Murder Built into the Margin

 

For years, Exxon sowed doubt about climate change. But its scientists were projecting warming with remarkable accuracy. https://t.co/EXegkcp1kp

— NYT Science (@NYTScience) January 14, 2023

I've been aware that Exxon knew about climate change and covered it up for some time (they weren't alone in this--they just fought admitting it harder) but every time I think about the missed opportunity, something tightens in my stomach: 

They could have invested in renewable energy early on and cornered valuable tech markets, putting themselves in a position to not just continue profiting from fossil fuels while the environment suffered, but to capitalize on saving it. Instead, they went on as if they weren't contributing to disasters, extinctions, death. And they lied about it.

It was as if they could not consider the possibility of making money without throwing anyone under the bus. As if the idea of using the foresight they were granted to do the right thing was unthinkable. Knowing, and doing nothing differently, feels like more than depraved indifference. It feels like the allowance of death and devastation were built into the business model. 

I try to be cynical and I'm not getting any younger, but if it doesn't still knock the wind out of me a bit when I consider it.

They absolutely knew climate change was happening, and threw their money into denial, not into trying to ameliorate it. Like knowing one might be selling poisonous candy to babies and just changing one's marketing to make the candy more desireable--shouldn't there be a penalty? 

Climate Monday: A Humble Media Suggestion

Trump White House issues climate change report undermining its own policy https://t.co/SZb2vFpdJg

— Vox (@voxdotcom) November 26, 2018

I don't think that the narrative that the Trump Administration is necessarily "hiding" their National Climate Assessment report is correct because I don't think news cycles really have a "Friday news dump" lacuna anymore, but I definitely agree that the actions of the administration serve to undermine it (or as they probably see it, the damned scientists are trying to undermine them). But this isn't something that's just peculiar to President Trump's anti-intellectual, conspiracy-minded, staring up at eclipses sort of nonsense. This is a problem we specifically have with US conservatives, and sadly, with how our media screws up reporting fact-based issues "for balance".

Take the Sunday shows. It's not hard for the chatty journalism format of the designated serious newsy shows to work in a "Friday news dump" item and give it a going over. Meet the Press, the ancient and venerable, bothered to mention it.

And they fucked it up. They let Senator Mike Lee get away with being stupid regarding the financial aspects of the substance of the report. The report specifically addressed the fact-based reality that real economic damage would be the fall-out of climate change, but libertarian Lee was able to burble that he saw no policy proposals that would not be economically damaging.

Let me rephrase that: is it that he sees no proposals that immediately address climate change that also permit entrepreneurs to capitalize on the deal? First off, that's short-sighted, but second, the turning a buck is their problem, not as a law-maker, his. His job would be legislation aimed at mitigating the effects for the safety and welfare of his constituents, which might not always be direct regulations (if he's so ideologically opposed), but could mean tax penalties or credits as a carrot and stick incentivization scheme to encourage better environmental practices. He doesn't seem to understand the question. He is, unquestionably, not a scientist--but you'd think he might understand the policy end a bit more, no?

Questions regarding the report were also put to regular MTP panel-member Danielle Pletka, of the AEI think tank. Her answers were also god-awful stupid.  And of course, she is not a scientist, and the AEI think tank she hails from gets a not-inconsiderable subsidy from Exxon, and maybe for all I know, other fossil fuel companies. This merits a disclaimer, I would think. But that MTP asked Pletka, and not, say, Tom Steyer, who was also on the program and actually has a committed and informed point of view on climate change, but was only asked about the 2020 horse race (really?) is, well.

Stupid.

But this isn't the worst stupidest thing. CNN actually pays my former senator, Rick Santorum of PA, for opinions about things when there is no evidence that he is actually, in any respect, a person with worthwhile and well-considered opinions. He actually fatuously repeated the dumb thing that Trump said about forest-raking, even though, once again, California does not manage all the forests, but the Federal government is in charge of most of it, and no, no one ever rakes forests because that is fucking stupid. Droughts are about less rain, and raking would actually pull more moisture out of the forest floor, and, you know, just read a book or something if you don't know why that is stupid. In the history of ever, there has never been a time when forest fires were managed by troops of people sent out into tens of thousands of acreage of trees, raking up shit.

But he also said a funny thing regarding climate change and the scientists who study it, to wit: they propound that global warming is real because of the sweet cash involved:

"I think the point that Donald Trump made is true, which is, uh… Look, if there was no climate change we’d have a lot of scientists looking for work," Santorum said. "The reality is that a lot of these scientists are driven by the money they receive, and of course they don’t receive money from corporations and Exxon and the like. Why? Because they’re not allowed to because it’s tainted, but they can receive (money) from people who support their agenda and that, I believe, is what’s really going on here."

Is he saying the people who support the thing where the established companies with all the money are going to have to make less money are somehow offering more compensation than the companies with all the money?* Because that is either really stupid or exactly what somebody who has been getting fossil fuel money and is also really stupid would say. And if Exxon and the coal companies and the natural gas guys and them could pay for Rick Santorum to say stupid stuff on tv (and also get paid by CNN, and provide no disclaimer about that whatsoever), than frankly, whatever stopped them from paying an actually very intelligent person or a hundred to put a scientifically shut-up-shutting up empirical stake in the heart of climate change science for once and for all?

Except, you know, the empirical facts?

So, my humble suggestion is this: If you have a political operative who might be swayed because of their income streams into siding with a corporate enterprise or entire industry opine on a subject pertaining to that industry, make it abundantly clear or don't have their asses on at all. And it you want balance, instead of "not a scientist" viewpoints dueling in a nebulous policy arena, maybe try to actually be informative and have a scientist weigh in! Also, maybe dedicate more of your staff to knowing this shit cold so they can respond to actually brain-damaged statements about raking forests and the glamorous pay of research scientists in real time.

I think it could be very helpful and serve the public a lot more than this farcical coverage.

*No. Tom Steyer is not paying all the other guys. It's, like 97% of scientists. He and Al Gore are not behind the whole global warming thing. The greenhouse effect was first described in 1824.

Pardon Me for This TrumpWorld Grab-Bag

There's something astounding about the speed with which Trump stories have recently progressed. At last glance, Trump was insinuating that Robert Mueller would have crossed a red line if he investigated the Trump Family/Company finances. But that is exactly what Mueller will do. Because of course he would. Because for one thing, I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense that Trump has been really protective of his tax returns the way he has and we still pretend there's nothing there, and also, that bankruptcy history. Those loans.  The way Eric Trump boasted about all that Russian cash and then suddenly Trump and them are pretending they have no Russian connections?

Following the money is the obvious thing to do in the first place--but this is exactly where Trump seems to feel most sensitive.  The Trump gambit of "investigating the investigators" is a little like his war on journalism--he wants to undermine voices that call him out, and call them "illegitimate" before they catch him in lies. It is, to be a little repetitive--obvious. To go to the Bard, he doth protest too much, which is most telling.

So I look at his recent reported inquiries into his presidential pardon power with a certain eye--of course he is looking into who he can pardon. This isn't what you do if you have a "nothingburger" that investigators are working on. It seems a bit like there's a "somethingburger" and he wants a little bicarbonate of "So don't lean on my family". Or that's what it looks like to me. It could be people closest to him are especially at risk, and this may very well be because he trusts them most--even to do things that aren't strictly ethical.

Right now, his defense seems to be that the appearance of collusion was totally correct because why wouldn't his campaign try to get whatever oppo they could? But the inkling that they knew of and were actively seeking out feloniously received information,  or were whoring off after poisoned fruit to win an election, is in itself troublesome and unethical. Especially if it held them open to blackmail. If it compromised the integrity of the attempts the Trump Administration makes at governing. It calls absolutely stupid ideas like the US/Russian collaborative effort at cybersecurity into question because of course a President who only won through Russian interference would think this is a great thing. But we might not even really know the extent of, for example, Trump Jr's Russian contacts, right now. Too many people, like Flynn, Manafort, Kushner, Sessions, etc., deliberately seem to have withheld information about their Russian contacts--that isn't normal, acceptable, or less than seriously questionable.

Sometimes, news just seems vaguely "not good" in the Trump orbit--the resignation of a legal spokesperson.  Marc Kasowitz is out on the Trump legal team.  The finding against Exxon for violating Russian sanctions while current SOS Rex Tillerson was CEO.

Other times, we get news that expands on our understanding of what went so askew with the 2016 election--take the investigation into the degree to which Russia influenced the left.  Jill Stein is a person who should be looked into. Not in Trump's orbit (but maybe Flynn's?) but someone who rode a propaganda train. (I have a hard place in my heart for folks who voted Stein or wrote in Sanders as if Trump and what he could represent held no threat to them. They wanted to believe Clinton was the devil. What the hell were they even looking at?)

But it seems like this was a lot of news breaking just now. And I don't think a lot of breaking news is in Trump's favor, at all.

Climate Sunday: Don Blankenship Edition

Greetings and Happy Sunday to you all, and thanks for tuning in to my semi-regular environmental musings. This week's round-up is brought to us by Don Blankenship, who was recently told by a judge to shut his flapping yap up about how politically persecuted he was. It might very well be true that under the Obama Administration, investigators spent more time inspecting his mines and pointing out the very tragically wrong things that led to the deaths of miners at his mines. But this might have been for a lot of reasons, such as, the pattern emerging that Blankenship was awful, the Obama Administration being less likely to ignore these kinds of abuses, and, I don't know--the deaths of 29 miners in a preventable accident due to Blankenship's pathological management? (Not a big fan of Blankenship, this blogger right here.)

But this individual's beef with the government over what he considers to have been job-killing regulations versus what appear to have been employee-killing violations, sets the tone for this week's rumination on--what about the fossil fuel industries, anyway? For example, it looks like Exxon, who apparently knew enough about global warming science in the 1970s and 1980s to have considerable private information on it, basically "gamed" the Bush Administration to sow doubt and confusion. (Although don't let the big bad oil company take the total blame for that--the Bush Administration was very willing to be had. I mean, leave it to these pricks to have a "Safe Water Drinking Act" that lets frackers screw up drinking water however they want.)

But this conflict in knowing full well climate change was real, and also working to sow doubt, is pretty unnerving. They could only act like that if profits entirely outweighed any sense that they should be responsible corporate and global citizens, and exposes a real weakness of the capitalist system.