Liberal Evoinmentalist do more harm than good

[steveox]

D’oh! Oil industry lobbyists punked by enviro activist

The oil industry spends millions each year to shape its image and shift the public debate in its favor. But amid growing concern over climate change -- and over the industry's clout in Washington -- it can sometimes find itself losing control of its message pretty quickly.
That's what happened earlier this month, when the American Petroleum Institute (API), a powerful Washington-based lobbying organization for oil and gas companies, put out a call for volunteers to appear in an upcoming commercial about domestic energy production -- and got more than it bargained for. The ad campaign, scheduled to launch January 1 on CNN and coordinated by the high-priced Edelman PR firm, uses ordinary-looking people, dubbed "Energy Citizens," to insert a pro-oil and gas message into the 2012 elections.
But one respondent to the casting call, Connor Gibson, turned out not to be quite what the industry was looking for. Unbeknownst to the organizers, Gibson was an activist with the environmental group Greenpeace, and was surreptitiously recording the proceedings -- recordings that Greenpeace provided exclusively to Yahoo News.
As the director begins to feed him his lines, Gibson veers radically off script. With the cameras rolling, he assails what he calls the "lies and influence-peddling" of the oil industry. And before being hurriedly shown the door, Gibson derides the Energy Citizens campaign as "an astroturf front group created by the American Petroleum Institute to make it sound like there is citizen support for petroleum in our energy future."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout...bbyists-punked-enviro-activist-143714171.html

Lets vote out More Democrats in 2012!

 

[Charles Franklin]

While the post for this thread seems a bit biased, I do want to take a moment to address the topic of the thread along with the main issue discussed in the post.

While I am beyond liberal when it comes to the environment, I can understand the problems associated with an extreme focus on "liberals" in cleaning up the environment. I read a book called "Greener Than Thou" which challenged my perception of liberal and conservative approaches to the environment. That book, which was definitely biased toward conservatives, pointed out that liberals have painted a very naive future of the environment without taking into consideration what it really takes to get there. As an example, regulations are good. Excessive regulations that come with more government intervention, however, become oppressive. My main lesson from that book: We have to be very careful when we use politics for environmental issues. There is no "one-party" solution. We all live on this Earth.

In discussing the topic discussed in the comment above, it is unfortunate that Connor Gibson misused the opportunity that he signed up for. While I am definitely against oil and gas companies, they have a right to exist and to control their public image (just like the "green" groups). I've learned not to demonize people who work in oil and gas companies. Yes, the products and services from these companies are destroying the Earth, but they are also fueling our progress as well. As much as environmentalists hope we all drive electric cars, the modern world is still dependent on gas and oil (and will be for some time!). If we are to wean ourselves off oil and gas, we will need input from every sector-including gas and oil-to come up with a solution that:
A. Provides an income and career field for those currently employed in gas and oil industries
B. Helps provides a sustainable present and future energy source
We can't reach these options if everyone is just pointing fingers.

 

[Cruella]

Our current wind and solar solutions are extremely detrimental to the environment. Not only are they an eye sore on the landscape, they destroy wildlife by the millions and are far from being cost effective.

 

[Charles Franklin]

Our current wind and solar solutions are extremely detrimental to the environment. Not only are they an eye sore on the landscape, they destroy wildlife by the millions and are far from being cost effective.

I will agree with you that many of the current options (windmills, etc.) are still in their infancy. All of them are incapable of supporting the demands of the current power grid. They also have an impact on the environment (even though liberals don't like highlight that fact!).

No matter what we do, humans will make an impact on the environment. (It's impossible to be 100% free of consequences). The questions we need to focus in our energy system are:
1. Does this have the least negative impact on the environment?
2. Is this sustainable in terms of longevity and cost?

 

[Cruella]

1. Does this have the least negative impact on the environment?
2. Is this sustainable in terms of longevity and cost?

Negative impact on the environment? These current solutions are already impacting the environment negatively. As long as there are millions of flights around the world every day, and millions of automobiles on the road, until those two things are dealt with effectively as to fuel, it doesn't matter how many wind farms and solar farms are built. They are a drop in the ocean. A volcanic
eruption, and solar flares puts their miniscule value even further behind.