Philip A. Cooney, the former White House staff member who repeatedly revised government scientific reports on global warming, will go to work for Exxon Mobil this fall, the oil company said yesterday.For those not in the know, Exxon Mobil funds nearly every organization and lobby group that is skeptical of global warming climate science. Check out Chris Mooney's Mother Jones article Some Like it Hot for more info on this.
Unforced variations: Nov 2024
3 hours ago
4 comments:
"We should have gotten a clue that the US doesn't have much regard for international law when we told the UN and World Court to shove off when they ordered us to pay reparations to Nicaragua in 87."
Oh, no, it's worse than that. On April 31st 1984 the US announced that they would not honour the judgement of the World Court. The next day Ronald Reagan announced Law Day 1984 to celebrate the "partnership between law and liberty". (I think I have the dates right, I'm going from memory.) Actually, I got that tidbit from Noam Chomsky.
You know, here's something you might like: Christopher Hitchens defending Chomsky from some attacks:
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/other/85-hitchens.html
I don't know if you've read any Chomsky but it's a good idea to read Libertarians from both sides. Personally, I think left-Libertarians are closer to Enlightenment values because they stress the danger of both public power and private power. Also, they almost completely avoid Randianism -- they think everyone is exceptional, not just the chosen few.
(I'm actually a maverick leftie on Ronald Reagan -- I think he had real strengths and achieved some important things because of those strenghts, like SALT. But that's not to say there isn't a lot to hate. SDI for example, and the evil of his personal beliefs.)
I've read Chomsky, and you can tell from the links that I read Reason for the more Randian perspective.
I've been meaning to read Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Union (in conjunction with Rawl's Theory of Justice) but i have a stack of books to finish before I can get to it.
People can't be so ignorant as to not know that big corporations, like Exxon, are using their wealth and power to influenece, if not dictate doctrine. This is just another example.
I did an article on 25 May 2005 discussing Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) regarding his staunch, frequent public outcry against the scientists who warns against the effects of global warming. His view: that scientists use equations to predict the warming that are designed by their nature to generate the desired results.
And I am willing to bet that a large portion of his PAC monies received are from oil companies.
The mainstream media does not do an adequate job of covering environmental issues so its no surprise that people are generally ignorant of these things. I suspect the public would be outraged to find out some of what goes on if they read a book like Robert Devine's Bush versus the Environment, for example.
P.S. If you don't mind, what's the code for linking url's in the comments? I keep on pasting addresses because I can't figure it out (and have been to lazy to look it up)
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