New Documents Reveal Top Climate Skeptic Well Funded by Polluters

Posted by The Green Miles

Few climate skeptics get as much attention as Patrick Michaels. Virtually all climate scientists agree our climate is in crisis & we need to reduce our carbon emissions as quickly as possible -- so opponents of climate action treat Michaels, who thinks the crisis is overblown & carbon pollution isn't so bad, as a conquering hero.

But it turns out Michaels hasn't just sold out politically as a senior fellow at the ExxonMobil-funded Cato Institute. Newly uncovered documents reveal Michaels' research has been directly & lavishly funded by polluters:

Greenpeace recently obtained an older copy of Michaels' curriculum vitae via a Freedom of Information Act request that shows that the Western Fuels Association, a coal and fuel-transportation business group, gave him a $63,000 grant in the early 1990s for "research on global climatic change." He also received $25,000 from the Edison Electric Institute, an association of electric utilities, from 1992-95 for "literature review of climate change and updates." And a 2006 leaked industry memo revealed that he received $100,000 in funding from the Intermountain Rural Electric Association to fund climate denial campaigning around the time of the release of An Inconvenient Truth. Reporter Ross Gelbspan wrote in his 1998 book The Heat is On, one of the earliest works documenting industry funding for climate change skepticism, that Michaels also received $49,000 from the German Coal Mining Association and $40,000 from the western mining company Cyprus Minerals.

Makes you wonder who Pat Michaels was really working for all those years he was going around claiming to be "Virginia's official state climatologist."

Robert Hurt: Climate Change Denier

So much for State Sen. Robert Hurt (R) being a "moderate" of any kind.

A question [at last night's Lynchburg Tea Party debate] about “Climategate” produced agreement among the three candidates who answered it.

Hurt said Climategate is “scientists who have given us something that is not true. It is faulty information and it has real consequences in the 5th District, in the loss of jobs and in power bills from Appalachian Power Co.”

Of course, I'm sure Hurt's views have nothing to do with the fact that he receives large amounts of money from electric utilities like Dominion "Global Warming Starts Here" Power. And I'm sure Hurt's views have nothing to do with the fact that he's being challenged for the nomination from even further to the far right than he is, such as one candidate's cuckoo comment that cap and trade "is all about promoting the socialist agenda of this adminstration." Uh huh, which is why cap and trade is a Republican idea that sprung out of the Reagan Administration as a "marketplace approach" to controlling pollution. And that's why Republican George HW Bush attended the 1992 "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro, stating that "environmental problems are global, and every nation must help in solving them."

Wow, who knew that Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush were closet "socialists," or that Barack Obama's "agenda" actually started more than two decades ago, when he was just in his 20s. Yes, people who believe this stuff are completely, batshit, Cuccinelli-level crazy. Yet these are the same people who Robert Hurt found himself debating - and agreeing with, at least on climate change - last night. That pretty much tells you all you need to know about Robert Hurt, and none of it is good.

Lindsey Graham: My New "Green" Hero?

Today's New York Times has two must-read op-ed's on climate change and clean energy, one by Al Gore ("We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change" and one by Tom Friedman quoting Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham ("How the G.O.P. Goes Green"). Gore's op-ed is excellent, and I strongly recommend that everyone read it. However, something tells me that the op-ed quoting Lindsey Graham - my new "green" hero? - could be more significant politically. As Tom Friedman writes, "Five more G.O.P. senators like him and we could have a real energy bill." And make no mistake, we desperately need a "real energy bill," ASAP.

Here's why I call Lindsey Graham - not exactly a champion on environmental issues in the past - my new "green" hero. First, Graham understands that environmental protection is something positive that Republicans should "buy into" and "embrace." Second, Graham totally gets it - unlike even some Democrats - that there's no magic techno-fix for our energy and climate problems, but instead that "you will never have energy independence without pricing carbon." Graham elaborates:

The technology doesn’t make sense until you price carbon. Nuclear power is a bet on cleaner air. Wind and solar is a bet on cleaner air. You make those bets assuming that cleaning the air will become more profitable than leaving the air dirty, and the only way it will be so is if the government puts some sticks on the table — not just carrots. The future economy of America and the jobs of the future are going to be tied to cleaning up the air, and in the process of cleaning up the air this country becomes energy independent and our national security is greatly enhanced.

If this sounds just like Tom Friedman writing in "Hot, Flat and Crowded," you're right. In fact, if I didn't know that Lindsey Graham was saying those words, I would have guessed they were coming out of Tom Friedman's mouth. And on this subject, that's a very good thing.

Third, Graham correctly calls out Congress for "political malpractice" on this issue. I couldn't agree more. As Al Gore points out in his op-ed, "When the Senate failed to follow the lead of the House of Representatives, forcing the president to go to Copenhagen without a new law in hand, the Chinese balked. With the two largest polluters refusing to act, the world community was paralyzed." Heckuva job, Senate, thanks a lot!

Fourth, Graham understands that for us to succeed in transforming our energy economy and solving huge challenges like climate change, we need business and the tremendous power of the capitalist, market economy on board. Which is why Graham says that "The Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers need to tell my colleagues it is O.K. to price carbon, if you do it smartly." Who's going to get the Chamber of Commerce et al. on board, Democrats or Republicans? I'd say both, but more the latter than the former. Hence, we desperately need Lindsey Graham and at least a few of his GOP colleagues to hop on board this (preferably high-speed) train.

Fifth, Graham is 100% correct that Republicans can't just be "the party of carbon pollution forever in unlimited amounts" if it wants to have any appeal to young people and not just be the party of "one more short, white Republican over 50," as he puts it.

Finally, Graham gets the larger, long-term picture here, that "We can’t be a nation that always tries and fails," that "We have to eventually get some hard problem right." Well, my fellow citizens, we are now facing an extremely "hard problem" and we are not in the least bit getting it "right." With Republicans like Lindsey Graham on board, however, there's a chance that we might do so. All of which is why (pro-business and not much of an environmentalist in the past) Republican Lindsey Graham, assuming he's willing to put his political muscle where his rhetoric is and get those "five more G.O.P. Senators like him" on board, has the potential to be my new "green" hero.