where we have assets on the ground."
Gerard seems to make clear in the memo that API is underwriting much of the effort, even though it has recruited allies from related industries:
To be clear, API will provide the up-front resources to ensure logistical issues do not become a problem. This includes contracting with a highly experienced events management company that has produced successful rallies for presidential campaigns, corporations and interest groups. It also includes coordination with the other interests who share our views on the issues, providing a field coordinator in each state, conducting a comprehensive communications and advocacy activation plan for each state, and serving as central manager for all events.
(USCAP's stance has also fractured the environmental advocacy sector, to some extent. Check out this January 2009 back and forth between Joe Romm of progressive think tank Center for American Progress, who essentially calls USCAP's position a sellout, and NRDC Climate Center director Dave Hawkins, who says it's a pragmatic position that will result in strong emissions controls and transformation of our energy economy.)
