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In reply to the discussion: Right-wing activist David Koch dead at 79: report [View all]dalton99a
(81,386 posts)90. David Koch Was the Ultimate Climate Change Denier
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opinion/sunday/david-koch-climate-change.html
David Koch Was the Ultimate Climate Change Denier
How a playboy billionaire built a political army to defend his fossil fuel empire.
By Christopher Leonard
Aug. 23, 2019
...
This machine has been employed to great effect to ensure that no government action is taken to control greenhouse gas emissions. In the early 1990s, President George H.W. Bush made it clear that he would support a treaty to limit carbon emissions. The Republicans even had a market-based solution to tackle the problem, a system called cap and trade that put a price on pollution and allowed companies to buy and sell the right to pollute. Cap and trade had been used to great effect to reduce power plant pollution and acid rain. But in 1991, the Cato Institute, a Koch-funded think tank, held a seminar in Washington called Global Environmental Crises: Science or Politics? This was part of a decades-long effort to cast doubt about the reality of climate change.
David Koch worked tirelessly, over decades, to jettison from office any moderate Republicans who proposed to regulate greenhouse gases. In 2009, for example, a South Carolina Republican, Representative Bob Inglis, proposed a carbon tax bill. Koch Industries stopped funding his campaign, donated heavily to a primary opponent named Trey Gowdy and helped organize teams of Tea Party activists who traveled to town hall meetings to protest against Mr. Inglis. Some of the town hall meetings devolved into angry affairs, where Mr. Inglis couldnt make himself heard above the shouting. Mr. Inglis lost re-election, and his defeat sent a message to other Republicans: Kochs orthodoxy on climate rules could not be violated.
Mike Pence, who was then a congressman in Indiana, and others soon signed a carbon pledge circulated by Americans for Prosperity, which effectively prohibited the government from putting a price on carbon emissions. Those efforts and others effectively derailed the effort to pass a cap and trade plan for greenhouse gas emissions in 2009 and 2010. In 2009, the level of atmospheric carbon concentration hovered around 370 parts per million. In the decade since, levels have surpassed 400 parts per million, the highest level recorded in human existence.
Since the 2016 election, and in the face of more urgent scientific warnings about climate change and a growing popular movement for action, the Koch network has tried to build a Republican Party in its image: one that not only refuses to consider action on climate change but continues to deny that the problem is real. Just this week, Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, dismissed data about climate change by pointing out on Twitter: Its summer. In doing so, he reflected the politics of a party and a world that has been profoundly shaped by David Koch.
David Koch Was the Ultimate Climate Change Denier
How a playboy billionaire built a political army to defend his fossil fuel empire.
By Christopher Leonard
Aug. 23, 2019
...
This machine has been employed to great effect to ensure that no government action is taken to control greenhouse gas emissions. In the early 1990s, President George H.W. Bush made it clear that he would support a treaty to limit carbon emissions. The Republicans even had a market-based solution to tackle the problem, a system called cap and trade that put a price on pollution and allowed companies to buy and sell the right to pollute. Cap and trade had been used to great effect to reduce power plant pollution and acid rain. But in 1991, the Cato Institute, a Koch-funded think tank, held a seminar in Washington called Global Environmental Crises: Science or Politics? This was part of a decades-long effort to cast doubt about the reality of climate change.
David Koch worked tirelessly, over decades, to jettison from office any moderate Republicans who proposed to regulate greenhouse gases. In 2009, for example, a South Carolina Republican, Representative Bob Inglis, proposed a carbon tax bill. Koch Industries stopped funding his campaign, donated heavily to a primary opponent named Trey Gowdy and helped organize teams of Tea Party activists who traveled to town hall meetings to protest against Mr. Inglis. Some of the town hall meetings devolved into angry affairs, where Mr. Inglis couldnt make himself heard above the shouting. Mr. Inglis lost re-election, and his defeat sent a message to other Republicans: Kochs orthodoxy on climate rules could not be violated.
Mike Pence, who was then a congressman in Indiana, and others soon signed a carbon pledge circulated by Americans for Prosperity, which effectively prohibited the government from putting a price on carbon emissions. Those efforts and others effectively derailed the effort to pass a cap and trade plan for greenhouse gas emissions in 2009 and 2010. In 2009, the level of atmospheric carbon concentration hovered around 370 parts per million. In the decade since, levels have surpassed 400 parts per million, the highest level recorded in human existence.
Since the 2016 election, and in the face of more urgent scientific warnings about climate change and a growing popular movement for action, the Koch network has tried to build a Republican Party in its image: one that not only refuses to consider action on climate change but continues to deny that the problem is real. Just this week, Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, dismissed data about climate change by pointing out on Twitter: Its summer. In doing so, he reflected the politics of a party and a world that has been profoundly shaped by David Koch.
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+1. The super rich put their names on buildings with loose change in the sofa
dalton99a
Aug 2019
#51
Never speak ill of the dead, I've been told. Very well, I'll just quote Clarence Darrow:
Glorfindel
Aug 2019
#12
Meet the heir to the right wing crown.................from the father /brother Bill..............
turbinetree
Aug 2019
#38
The asshole used his money to poison, destroy, and inflict pain and suffering on others.
dalton99a
Aug 2019
#48
Oh dotard.. your friend is on the line, he says bring shorts, it's really really hot here
Thekaspervote
Aug 2019
#60
Well... ya know they had/have children and then there are the children's children.
Texin
Aug 2019
#61
If only he'd been at the controls of Rupert Murdoch's helicopter at the time ...
eppur_se_muova
Aug 2019
#62
Personally contributed, on a daily basis, in the elimination of BILLIONS
Eliot Rosewater
Aug 2019
#74