Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (933268)	5/4/2016 10:46:55 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 1572619

"When future historians will be studying the present global mass hysteria about alleged catastrophic man-made global warming (MMGW), they will most likely shake their heads in total disbelief." Absolutely. Then they will damn us for our inaction. They they will ask why the perps weren't prosecuted sooner. Why the Government is Right to Investigate Oil Industry Ads April 26, 2016 Jeffrey Kluger is Editor at Large for TIME. A new coalition of 25 Attorneys General asks what the industry knew about climate change—and when it knew it Nobody pretends that marketing a product in a capitalist economy is a completely honest process. The entire enterprise can be captured in the caveat, “Your results may vary.” But while companies are permitted all manner of advertising puffery, there is one fundamental rule they’re expected to obey: Don’t make stuff up. It’s the reason that while soda manufacturers aren’t yet required to warn consumers that the use of their product can lead to obesity, diabetes and more, they’re still not allowed to run ads saying that, whattya’ know, according to scientific research, drinking a 32-ounce soda containing the equivalent of 16 packets of sugar is a perfectly healthy thing to do. It’s the reason that while manufacturers of disposable diapers may plausibly make the case that laundering cloth diapers actually has a bigger environmental impact than throwing away paper ones, they don’t claim that a landfill stuffed with dirty nappies is actually good for the planet. And it’s the reason too that a newly announced coalition of attorneys general from 25 states and cities as well as the Virgin Islands—led by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman—is right to be investigating the oil companies and their industry groups to determine if they deliberately misled consumers and shareholders about the risks of climate change. It was Schneiderman alone who launched the investigation last November, looking into whether ExxonMobil knew about the risks of greenhouse gases as long ago as the early 1980s and took prudent steps to protect its own assets—such as raising its offshore oil platforms to prepare for rising sea levels—at the same time it was bankrolling efforts to deny there was any meaningful danger at all. In 1996, for example, according to a joint investigation by the Columbia University School of Journalism and the Los Angeles Times, engineers at Mobil Oil—which had yet to merge with Exxon—were drafting design specifications for a gas field project off the coast of Nova Scotia and made it a point to note, “An estimated rise in water level, due to global warming, of 0.5 meters,” was possible over the course of the project’s 25 years. But a newspaper ad the company took out the next year had a decidedly different tone: “Let’s face it: The science of climate change is too uncertain to mandate a plan of action that could plunge economies into turmoil. Scientists cannot predict with certainty if temperatures will increase, by how much and where changes will occur.” That’s a pattern that goes back a lot of years. As long ago as the early 1980s, Exxon and other oil companies were investigating the role of greenhouse gasses in warming the planet and were doing solid, if secretive, research—research that Schneiderman himself applauds. “They were compared to Bell Labs as being at the leadership of doing good scientific work,” he said in an interview with PBS’s Frontline. Good science being done with one hand, however, was being offset by faux science spread by the other. The companies bankrolled groups like the vaguely named Global Climate Coalition and the Frontiers of Freedom Institute that conducted lobbying and advertising campaigns to cast doubt on climate research, framing the entire matter as just too complex and uncertain to warrant action. A leaked memo of a 1998 meeting of the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s trade association, is especially damning. At the time, the group was working to develop a response to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a global effort to cut greenhouse emissions. Repeatedly stressing the need to highlight the “uncertainties” of climate science, the memo argued: “Unless ‘climate change’ becomes a non-issue, meaning that the Kyoto protocol is defeated and that there are no further initiatives to thwart the threat of climate change, there may be no moment when we can declare victory for our efforts…Victory will be achieved when average citizens ‘understand’ (recognize) uncertainties in climate science…'” If that sounds like a page torn from the pernicious playbook of the tobacco industry, it’s because it is. In 1958, the manufacturers who brought you “ More Doctors Smoke Camels Than Any Other Cigarette” and Lucky Strike’s “ I protect my voice with Luckies” established The Tobacco Institute, a group charged with promoting both ostensible good news about cigarettes and uncertainty about health studies that said otherwise. That kind of back and forth was more than enough doubt to keep a lot of smokers smoking—and ultimately suffering for it. Assuming the oil industry has indeed been practicing that kind of flim flam—and so far Schneiderman’s investigation is only an investigation—it’s not only unethical but possibly illegal. Knowing the clear and present danger of climate change but taking out ads that argue the opposite could be a violation of New York State’s Martin Act, which outlaws fraud or misrepresentation in the sale of securities. You’re free to sell your stock, but not to fib about the outlook for the company’s future. In 2015, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, (D, RI) even raised the specter of turning to the RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization) Act, to call the oil companies to account—the same law used against Big Tobacco. The oil industry denies ill-intent, and points—rightly—to the fact it quit funding most climate-denial groups about ten years ago. And even Schneiderman concedes that there’s a difference between corporate advocating and fabricating—that oil companies can certainly argue their side without lying about the other. Honest advocacy may indeed be all the companies were practicing. But if the tobacco lesson teaches us anything, it’s that corporate interests can sometimes speak a lot louder than scientific facts. And when they do, people get hurt. time.com

To: Brumar89 who wrote (933268)	5/4/2016 1:18:45 PM
From: FJB	1 Recommendation Recommended By Brumar89 Respond to of 1572619

Three Cheers for Fracking Power Line by Steven Hayward Yesterday the Department of Energy released a brief report showing that the fracking boom has cut the average household’s energy costs by about $750 a year: Since June 2014, decreases in crude oil and natural gas prices have reduced household energy costs. According to initial figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the chained consumer price index for urban consumers (C-CPI-U) decreased by 1.2% from June 2014 to February 2016. Lower energy prices had a significant impact on this decrease in spite of increases in the food and shelter components of the overall index, which represent larger shares of household expenses. The overall index edged up 0.6% in March as real crude oil prices rose 18.1%, while natural gas prices continued to decline. These two DoE charts tell the story: If you’re an environmentalist, this is obviously a major bummer, and a signal failure of the Obama presidency. With Bernie Sanders calling for a nationwide ban on fracking, Hillary Clinton should be pressed hard to declare herself very specifically on the issue, and not be allowed to fudge the matter as she is trying to do with coal. Right bow she’s trying to straddle the issue, with talk of allowing local communities to decide. This would be fine if the federal government would allow local communities (like, say, Alaska) to decide in favor of resource extraction. Hillary needs to be cornered on her one-way street.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (933268)	5/5/2016 9:45:16 AM
From: FJB	2 Recommendations Recommended By Brumar89 TideGlider Respond to of 1572619

Europols Want to Dilute an Already Worthless Carbon Market Walter Russell Mead The American Interest May 4, 2016 The EU’s carbon market has, to this point, been a failure. The Emissions Trading System (ETS), as it’s called, is flooded with carbon credits, and as a result the price of carbon is far too low to start inducing the sorts of emissions reductions initially envisioned by Brussels. The 2008 financial crisis and ensuing economic recession have only exacerbated this glut of allowances, so it’s no surprise that the EU is looking to reform the system. *But as they look to make these reforms, some lawmakers are advocating for more* free credits given out to the biggest emitting companies. Reuters reports:** Under the current ETS trading phase, which runs from 2013 to 2020, the majority of allowances are sold via government auctions, with most of the remainder given free to industry. The European Commission’s reform for post-2020 proposes fixing the auction share at 57 percent of the total allowances, meaning a maximum of 43 percent would go free to industry. Lawmakers from the European People’s Party (EPP) are calling for the share of free allocations to be higher than the 43 percent proposed by the EU executive. The overall cap on permits would not change, however, limiting the impact on trading. The hand outs are a concession worth billions of euros designed to help shelter factories and plants from added energy costs that they say could drive them out of Europe. The Eurocrats in charge of this carbon trading system are delicately seeking a balance between two opposing goals: on the one hand making heavy emissions costly enough that companies change their behavior, but on the other hand not making it so costly that those same companies decide to pick up and move outside of the EU, taking their jobs and emissions with them—a process called carbon leakage. This push to increase free allowances for heavy industry is therefore an attempt to keep those companies in the EU, and it underlines just how dangerous the creation of a regional carbon market can be. As long as firms have the ability to leave, a robust carbon price has the potential to be both economically damaging, environmentally worthless (thanks to carbon leakage), and politically poisonous.