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Delana Martin by losinghand
As if we haven’t heard enough from the Dirty Koch Brothers, now comes their latest scheme: This week, Americans for Prosperity — which is founded and funded by dirty energy giant Koch Industries — is launching its “Running on Empty Tour” in an attempt to blame high gas prices on the environmental safety regulations and the Obama Administration. You can be pretty sure they’re not going to talking about how gas prices are affected by Big Oil companies, foreign governments or oil industry speculators like, say, Koch Industries. They’re planning to preach their lies in places like Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri.
These wealthy fat cats are working hard to advance their misguided, dirty agenda which is full of falsehoods and great for their corporate bottom line — but it isn’t good for your family or your community. Here are a few examples of their lies:
- The fossil fuel industry has told you that carbon dioxide is good for you when, in fact, increased carbon pollution is expected to create more smog, which can trigger chest pain, coughing, throat irritation, and congestion (and can worsen bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma). Exposure to ground-level ozone smog can also reduce lung function and inflame the linings of the lungs; repeated exposure may permanently scar lung tissue.
- These wanna-be corporate puppet-masters have paid questionable scientists to question the abundant evidence that climate change is happening when 97% of climate researchers believe in man-made climate change.
- They have scared families into thinking that addressing pollution will greatly harm the household budget. In fact, multiple studies show that the various bills considered by Congress in the past cost relative pennies – and may actually save many families money, depending on where you live.
- They have convinced an entire political party to forget science in the name of radical politics as we see more severe droughts, flooding and other weather events – all predicted as a result of global warming. The entire Republican Presidential field has turned a blind eye in fear of angering the corporate sugar daddies.
The lies just keep piling up. They are spread like urban legend on talk-radio and even in the Capitol.
The solutions they propose in this latest roadshow, like more drilling, will not reduce your gas prices. In fact, as much as it disturbs me as an environmentalist, the truth is that U.S. Oil production is higher under the Obama administration than it has been in years, according to the Energy Information Administration. Claims that drilling permits are being held up by environmental rules and the Obama Administration are just bogus. The agency that issues offshore drilling permits, in fact has issued shallow water drilling permits at a rate of six per month since October 2010.
The five largest privately held oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell — earned profits totaling $901 billion between 2001 and 2010, the non-profit Center for American Progress calculated using companies’ annual reports. And as prices rise, those profits will grow. Big Oil takes care of itself.
Their lies are making us less healthy, our economy less sustainable, our security more questionable and our environment dirtier. We should do everything we can to stop them.
3 Comments
I’ve got a great idea for those who claim to love the smell of exhaust fumes: Put them in a closed garage with several gas combustion engines running and see how how long they continue to claim that they love the smell.
As for those who perpetuate the myth of “clean coal”, they should be forced to live within a 3 mile radius of a coal ash dump. The refuse left over after the plant burns the coal is unbelievable and like nuclear waste, it grows daily. Coal ash contains mercury, lead, and arsenic. Nearly 800 Olympic-size swimming pools of that toxic mix flowed into the waterways of Tennessee in 2008 when an earthen wall holding in the sludge from the TVA Harriman Coal fired plant gave way.
Coal ash is more toxic and radioative than nuclear waste. According to recent studies: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
“…the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, fly ash–a by-product from burning coal for power — contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste.”
According to some surveys, people living near coal ash dumps have 900 times the national cancer rates.
Those “dirty Koch brothers” were rather large contributors to the Democrats at one time, including Chief Senate Boob, Harry Reid.
But when the Koch brothers did that, they weren’t dirty. They were good to do something like that.
Liberal baloney is always exposed when one of their friends has the gall to give to someone liberals just don’t like.
And, by the way, if you don’t like energy, you can shut your power off and sit in the dark. Where do you think energy comes from? We can’t rub Nancy Pelosi’s head on a carpet enough to get a charge, although I do think that her battery has been short of juice for a long, long time.