Climate change: Ask the Koch brothers and the soul of the Republican Party

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Mitchell’s laws:
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
●Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap.
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Well, this is a surprise. All this time I had thought the Koch brothers, and indeed the entire energy industry, denied human-caused climate change, because to admit it would be to admit the burning of their fossil fuels was killing the earth.

Was I wrong to conclude that these “gentlemen” would sacrifice our entire earth, and the future of our children, just to pad their own excessive fortunes?

Here is what happened in 2012:

Everyone’s Talking About The Koch Brothers-Funded Study That Proves Climate Change Is Real
ROB WILE, JUL. 30, 2012

Over the weekend, UC-Berkeley professor Richard Muller outed himself as a “converted” climate “skeptic” in the New York Times after his Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project concluded the earth’s surface temperature had increased 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 250 years and one and a half degrees in the past 50 years, likely entirely because of human industrial activity.

What makes this newsworthy, according to The Guardian, is that BEST had received $150,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, whose namesake also runs the climate skeptic research program The Heartland Institute.

(Muller wrot,) “How definite is the attribution to humans? The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we’ve tried.

“Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect — extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don’t prove causality and they shouldn’t end skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does.

Adding methane, a second greenhouse gas, to our analysis doesn’t change the results.”

Well, it looks like I owe the Kochs an apology. Maybe they aren’t the miserable, selfish, right-wing evil-doers I thought they were.

Wait! Here’s more recent information:

Work of prominent climate change denier was funded by energy industry
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, Saturday 21 February 2015

Over the last 14 years Willie Soon, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, received a total of $1.25m from Exxon Mobil, Southern Company, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and a foundation run by the ultra-conservative Koch brothers, the documents obtained by Greenpeace through freedom of information filings show.

Unlike the vast majority of scientists, Soon does not accept that rising greenhouse gas emissions since the industrial age are causing climate changes. He contends climate change is driven by the sun.

In the relatively small universe of climate denial Soon, with his Harvard-Smithsonian credentials, was a sought after commodity. He was cited admiringly by Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who famously called global warming a hoax.

He was called to testify when Republicans in the Kansas state legislature tried to block measures promoting wind and solar power. The Heartland Institute, a hub of climate denial, gave Soon a courage award.

As is common among Harvard-Smithsonian scientists, Soon is not on a salary. He receives his compensation from outside grant money, said Christine Pulliam, a spokeswoman for the Center for Astrophysics.

Soon is not an employee of Harvard.

So let’s get this straight. Soon does not receive a salary. All his income comes from grants by the energy industry, an industry that denies human-caused climate change.

Further, in publishing his papers, Soon “neglected” to disclose he was being funded by the right-wing energy companies.

Well, I guess that settles it. Soon is an independent researcher whose work should be respected for his courage and honesty.

At least one Republican, James Inhofe even wrote a book about it, “The Greatest Hoax.” Most other Republicans agree (i.e. are bribed to agree via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment later).

Obama set to utter term ‘climate change’ in Florida on Earth Day trip
Martin Pengelly in New York, Saturday 18 April 2015

Announcing an Earth Day trip to Florida on Saturday, President Barack Obama used his weekly address to say “climate change can no longer be denied – or ignored”.

Attitudes to climate change among Republicans and in Florida recently made national news, after it was reported that the state’s Department of Environmental Protection had issued an unwritten policy to forbid state workers from using the term.

“We were instructed by our regional administrator that we were no longer allowed to use the terms ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’ or even ‘sea-level rise’,” a former DEP employee was quoted as saying in a report by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting. “Sea-level rise was to be referred to as ‘nuisance flooding’.”

Florida’s junior senator, Marco Rubio is among many leading Republican politicians who have said they do not believe climate change is caused by humans.

One would have hoped that climate change would be a scientific issue, not a political issue. Sadly, that is not the case.

Meet the Republicans in Congress who don’t believe climate change is real

Earlier this year, Politifact went looking for congressional Republicans who had not expressed scepticism about climate change and came up with a list of eight (out of 278).

Below is a roundup of some of the key climate change sceptics in the incoming 114th Congress. The list begins with committee heads, and includes all the members of the new Republican leadership teams in both the House and Senate. At the bottom are prospective 2016 presidential candidates currently on Capitol Hill.

That’s not to dismiss the rank-and-file, excited by the Republican party’s incoming hold on the committees that shape US environmental policy; their votes would be needed to hobble the Environmental Protection Agency or take other measures to stifle President Obama’s initiatives to reduce carbon emissions:

Senator Jim Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, Incoming chairman of the Senate committee on the environment and public works
–Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, Likely incoming chairwoman of the Senate committee on energy and natural resources
–Congressman Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan, To continue to chair the House energy and commerce committee
–Congressman Rob Bishop, Republican of Utah, Likely to become chairman of the House committee on natural resources
–Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, Incoming Senate majority leader
–Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, Recently re-elected as Senate Republican whip
–Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, Recently re-elected as Senate Republican conference chairman
–Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, Recently re-elected as chairman of GOP policy committee
–Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, Recently re-elected as vice-chairman of the Senate Republican conference
–Congressman John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, Speaker of the House
–Congressman Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, House majority leader
–Congressman Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, Incoming majority whip
–Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Republican of Washington, Recently re-elected conference chairwoman
–Congressman Greg Walden, Republican of Oregon, GOP campaign chairman
–Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, Prospective 2016 presidential candidate
–Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, Prospective 2016 presidential candidate
–Congressman Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, Former GOP vice-presidential nominee and prospective 2016 presidential candidate
–Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, Prospective 2016 presidential candidate

A personal prediction: Within a few years, as the facts continue to pile in, and climate change deniers look ever more ridiculous, each of these Republicans will claim he/she always had known humans were causing global warming, and in fact it was “obvious” to them.

For the above-mentioned politician and billionaire climate change deniers, who happily sacrifice the earth and our children’s futures, just to acquire more money, I have but one question: Matthew 16: “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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The Ten Steps to Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Federally funded, free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually. (Refer to this.)
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

Initiating The Ten Steps sequentially will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
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10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

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