Ken SchreinerOscars, Corporate Media Pile On Bush, Utah for Environmental Inaction
The buzz on-line today is not the Oscars- but alternative energy and global warming. Heck, even the Oscars focused on the issue with “Inconvenient Truth” winning best doc, Melissa Etheridge singing the Oscar-winning hit song from the movie, and the stars driving hybrid and energy-efficient cars to the ceremony. Here are just some of today’s stories slamming Bush and Washington and showing how far behind Utah has gotten on the environment:
- States Beat Washington to Renewable Energy: Except Utah who’s just now catching up with Sudan.
- President Promotes Alternative Energy with Car Show of Sorts: Bush shows off the Prius and other cars every other American’s already seen. When simply asked if he would drive one, he walked back into the White House without comment.
- Governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington form the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative to find ways to battle global warming in the absence of any kind of federal assistance or energy policy. Utah not involved again. Must not have gotten the email about the meeting.
- It turns out Gov. Huntsman was at the same meeting in Washington where the other western governors formed their environmental group. When Jon Boy emerged though, all he had was “Most of the issues we’ve started with are cleaned up.” Looking more like the Boston Celtics than the Jazz on the environment, he might be trying to move up in the standings (or at least look concerned) by talking with Bush about natural resources at the White House this morning and attending a meeting about energy efficiency and establishing an infrastructure for a statewide alternative energy system. Could be a headline tomorrow. But why is he wasting time with Bush?
- The conservative governor of South Carolina writes a scathing op-ed article slamming Republicans, Bush and the bonehead businesses who own them for blowing the climate and conservation issues morally, economically and spiritually. My favorite. It stung.
These are just some of them. Bottom line: based on my earlier piece on the TXU/KKR deal in Texas, there’s a lot of creative thinking and commitment on climate change and the environment out there. It’s just not happening here or at the White House.
February 26th, 2007 at 10:16 am
I’d like to know how environmental issues even became the property of “far-left interest groups” in the first place. During the environmental heyday of the 1970s, the major political parties were trying to outdo one another in finding ways to protect the environment and promote conservation– because these kinds of solutions benefit everyone regardless of political persuasion, and they were overwhelmingly popular. I suppose Washington’s rising tide of hyper-partisanship corporatism put an end to that.
February 26th, 2007 at 10:43 am
There ya have it Richard, answering your own question. the Environmental collapse can only be survived with lots of money and strong locks on the gates.
February 26th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Update: the deal has gone through.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070226/ap_on_bi_ge/txu_sale;_ylt=AiavadP_ysyjHmARmpg0WwZI2ocA
Richard: two words- Ronald Reagan. Remember who he worked for? General Electric.
Caveat: You’re right about the money. Wrong about the locks. Force fields.
February 26th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Ken,
I agree with Richard. We should all be conscious environmental stewards. I agree in general with your post, although I need to be better educated about Utah’s lack in the environmental area. (Sorry if I missed some of yours or other’s posts about the subject on OneUtah.)
I do want to pick a small nit with your post, however. You wrote of the hybrid cars that various stars drove to the ceremony; how long have they had those cars–just for last night, or do they drive them all the time? I have an SUV because we have 7 people in our family, but I’ll bet Tom Cruise’s SUV is usually emptier of people than mine.
Also, I’ll bet their electricity bills are much higher than mine, because I’m sure their houses are much bigger. My point I suppose is that I don’t look at hollywood stars and starlets in general as good examples of environmental stewardship, despite how good of a game they talk
February 26th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Frank, I’ve been known to characterize profligacy as SUV. Of course that doesn’t apply in every case. Some of the stars, arrived in hybrid cars, rented for the ecco-appeal. Can anyone imagine showing in a stretch-humvee-limo? Most certainly NOT..
February 26th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Frank: It was a show. But who cares? Hollywood people are not smart enough to make good whores. My guess is Bush’s car show at the White House Friday was a pre-emptive strike. Ooooo- a PRIUS!
February 27th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
It looks like their handing out Oscars for propaganda films like Algore’s “An Inconceivable Lie”. Joseph Goebbels, eat your heart out!
February 27th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
The ‘Other’ Ken is in the house.
February 27th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Hey Ken,
Long time. Whats up with you?
Hows school? Family?
February 27th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Yeah, how about those crazy Oscars people. …caving into a pile o propaganda perpetuated by 99% of the world’s scientist.
February 28th, 2007 at 5:47 am
It is a popular theory, human induced global warming, yet there are contrarians in the mix. No one ever addresses that. All planets are warming in the solar system, and we are the only one with inhabitants. Look at contact between the Wingate(petrified sand dunes) and the Chinle’(depositional environ like central Florida) they are juxtaposed in a very clear and rapid shift. 180 million years ago, or around that. Last time Io checked, there were no humans around.
People are making political hay with it. What acientist could get grant money if he/she were against it? The whole concept has flipped to warming from the verge of a new ice age in 30 years. Nothing in geologic time. It is pretty ridiculous. Worry about local smog, and war mongering morons. Geeze, progressives are easily diverted.
February 28th, 2007 at 6:13 am
It’s the Madonna of “science”
February 28th, 2007 at 7:46 am
I love the “Madonna of Science” line. Can I use it (with attribution, of course)? That’s why I say “who cares” when Hollywood poses as environmentalists (check what film crews do to national parks and how polluting the film process is). Their posturing serves the cause. Who cares if “Inconvenient Truth” is propaganda- which it likely is not because there’s so much evidence to support it. Global warming is bigger than Rachel Carson and DDT. It’s the biggest story ever, affecting everybody and everything. Most important, it’s making us change our wasteful and self-destructive ways, which we’d have to do at some point. Environmentalists needed a 9/11 and we got it. It may sound Marxist but the ends justify the means here. The Republicans are pissed because they didn’t jump on it first. Check the governor of South Carolina’s comments in the Wash. Post/SLTribune Sunday. BTW: I’m curious about the mysterious “Other Ken.” Who is this contrarian stranger and why has he returned?
February 28th, 2007 at 8:53 am
A local / vocal wingnut.
February 28th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Caveat: Thanks for the heads up.
Ken: He didn’t really mean it. I’ll be your friend. Please register your new friendship by visiting http://blog schreinervideo.blogspot.com
Thank you, buddy!
February 28th, 2007 at 11:16 am
It’s all you Ken, and the attribution is a nice gesture. It won’t solve our problem, I have mentioned, in Washington State, the biggest CO2 source and pollutant mill, is Mt. St Helens.
No one wants to deal with the melting tundra, and all the carbon it is releasing.
Warming, has been going on for 12000 years hard. Or methane bubbling up from the ocean depths. It makes what we do look minimal. We have to take ourselves less seriously to survive. Drink more beer. Start being humans “being” as opposed to humans “doing”. For what I say all this hullaballo doing, it interferes with life, and FUN!! I’m not here for anything else. However, ya’ll have pissed me off, and now you are gonna pay. That means all ends of the spectrum. I want BALANCE!
The political element is all about establishing and international global tax, and the enviros are slitting their own throats because they will be the targets, A 3.0 liter SUV, in Germany is taxed to the nines, just having a 3 liter engine makes you a consumptive asshole. Anything bigger and you are a really rich consumptive asshole.
Americans have no idea what it is they are inviting.