Monday, August 15, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Koch Bros Mony At Work
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/631118/who_hates_the_poor_they_work_for_the_kochs/
Who Hates the Poor? They Work for The Kochs
Apparently "some people" (and I mean people who work for "people of means") believe there isn't any value in giving health insurance to the poor. They believed that it would be a waste of money because poor people wouldn't make use of available medical benefits and would be no better off than if no insurance was provided. Well, "surprise, surprise," as they say. From the NY Times (h/t Balloon Juice): When poor people are given medical insurance, they not only find regular doctors and see doctors more often but they also feel better, are less depressed and are better able to maintain financial stability, according to a new, large-scale study that provides the first rigorously controlled assessment of the impact of Medicaid. While the findings may seem obvious, health economists and policy makers have long questioned whether it would make any difference to provide health insurance to poor people.
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/634413/koch_industries_backing_bachmann_for_president/
Koch Industries Backing Bachmann For President
According to Koch Industries’ FEC files, the company’s political action committee has already donated $5,000 to Bachmann’s presidential primary bid, suggesting that pundits, including myself, may be wrong about the Republican’s odds of wooing elite insiders who are jittery over such a radically fundamentalist candidate.
How a Corporatist Supreme Court Cabal Joined Forces With Right Wing and Kochs to Quietly Sell Out Our Democracy
Corrupt, right-wing Supreme Court justices are abusing their power, fraternizing with the Koch brothers and fixing elections (among other horrors).
http://www.truth-out.org/koch-spider-web/1312231636
The Koch Spider Web
Rick Boucher, a then-28-year incumbent Democratic Congressman from the Ninth District - the longest-serving Congressman in that district since the Civil War - was surprisingly defeated by Republican Morgan Griffith. The upset came as a shock to many, since an early October poll showed Boucher ahead by double digits... Boucher is the type of moderate Democrat that Progressives loathe. He is indeed a great friend of coal and went out of his way to preserve coals jobs in his district. Boucher did vote for cap and trade, but only because he feared the alternative was to leave regulation to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which he said would be devastating for companies that rely on coal and their employees.... "Boucher Betrayed Coal" ads that played in Virginia and that were so effective they eventually cost Boucher his seat, were paid for by the Americans for Prosperity, a special-interest group founded with the support of David H. Koch
Did Koch Group Team Up With Religious Right to Suppress Wisconsin Vote?
Remember when the Tea Party movement was supposed to be just all about the size of government, and not about those pesky "social" issues?
Koch-Funded Americans For Prosperity Send Dems Wrong Voter Information in Wisconsin Recall Elections
Koch-Backed Group Buys $150K in TV Time for Wisconsin Ad Blitz
Americans for Prosperity, the conservative political advocacy group founded by David Koch and funded by a roster of right-wing think tanks, has purchased $150,000 in TV air time in Green Bay, Madison, and Milwaukee, three of Wisconsin's biggest media markets. The ad buy comes in the run-up to Wisconsin's big recall elections, which are just over a week away. If spent on pro-GOP recall ads, the buy brings AFP's overall political spending on the recall races to more than $500,000.
Koch-Funded Tea Party Heavyweight Tim Phillips Spoke at Norweigan Killer's Political Party Event
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Koch-Brothers-Trolling-For-in-General_News-110720-891.html
Koch Brothers Trolling For Interns to Work at Right Wing Orgs
I had an email that included mention of the koch brothers, and this google link shows up: Koch Internship Program - 'cgkfoundation.org/internship - Advance free-market principles. Intern this fall in DC.' they're helping the right wing policy promotion echo chamber by finding and hiring interns. Another angle on how the right is so successful
http://www.grist.org/wind-power/2011-07-14-koch-brothers-declare-war-on-offshore-wind
Koch brothers declare war on offshore wind
http://www.truth-out.org/koch-brothers-tentacles-your-state/1310997611
Koch Brothers' ALEC Tentacles Creep Into Your State
http://www.truth-out.org/news-thom-hartmann/1312471843
On the News With Thom Hartmann: Minnesota GOP Legislation Written by ALEC, Funded by Koch Brothers and Wal-Mart, and More
http://www.thenation.com/article/161973/alec-exposed-koch-connection?rel=emailNation
ALEC Exposed: The Koch Connection
Hundreds of ALEC’s model bills and resolutions bear traces of Koch DNA: raw ideas that were once at the fringes but that have been carved into “mainstream” policy through the wealth and will of Charles and David Koch. Of all the Kochs’ investments in right-wing organizations, ALEC provides some of the best returns: it gives the Kochs a way to make their brand of free-market fundamentalism legally binding. No one knows how much the Kochs have given ALEC in total, but the amount likely exceeds $1 million—not including a half-million loaned to ALEC when the group was floundering. ALEC gave the Kochs its Adam Smith Free Enterprise Award, and Koch Industries has been one of the select members of ALEC’s corporate board for almost twenty years. The company’s top lobbyist was once ALEC’s chairman. As a result, the Kochs have shaped legislation touching every state in the country. Like ideological venture capitalists, the Kochs have used ALEC as a way to invest in radical ideas and fertilize them with tons of cash.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/ALEC-s-Summer-Camp-For-Kid-by-Jillian-Barclay-110730-680.html
ALEC's Summer Camp For Kids! Fun And Politics, The Koch Way!
Want your kid to go to summer camp this year? How about one sponsored by ALEC, the shadow organization that sponsors and writes right-wing legislation to be shared by the states? ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is offering "Kid's Congress' in New Orleans this year. What better way to indoctrinate youth than to mix the fun of New Orleans with Koch-funded politics? Learn about ALEC, and then tell me you would let your child attend!
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Article: The Big Choice
Article: The Big Choice - A $20 trillion "externality" appears to present civilization with its BIG CHOICE: economic destruction or ecological destruction, both with chilling global security implications. Here's why, along with a practical and more hopeful alternative to "Sophie's Choice."
Carbon Tracker has released an illuminating report, "Unburnable Carbon - Are the world's financial markets carrying a carbon bubble?"[i]
The report nicely describes the potential "stranded asset risk" to resource company investors, and calls for a regulatory response on disclosure. What the report does not make explicit is the BIG CHOICE: Barring a miracle technology advance in the next decade (keep working brilliant scientists and entrepreneurs), if we want to avoid civilization-transforming and global security threatening climate change, we must absorb a global security threatening $20 trillion write off (that's 40 percent of global GDP) into our already stressed global economy. Even if gradually spread over a decade or more, with partial offsetting value creation in sustainable energy industries, this is an unprecedented challenge.
First the essential facts as per the report:
0. The Potsdam Institute calculates that in order to reduce the risk of exceeding 2 degrees Celsius warming to a 20 percent chance (not all that comforting), the global carbon budget for 2000 - 2050 cannot exceed 886 GtC02. Minus emissions in the first decade of the century, this leaves a budget of 565 GtC02 over the next 40 years.
0. Total "proved" fossil fuel reserves listed on public company balance sheets and State reported reserves is estimated at 2795 GtC02, nearly 5 times the remaining budget, implying 80 percent of these reserves should be left in the ground.
0. Seventy four percent of these reserves are State owned (Russia, China, Saudi, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, etc.) or owned by private companies, 26 percent are owned by the 200 largest public energy companies.
According to James Leaton at Carbon Tracker, the market value of the top 100 public oil and gas companies and the top 100 public coal companies listed in the report exceeds $7 trillion, approximately 12% of the global public equity market. Making a simple assumption[ii] that State-owned companies and reserves have an equivalent market value per unit of carbon would suggest the global market value of proved fossil fuel reserves equals $27 trillion.
A real cap on carbon emissions designed to limit warming to two degrees implies sovereign states and public corporations will need to strand 80 percent of their $27 trillion of proved reserves. Rounding down, this implies a potential $20 trillion write off[iii] .
The risk of systemic collapse of an already fragile, interconnected global economy is high if we incur a write off of this magnitude. Fossil fuel intensive economies and investors would be severely damaged, no doubt triggering a deep and prolonged recession while the losses were absorbed. Some, like Saudi Arabia where energy represents 75% of government revenues, and Venezuela (50% of government revenues) would face economic devastation leading to widespread social unrest.
Not surprisingly, the markets are ignoring this risk today as the Carbon Tracker report makes clear. Why would they do otherwise when, as Bill McKibben pointed out, the US House of Representatives recently defeated a resolution stating simply that "climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare"? Why listen to the broad scientific consensus when we can invent a more accommodating (and remarkably partisan) physics? No surprise that this week, American Electric Power announced that it is shelving plans for its $668-million, full-scale carbon capture plant at Mountaineer in West Virginia, the nation's most prominent effort to capture carbon dioxide from a coal-burning power plant in the United States, "until economic and policy conditions create a viable path forward."
Rising fossil fuel stock prices coupled with no game-changing promise of carbon sequestration technologies (the present reality) implies the markets assume we blow past the 2 degree warming limit into catastrophic climate change.
Is there an alternative to the BIG CHOICE between ecological destruction and economic destruction? I think the answer is "yes," but not with the simple happy talk of "CSR" and "growing the green economy." A viable plan will entail real costs, unprecedented commitment, and shared sacrifice.
Costs: The seminal "Stern Review"[iv] on the economics of climate change suggests that for a range of manageable costs centered around a 1% reduction of GDP growth, greenhouse gasses can be stabilized at 500 to 550 ppm by 2050. While this modeling exercise is highly complex, it contains at least two fundamental flaws. First, it presumes 500 ppm is consistent with the 2 degree goal, when the scientific consensus, propelled by increasingly disturbing new evidence of climate change, is calling for a limit of only 350 ppm, what Bill McKibben calls "the most important number in the world."[v] And second, it appears to ignore the $20 trillion stranded asset write down and associated economic spillovers by assuming carbon sequestration capabilities will allow us to continue burning fossil fuels largely unabated.
I can only speculate on what portion of the $20 trillion stranded cost potential will need to be incurred. It will depend on the success of carbon sequestration technologies (unknowable), and their cost (also unknowable). But it will not be cheap. Prudence suggests we should plan to incur at least half of these costs, still a profound multi-decade economic challenge. We must also determine what combination of caps, taxes, and regulation will best manage the difficult carbon-limiting prioritization decisions among coal, various qualities of oil, and gas, and among the resource bases of sovereign states (with armies) and multinational corporations that we decide to burn, all having profound financial, political, social, and security implications.
Unprecedented commitment: At the core, our challenge and our greatest chance to mitigate the most horrendous consequences of the BIG CHOICE boils down to a capital allocation decision. We must of course invest aggressively in the "green economy" of clean technologies including carbon sequestration, energy efficiency, and alternative energy. Indeed this process has begun as documented by Ethical Market's Green Transition Scoreboard[vi] , which now documents over $2 trillion of private sector investments in, and commitments to, the "Green Transition." We must accelerate low technology paths such as avoided deforestation and grassland restoration[vii] to sequester carbon. But we must also remove subsidies and divest from the destructive fossil-fuel- based energy, transportation, and industrial agriculture systems, and from the destabilizing and counterproductive speculation of the Wall Street financial system. Only if we marshal unprecedented private and public resources to the great energy system transition can we hope to manage the BIG CHOICE.
Shared sacrifice: It's time for true leadership around shared sacrifice. This must start with the richest half billion people, less than 10% of the human race, whose consumption and investment decisions will determine the fate of civilization. It's time we awaken to the burden we bear. Seeking justice, our children will ask -- What did you do, once you knew?
[i] http://www.carbontracker.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2011/07/Unburn...
[ii] This assumption is somewhat flawed because the market capitalization of a resource company should and usually does exceed the present value of its "proved reserves" because as a going concern, it is expected to create incremental value beyond its current reserves. However, my assumption remains conservative because it also ignores all "unproved" reserves whose values are only partially reflected in company valuations, and ignores reserves held by all private companies and public companies not in the top 100 lists. World recoverable reserves certainly exceed by a wide margin, some argue by multiples, the current quantity of "proved reserves" on the books, meaning the total potential for stranded reserves is far greater than indicated here.
[iii] Yes this analysis ignores the potential of carbon sequestration technologies, but they are probably at least a decade away and uncertain. It also probably overstates the sovereign value of reserves, given the widely held belief that some governments overstate their reserves for political reasons. But it also ignores the value of many refining assets, power plants, shipping, rail, and pipeline infrastructure that will be devalued if we decide to leave fossil fuels in the ground in order to limit carbon pollution. It ignores the value of all private and smaller energy companies. It ignores the value to dependent governments of all associated production and consumption tax receipts associated with fossil fuels which have tremendous economic value. And, it only achieves an 80 percent confidence that we don't exceed the 2 degrees warming target. Overall, we believe the $20 trillion estimate of aggregate economic exposure is reasonable.
[iv] http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDONESIA/Resources/226271-1170911...
[v] http://www.350.org/about/science
[vi] http://www.ethicalmarkets.com/reports/2011GTSFebruaryReport.pdf
[vii] see www.savoryinstitute.com
Carbon Tracker has released an illuminating report, "Unburnable Carbon - Are the world's financial markets carrying a carbon bubble?"[i]
The report nicely describes the potential "stranded asset risk" to resource company investors, and calls for a regulatory response on disclosure. What the report does not make explicit is the BIG CHOICE: Barring a miracle technology advance in the next decade (keep working brilliant scientists and entrepreneurs), if we want to avoid civilization-transforming and global security threatening climate change, we must absorb a global security threatening $20 trillion write off (that's 40 percent of global GDP) into our already stressed global economy. Even if gradually spread over a decade or more, with partial offsetting value creation in sustainable energy industries, this is an unprecedented challenge.
First the essential facts as per the report:
0. The Potsdam Institute calculates that in order to reduce the risk of exceeding 2 degrees Celsius warming to a 20 percent chance (not all that comforting), the global carbon budget for 2000 - 2050 cannot exceed 886 GtC02. Minus emissions in the first decade of the century, this leaves a budget of 565 GtC02 over the next 40 years.
0. Total "proved" fossil fuel reserves listed on public company balance sheets and State reported reserves is estimated at 2795 GtC02, nearly 5 times the remaining budget, implying 80 percent of these reserves should be left in the ground.
0. Seventy four percent of these reserves are State owned (Russia, China, Saudi, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, etc.) or owned by private companies, 26 percent are owned by the 200 largest public energy companies.
According to James Leaton at Carbon Tracker, the market value of the top 100 public oil and gas companies and the top 100 public coal companies listed in the report exceeds $7 trillion, approximately 12% of the global public equity market. Making a simple assumption[ii] that State-owned companies and reserves have an equivalent market value per unit of carbon would suggest the global market value of proved fossil fuel reserves equals $27 trillion.
A real cap on carbon emissions designed to limit warming to two degrees implies sovereign states and public corporations will need to strand 80 percent of their $27 trillion of proved reserves. Rounding down, this implies a potential $20 trillion write off[iii] .
The risk of systemic collapse of an already fragile, interconnected global economy is high if we incur a write off of this magnitude. Fossil fuel intensive economies and investors would be severely damaged, no doubt triggering a deep and prolonged recession while the losses were absorbed. Some, like Saudi Arabia where energy represents 75% of government revenues, and Venezuela (50% of government revenues) would face economic devastation leading to widespread social unrest.
Not surprisingly, the markets are ignoring this risk today as the Carbon Tracker report makes clear. Why would they do otherwise when, as Bill McKibben pointed out, the US House of Representatives recently defeated a resolution stating simply that "climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare"? Why listen to the broad scientific consensus when we can invent a more accommodating (and remarkably partisan) physics? No surprise that this week, American Electric Power announced that it is shelving plans for its $668-million, full-scale carbon capture plant at Mountaineer in West Virginia, the nation's most prominent effort to capture carbon dioxide from a coal-burning power plant in the United States, "until economic and policy conditions create a viable path forward."
Rising fossil fuel stock prices coupled with no game-changing promise of carbon sequestration technologies (the present reality) implies the markets assume we blow past the 2 degree warming limit into catastrophic climate change.
Is there an alternative to the BIG CHOICE between ecological destruction and economic destruction? I think the answer is "yes," but not with the simple happy talk of "CSR" and "growing the green economy." A viable plan will entail real costs, unprecedented commitment, and shared sacrifice.
Costs: The seminal "Stern Review"[iv] on the economics of climate change suggests that for a range of manageable costs centered around a 1% reduction of GDP growth, greenhouse gasses can be stabilized at 500 to 550 ppm by 2050. While this modeling exercise is highly complex, it contains at least two fundamental flaws. First, it presumes 500 ppm is consistent with the 2 degree goal, when the scientific consensus, propelled by increasingly disturbing new evidence of climate change, is calling for a limit of only 350 ppm, what Bill McKibben calls "the most important number in the world."[v] And second, it appears to ignore the $20 trillion stranded asset write down and associated economic spillovers by assuming carbon sequestration capabilities will allow us to continue burning fossil fuels largely unabated.
I can only speculate on what portion of the $20 trillion stranded cost potential will need to be incurred. It will depend on the success of carbon sequestration technologies (unknowable), and their cost (also unknowable). But it will not be cheap. Prudence suggests we should plan to incur at least half of these costs, still a profound multi-decade economic challenge. We must also determine what combination of caps, taxes, and regulation will best manage the difficult carbon-limiting prioritization decisions among coal, various qualities of oil, and gas, and among the resource bases of sovereign states (with armies) and multinational corporations that we decide to burn, all having profound financial, political, social, and security implications.
Unprecedented commitment: At the core, our challenge and our greatest chance to mitigate the most horrendous consequences of the BIG CHOICE boils down to a capital allocation decision. We must of course invest aggressively in the "green economy" of clean technologies including carbon sequestration, energy efficiency, and alternative energy. Indeed this process has begun as documented by Ethical Market's Green Transition Scoreboard[vi] , which now documents over $2 trillion of private sector investments in, and commitments to, the "Green Transition." We must accelerate low technology paths such as avoided deforestation and grassland restoration[vii] to sequester carbon. But we must also remove subsidies and divest from the destructive fossil-fuel- based energy, transportation, and industrial agriculture systems, and from the destabilizing and counterproductive speculation of the Wall Street financial system. Only if we marshal unprecedented private and public resources to the great energy system transition can we hope to manage the BIG CHOICE.
Shared sacrifice: It's time for true leadership around shared sacrifice. This must start with the richest half billion people, less than 10% of the human race, whose consumption and investment decisions will determine the fate of civilization. It's time we awaken to the burden we bear. Seeking justice, our children will ask -- What did you do, once you knew?
[i] http://www.carbontracker.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2011/07/Unburn...
[ii] This assumption is somewhat flawed because the market capitalization of a resource company should and usually does exceed the present value of its "proved reserves" because as a going concern, it is expected to create incremental value beyond its current reserves. However, my assumption remains conservative because it also ignores all "unproved" reserves whose values are only partially reflected in company valuations, and ignores reserves held by all private companies and public companies not in the top 100 lists. World recoverable reserves certainly exceed by a wide margin, some argue by multiples, the current quantity of "proved reserves" on the books, meaning the total potential for stranded reserves is far greater than indicated here.
[iii] Yes this analysis ignores the potential of carbon sequestration technologies, but they are probably at least a decade away and uncertain. It also probably overstates the sovereign value of reserves, given the widely held belief that some governments overstate their reserves for political reasons. But it also ignores the value of many refining assets, power plants, shipping, rail, and pipeline infrastructure that will be devalued if we decide to leave fossil fuels in the ground in order to limit carbon pollution. It ignores the value of all private and smaller energy companies. It ignores the value to dependent governments of all associated production and consumption tax receipts associated with fossil fuels which have tremendous economic value. And, it only achieves an 80 percent confidence that we don't exceed the 2 degrees warming target. Overall, we believe the $20 trillion estimate of aggregate economic exposure is reasonable.
[iv] http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDONESIA/Resources/226271-1170911...
[v] http://www.350.org/about/science
[vi] http://www.ethicalmarkets.com/reports/2011GTSFebruaryReport.pdf
[vii] see www.savoryinstitute.com
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