Pirate's Cove

But, most of them are secret, so we learn from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who has been leading the charge in assaulting people for their beliefs that ‘climate change’ is not a danger and that “carbon pollution” is not the primary cause of the current warm period

Republicans want to fight climate change, but fossil-fuel bullies won’t let them

Talking to my Senate Republican colleagues about climate change is like talking to prisoners about escaping. The conversations are often private, even furtive. One told me, “Let’s keep talking, but you can’t let my staff know.”

The dirty secret is that climate change is not really a partisan issue in Congress. Its history has not been partisan, with Republican senators such as John McCain, Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, Lindsey O. Graham and Jeff Flake (as a House member) having introduced climate bills in the past. Climate change became partisan in 2010, shortly after the five Republican-appointed justices of the Supreme Court upended a century of law and precedent to issue the Citizens United decision, which rejected limits on corporate spending on political campaigns. The timing is not a coincidence.

I like the way he works Citizens United in to the mix. Of course, the reality is that opposition to the Hotcoldwetdry push had been growing since the late 1990’s, but really started gaining steam around 2004, with so many people being able to truly get information out to the masses via blogs and New Media and such. No longer were people dependent on simply the majority leftist media. No longer were people reliant on one sided sources, who had skin in the game in the form of government grants and their own political beliefs. People could now read varying views and sciences. They could see the links between the far left and ‘climate science’ from the leading organizations (let’s acknowledge that not all climate scientists are Warmists. Most try and leave the politics out of it, hence, you rarely hear their names), which meant they could see that this whole push was about enacting Progressive (nice fascist) policies of greater taxation and greater government control over everything, including our lives. They could see that this meant higher costs of living and lower standards for our lives.

Big-business interests, particularly the fossil-fuel industry, led the charge. That industry’s annual U.S. subsidy is $700 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund. With stakes that high, the incentive to protect the subsidy and the amount that the fossil-fuel industry can afford to spend on political influence are enormous, so the restraints of campaign finance and disclosure rules were particularly galling.

Uggggg. This subsidy thing again. Tax breaks which pretty much every company gets are not subsidies. Sigh.

The justices allowed the fossil-fuel industry to roll heavy artillery out onto the political field, not just its previous musketry. Industry operatives brag about putting hundreds of millions of dollars into each federal election cycle, though undisclosed “dark money” and identity-laundering pass-throughs make this increasingly hard to track. Most recklessly, the five justices missed the point — or didn’t care — that anyone who is allowed to spend unlimited political money necessarily can threaten to spend unlimited political money. This atmosphere has quashed any Republican effort on climate change, silenced serious climate debate in Congress and ended progress, as desired and directed by the fossil-fuel industry.

Sheldon forgets a few things. First, no one really cares about ‘climate change.’ As has been mentioned time and again, it is a bottom end issue when stacked up with other issues. Even most Warmists aren’t willing to spend much of their own money to Do Something. The people who care the most are those who want more power.

Second, most people want inexpensive fossil fuels so they can drive to work, drive to play, drive wherever, take flights, and provide energy for their homes. People like their cars. Apparently, Sheldon likes fossil fuels, too, since he refuses to give them up in his own life. Weird, right?

Republicans aren’t cowards. Many will take the side of climate principle in a fair fight. But it is asking a lot of them to take a principled stand on climate when they don’t see one corporate friend ready to help them. That’s the climate battle’s other dirty secret: In Congress, on climate, corporate America is not even trying. That’s why the fossil-fuel bullies own the place.

Got that? Unless you stand up for more government and taxation and such, you’re a coward and unprincipled. What does this say about people who refuse to give up their own fossil fuels addiction and make their own lives carbon neutral?